Protecting the Environment

• Book discussion on "Crossings - How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet" by Ben Goldfarb, December 3, 7pm.

• Major Rivers Put on Impaired Waters List

CO2 Pipeline Update

• Pipeline Update – Victory in South Dakota

Climate Change

• Demanding Better - Sierra Club Issues Guide for Grid Decarbonization During Unprecedented Demand From Data Centers & Emerging Industries

• Don’t Restart Duane Arnold

Plus

• We're hiring a  Conservation Program Coordinator

• Lunch and Learns Fridays at noon

• Contribute to the Iowa Chapter

• Volunteer for the Iowa Chapter

• Calendar of events

• To see the archive of previous Iowa Chapter newsletters

Major Rivers Put on Impaired Waters List

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notified the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that several Iowa rivers which are used for drinking water need to be put on the impaired waters list (the list is also called the 303(d) list) because they are polluted with nitrate and nitrite.  Nitrate and nitrite are toxic to humans.  The rivers are the Cedar River, Des Moines River, Iowa River, Raccoon River, and South Skunk River.

EPA is seeking comments about adding the Cedar River, Des Moines River, Iowa River, Raccoon River, and South Skunk River to Iowa’s 2024 303(d) list.  Send an e-mail by December 13, 2024, to R7-WaterDivision@epa.gov saying that you support adding the Cedar River, Des Moines River, Iowa River, Raccoon River, and South Skunk River to Iowa’s 2024 303(d) list.

 Because 95% of Iowa’s land is farmed, the largest contributor to the nitrate and nitrite problem is manure and commercial fertilizer that runs off farm fields.  The cycle begins when plants do not absorb all of the fertilizer and manure that was applied to the fields.  Rain and snow melt transport the excess nitrate and nitrite off the fields and into rivers, streams, and lakes.

The impaired waters list, which is created by the DNR every two years, identifies the rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands that are polluted.  The EPA is responsible for approving the impaired waters list that is created by the DNR.

EPA told DNR that they were using the wrong method to determine if a water body exceeds the water quality standard for nitrate and nitrate in surface waters used for drinking water.  The correct method is to use each test to determine if the nitrate, nitrate, or nitrate plus nitrite was higher than the water quality standard. 

The DNR was using a statistical method to determine the amount of nitrate and nitrite in those rivers used for drinking water.  That method allowed the DNR to avoid listing the waters on the impaired waters list.

Even worse, EPA told DNR about the problem during the open comment period on the draft list.  DNR ignored EPA’s comments and submitted the 2024 impaired waters list without listing the Cedar River, Des Moines River, Iowa River, Raccoon River, and South Skunk River on the impaired waters list.   

EPA also told the Department of Natural Resources that they failed to include test data from several other sources.  One of those sources is the Iowa Water Quality Information System which includes data from Iowa’s Institute for Hydrologic Research and U.S. Geological Survey.  Another set of data that was not included is the volunteer data in the Clean Water Hub.

Iowa’s Credible Data Law defines what information can be used in creating the 303(d) list, but EPA said that “data excluded from the state’s analysis must be based on a technical, science-based rationale and not rely solely upon Iowa’s ‘Credible Data Law’”.

Another important item in the decision was that EPA is in discussion with the DNR about prioritizing the development of TMDLs, especially the priority the DNR is placing on which TMDLs are worked on first.  This is a significant development. 

The DNR is responsible for creating a total maximum daily load (TMDL) for those waters on the impaired waters list.  A TMDL is a calculation for how much pollution can be put into the water body and still maintain water quality standards.  Along with the TMDL calculation, DNR creates a Water Quality Improvement Plan which lays out what is required to bring the water body back into compliance with water quality standards.   

Earlier this year, Sierra Club filed a dedelegation petition asking EPA to remove Iowa’s authority to administer the Clean Water Act.  Among the reasons for the dedelegation was that DNR was not prioritizing the development of the TMDLs.  Some of the water bodies on the impaired waters list have been on the list since 2006 and 2008, with no TMDL having been prepared.  Some of the waters dating back to 2006 and 2008 are designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters. These waters are entitled to extra protection. But DNR has designated them as low priority for preparing TMDLs. This is a clear violation of the intent, if not the specific language, of the Clean Water Act, which says that the priority ranking must be made “taking into account the severity of the pollution and the uses to be made of such waters.” These waters, given their status and their high social impact as trout streams, are not given their proper priority to the scoring system.

