Representative Baltimore:
I am sorry for your recent trouble.
Thanks for your sincere efforts last year.
I appreciate your standing up last Tuesday. I was in the balcony.
I wish someone would tell the whole story about the legislature’s water quality maneuvers.
My take:
- Your bill would have included measurement of progress.
- Your bill would have focused on watersheds.
- Your bill would have worked through WMAs.
- Your bill would have allowed cooperation between multiple entities.
- Your bill would have had accountability.
The senate bill does none of the above. I suspect the senate bill will result in random acts of conservation with no accountability as measured by progress toward the goals of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS).
The base line for measuring progress on the NRS is the average nitrogen loss between 1980 and 1996. Why not start with 2014, the year the NRS was implemented?
Rep. John Wills (R-Spirit Lake) said there has been a 1 percent improvement in water quality in the past five years. Really? How measured? If so, that would mean that we might achieve the goals of the NRS in 225 years, right?
I am not happy with the House Democrats who ran for cover.
Mike Delaney
Des Moines
