And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that I read with great interest Orlan Love’s article in Sunday’s Gazette regarding the vagaries of water quality in northeast Iowa, and in the “driftless” area with its karst topography.

Those of us who have lived here for a number of years are perhaps more familiar with the latter than the former, because while we know this hilly area is such because it was missed by the glacial drift of the age of ice, before climate change(!), the term “driftless area” seems to have lately become adopted as something to attract tourists. As stated in the article, there is northeast Iowa, and then there’s the rest of the state. Those from the loess hills near the Missouri River might quarrel with that.

For the benefit of those who missed the article, it is reported that 40% of rural wells in the county last year tested with unsafe levels of coliform bacteria. And 35% had higher than desired nitrate levels. Neighboring Winneshiek had even higher coliform readings.
Agriculture (animals and practices) almost certainly is the source, but farming is pretty much the same elsewhere, so the karst topography is the odd factor.

I was reminded of a time when an agricultural operation was blamed by neighbors for causing an undue number of cancer cases in the area, so the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or whatever it was called at that time, decided to do a dye test. Green dye was introduced at the source, and it was felt that in a few days, green color would show up in a pond or stream after following a course through the limestone levels characteristic of the karst.

My photographer at the newspaper was alerted to have color film ready. Days passed, and no green showed up. Then one day, we were told to come to a farm a long way south of where the dye was dropped, and the photog got a nice shot of a mostly white Muscovey duck swimming in a green creek, nowhere near where it was expected!

Love’s article also notes a good thing about the area. Of the 35 Iowa streams classified as of outstanding quality of water, 13 of them are in Allamakee! The same underground or spring action that pollutes also cleanses. Those are the county’s famous trout streams, so clean trout reproduce naturally in many.

So the trout swim in water purer than what some rural residents drink? Not! But the irony isn’t lost.

Should farm wives and those in cluster homes in rural areas carry buckets to the nearest trout stream to lug water back to the house? The way pioneer women and Indian tribes did many years ago?

I would not vote for that. Last time I drank from a spring was at the Indian Springs area, in Waukon’s city park. During a disastrous Boy Scout campover, when it rained for 60 straight hours, or so it seemed. The spring water didn’t make me sick, but the rainwater did!