The DNR must do better.  The Iowa Chapter will continue being a watchdog over the DNR and its enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

Sources:

United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 7, 2024 Decision Document, Iowa's Clean Water Act Section 303(d) List of Water Quality Limited Segments Still Requiring TMDLs, November 12, 2024

Dedelegation Petition – see August, 2024, Iowa Sierran newsletter

Photo: the Cedar River at Palisades-Kepler State Park.

We're hiring

Book discussion - "Crossings" on December 3

On December 3 at 7pm, Sierra Club members David Hoferer and Tom Reardon will be discussing the book "Crossings - How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet" by Ben Goldfarb.  RSVP today and we will send you the Zoom link.

Our road infrastructure has been the source of significant loss of wildlife across the country, resulting in deaths and disruption of their lives.  Roads have interrupted migration patterns.  They interfere with animals that want to move back and forth to nesting grounds.  Furthermore, people and their vehicles are at risk from collisions with wildlife attempting to cross roads.  The book also explores ways that the fragments of habitat can be reconnected.  Throughout the book Ben Goldfarb addresses the issue with humor and great insight.

We hope you can join us on December 3 at 7pm.  RSVP today.

Photo of a western fox snake.

Pipeline Update – Victory in South Dakota

Landowners across the Midwest are celebrating a huge victory in South Dakota against Summit’s carbon pipeline proposal.  South Dakota voters voted 60% to 40% to repeal Referred Law 21 (RL21), a bill that would have blocked county zoning ordinances passed to protect citizens from Summit’s carbon pipeline.

Pipeline opponents raised just over $220,000 against the Vote Yes coalition’s $2.7 million campaign, mainly financed by Summit’s ethanol-producing partners.

Despite the substantial spending disparity, South Dakotans saw through the misleading claims that RL21 would benefit schools, and understood its true impact on local control.

This victory places a huge hurdle in the way of Summit’s pipeline project approval in South Dakota.

Demanding Better

Sierra Club Issues Guide for Grid Decarbonization During Unprecedented Demand From Data Centers & Emerging Industries

After two decades of staying relatively flat, states throughout the country are seeing sharp increases in demand for electricity. This demand is driven in large part by new data center load growth due to generative artificial intelligence, technology manufacturers, and electrifying industries. As a consequence, utilities with growing demand projections have proposed extending obsolete and dirty coal plant operations or building new gas plants, putting climate goals at risk. Many of the largest tech companies have climate goals and want clean energy, but the reality is their impact on the grid is stunting recent gains in the ongoing transition to clean energy. 

The Sierra Club recently released Demanding Better, a guide for how to meet increasing demand for electricity while decreasing climate pollution. The report details opportunities for how leading tech companies can support a clean grid for everyone. 

“Over the last decade, corporate energy customers have been some of the strongest private-sector voices for clean energy, so it’s ironic that utilities are pointing to these customers as the reason for delaying coal retirements or plans for new gas-burning power plants,” said Jeremy Fisher, Principal Advisor for Climate and Energy at Sierra Club and report co-author. “This guide is really a call-to-action for large electricity customers to demand that utilities meet their requirements for clean energy, because for many, buying renewable credits in a far away place is no longer sufficient.”

Demanding Better details pathways and policies for new large load customers like data centers, technology manufacturers, and electrifying industries. Large electric load customers, along with utilities, regulators, lawmakers, and advocates, must collaboratively and transparently develop both clean energy and clean capacity solutions. These solutions include implementing 24/7 carbon-free energy to advanced green tariffs, direct engagement with utilities, and advocating for state and federal policy options, like clean energy standards. Demanding Better’s solutions are designed to benefit all electricity customers, including residential ratepayers, by advancing services that integrate and balance low-cost renewable energy.

Sierra Club analysis of the largest utilities finds they expect to build more than 90 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants between now and 2035. 

“In this pivotal moment of the climate crisis, it is unacceptable that utilities are proposing to build gas plants or threatening to delay coal retirements to meet load growth,” said Laurie Williams, Director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “By adopting the common sense recommendations in Demanding Better, utilities can sustainably meet increased demand with reliable and clean electricity, without increasing costs on other customers.”

