Climate change is making it harder to provide clean drinking water in farm country
“University of Iowa geographical and sustainability sciences professor, Silvia Secchi, says the reduction from farms is not moving fast enough. She argues that the federal farm bill essentially subsidizes farmers to pollute.
‘What we need to do is we need to ask for some environmental outcome for all the money we give to farmers,’ Secchi says. ‘That will reduce the load so that the utilities don’t have to spend so much money cleaning up the water that we drink.’
And Secchi says it’s a bigger concern for utilities in smaller cities and residents who rely on their private wells that may have nitrate-tainted water. The challenges in Iowa could soon be felt in other cities surrounded by farmland especially as they increasingly face drastic weather swings that effect drinking water.”