October 20, 2025

The following comment was emailed to wqs@dnr.iowa.gov for the 2025 triennial review.

Dear Iowa DNR,

I am writing as the Iowa Policy Lead for Climate Land Leaders, a group representing more than fifty farmers and landowners across Iowa who are invested in conservation and land stewardship as a means to create more resilient communities.  The primary environmental concern of most of our members is Iowa’s water quality.  With Iowa positioned as second highest in cancer rates and the recent release of the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment, it is critical that we take the necessary steps to better protect our water.

Our members have variously led stream restoration efforts in local watersheds, converted crops to perennials to absorb nutrient runoff, installed wetlands, organized communities to support water quality, and much more.  Personally, as a science communicator with a background in chemistry, I want to emphasize the critical importance of precise measurement and quantification for evaluating the quality of our water.

For these reasons, Climate Land Leaders recommends that the DNR:

• Adopt numeric criteria for nutrients in lakes and rivers
• Adopt more stringent nitrate criteria for rivers
• Adopt criteria for PFAS in waterways
• Adopt the human health criteria recommended by the EPA

These actions will not only allow Iowa to have a clear and precise metric against which to gauge the quality of our water, they will also help support the work our Climate Land Leaders are doing on their own land and in their communities by setting a clearer baseline expectation and definition for success.  While we recognize that the DNR cannot singlehandedly reshape the state of Iowa’s waterways, implementing these suggestions represents a clear and accomplishable step toward more transparent, quantifiable metrics by which to assess our water quality.

We appreciate the valuable work you do and the opportunity to comment.

Best,

Taylor Sklenar
Iowa Policy Lead, Climate Land Leaders