Solutions to meet the needs of all customers include improved utility planning practices, like transparency, to mandatory clean energy standards. Solutions also include consumer protections so existing customers do not assume financial risk of stranded assets should utilities overbuild, and these solutions must be implemented while aligning the interests of all electric customers, as well as utilities. Sierra Club is also launching a public petition demanding better of tech companies, which people can find at www.sc.org/cleanupthecloud. 

"Virginia knows firsthand what data center development looks like when there is a lack of transparency in the communities that are forced to subsidize their development," said Ann Bennett, volunteer Data Center Issue Chair for the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter. "Leaders at all levels of government must acknowledge that without changes or safeguards, we are facing a data center-induced energy and pollution crisis."

Sierra Club recommends that large users of electricity focus their investments where utilities are currently leading on clean energy, including future plans for decarbonizing, which is detailed in our Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges report. It’s critical that large load customers, like tech companies, engage in the utility energy planning processes, state and federal legislative processes, and state and federal regulatory processes. 

Photo of George Neal North Power Plant by Emma Colman.

Don’t Restart Duane Arnold

By Wally Taylor, Conservation Chair and Legal Chair

Recent news articles have reported on NexEra’s interest in restarting the Duane Arnold nuclear plant located in Palo, Iowa. We need to consider the consequences of such an action. Restarting a closed reactor in decommissioning status has never been attempted. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admits that there are no regulations authorizing the restart of a closed reactor. In order to restart Duane Arnold, NextEra will have to cobble together a daisy chain of existing regulations that is of doubtful legality, as is being attempted at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Nor is there any assurance that the operation could be done safely.

The Duane Arnold plant has been in the decommissioning process for about 4 years. So it is not just a matter of putting fuel back in the reactor and starting it up. Even the Palisades reactor will require an expensive and tricky process to attempt to restart. And no decommissioning activity had been done there.

The process will require an exemption from the NRC rules. But an exemption is only for a temporary fix to a hardship situation that will not compromise safety. An exemption is not for the convenience of he operator of a closed nuclear plant.

At a recent earnings call with investors NextEra CEO John Ketchum, said the company would “consider” restarting Duane Arnold only if it “could be done safely and on budget.” And last June Mr. Ketchum said NextEra might consider restarting Duane Arnold if it could be done “in a way that is essentially risk free with plenty of mitigants around the approach.”

So how does the project become risk-free (I assume he means financially)? It becomes risk-free by obtaining billions of dollars from the government, funded by the taxpayers. That is how the restart of the Palisades plant is being financed. On the earnings call, Mr. Ketchum said that a restarted Duane Arnold plant would be used to provide power to data centers. Do we really want to use billions of dollars of taxpayer money so NextEra can provide power to a private industry? That is just like the federal tax credits funding the carbon dioxide pipelines for the benefit of a private company. If not for the billions in taxpayer dollars, would NextEra even consider restarting Duane Arnold?

Aside from the cost to taxpayers and the risky regulatory process for relicensing the plant, there are serious negative aspects to nuclear power. Contrary to the nuclear industry’s assertions, nuclear power is not clean or renewable. Nuclear reactor fuel is made from uranium, which is mined from the ground, just like oil, gas or coal. No one refers to those energy sources as renewable. The uranium that is mined leaves tailings, and uranium processing leaves behind radioactive waste and harmful chemicals. During the operation of the nuclear plant, a radioactive material, tritium, often leaks and pollutes groundwater. But the really dirty aspect of nuclear power is the radioactive waste, primarily spent nuclear fuel.

There is approximately 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in the United States today. And more is being added each day. Restarting Duane Arnold would add even more. And no one knows what to do with it. Efforts to establish a permanent repository have failed. The NRC has licensed two “interim’ storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas. But neither New Mexico nor Texas want it. That dispute is now before the United States Supreme Court. One federal court said the spent fuel will remain dangerous for “time spans seemingly beyond human comprehension.”

With no foreseeable likelihood of having a permanent repository, these “interim” facilities will become de facto permanent repositories without the protections of a permanent repository.

However, there is an alternative, one that is even acknowledged by Mr. Ketchum in the earnings call. In that call he repeatedly touts NextEra’s significant build out of renewable energy and battery storage. He says NextEra’s renewables have saved its customers nearly $16 billion since 2001, and renewables will only get cheaper in the future. Iowa has been a leader in renewable energy and will be into the future.

As for nuclear power, Mr. Ketchum said there are only a few nuclear plants that might be recommissioned economically, but even with a 100% success rate, they would meet less than 1% of demand. So trying to restart Duane Arnold is a safety and financial risk for very little benefit.

The Duane Arnold plant was closed because it was uneconomical in the face of the increase in renewables. Nothing has changed.

Lunch and Learns Fridays at noon

Fridays at noon, we do a Lunch and Learn livestream.  See us on Facebook at "Sierra Club Iowa Chapter".  These will be recorded so you can watch them anytime.  Topics will be selected based on what is happening during the week.  During the legislative session, we cover issues coming before the Iowa legislature.

In case you missed our past webinars and lunch and learn sessions, you can still see them.

• See "Update on Iowa’s Impaired Waters", November 15, 2024
• See "Post Election: Iowa Lay of the Land", November 8, 2024
• Watch "Pre-emption and CO2 pipelines", November 1, 2024
• See "We're live at Iowa Bird Rehabilitation to hear more about what they do", October 25, 2024

Volunteer for the Iowa Chapter

Almost everything we do is done by volunteers like you.  If you would like to volunteer for the Iowa Chapter, please let us know by sending an E-mail to Iowa.chapter@sierraclub.org.  Or sign up by using the online form.  There are many opportunities for you to make a difference:

• making phone calls

• developing graphics for banners and flyers

• working on legislative issues

• working on elections

• fundraising

• organizing events

• joining an issue committee 

If you would like to join our legislative action team, sign up here.  Keep on top of what is happening at the Iowa legislature.  Be alerted when you should contact your legislators about pending legislation.

Photo: camping by Jess Mazour.

Sierra Club - working every day on Iowa’s environmental problems

Sierra Club is Iowa’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.  Not only that, we are the best bet in the state for achieving bold solutions to Iowa’s environmental problems.

We work in the courts, before Iowa’s public agencies, and in the halls of the legislature.  The Iowa Chapter's effort to protect the environment takes financial support.  The Chapter receives very little financial support from the national Sierra Club.  Can we count on you for a donation to ensure even more victories?  Your contribution will be put to work here in Iowa on issues that affect every day Iowans – water quality, clean air, protection of Iowa's soil, parks and natural areas, and a strong democracy.  The Iowa Chapter is relentless in fighting back bad legislation that affects every one of us. 

Your non-deductible contributions make it possible for us to fight bad legislation and to promote good legislation.  We appreciate your past and on-going support of these efforts.  You can make a non-deductible donation with a credit card.   A non-deductible donation supports the Chapter's effective, citizen-based advocacy and lobbying programs.  If you prefer, a non-deductible check can be written to the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter and mailed to:

Treasurer
Sierra Club, Iowa Chapter
PO Box 1058
Marion, IA 52302

You can also make a tax-deductible donation with a credit card.  Tax-deductible activities are limited to public interest education, research and legal actions.  A deductible check can be written to the Sierra Club Foundation with “Iowa Chapter” written in the memo line.

Thank you for your support.

Donate your used vehicle

As the Sierra Club Foundation's Iowa Chapter continues to raise charitable funds to support its work in Iowa, won’t you consider participating in our vehicle donation program?  Our partners over at CARS have made the process of donating your unused or unneeded car, truck, motorcycle, boat or RV easy, efficient and secure.  They’ll take care of everything from picking up your vehicle to sending you a tax receipt for your generous gift.  To learn more about The Sierra Club Foundation's Iowa Chapter vehicle donation program, please call 844-674-3772.  Or visit our webpage to get started today!

Sierra Club Foundation promotes climate solutions, conservation, and movement building through a powerful combination of strategic philanthropy and grassroots advocacy. The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor of Sierra Club’s charitable environmental programs.

For more information 

Planned giving . . . naming the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter in your will 

Ensure your environmental legacy by naming the Iowa Chapter in your will or trust. These gifts cost you nothing now. You can hold onto your assets for as long as you need them.

Thank you for supporting our work!