Enduring partnerships that are the legacy of the Raccoon River Watershed Project (RRWP) can provide a role model for future efforts in similar watersheds.

Recent History

The Raccoon River and its tributaries flow across west-central Iowa, draining all or part of 17 of Iowa's 99 counties before emptying into the Des Moines River in Des Moines. More than 370,000 people–13% of Iowa's population–rely on sources within the watershed for drinking water.

But sections of the Raccoon River, identified in Iowa's Federal Clean Water Act 303(d) list of impaired waters, pose difficult challenges for surface-water professionals. The Raccoon River and North Raccoon River were cited as low priorities for fecal coliform bacteria, and the Raccoon River was cited as a high priority because of nitrates.

The watershed's high concentrations of nitrates have exceeded the federal maximum contaminant level (MCL) standard of 10 mg/l with enough frequency since the late 1980s to warrant the Des Moines Water Works's (DMWW) installation and operation of the world's largest nitrate removal facility. Smaller facilities, operating in Florida and California, might produce 1 million to 2 million gal. of processed water per day. The DMWW is capable of producing 10 million gal. of water per day.

"We saw the trends, and at that point in time we decided we needed to do the necessary experimentation to determine how to best address the problem," says L.D. McMullen, general manager and chief executive officer of the DMWW.

Nitrate, a plant nutrient and inorganic fertilizer, is especially dangerous to infants under six months of age because it reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen. This condition, known as methemoglobinemia or "Blue Baby Syndrome," is a life-threatening condition requiring immediate medical attention. Research also indicates a strong correlation between nitrates and certain types of cancer in adults.

"There is enough evidence and concern in the research community that we need to be conservative in our approach to protecting the public from nitrates in drinking water," McMullen says.

The nitrate removal facility, completed in 1992, is activated when the detected levels reach 9 parts per million (ppm). The facility uses a process called ion exchange. A resin material that has sodium and chloride ions on it is in each of eight nitrate-removal facility vessels. As the nitrate-laden water passes through the resin material, the nitrate ions are captured, and a chloride ion is released into the water. The nitrate-reduced water is then blended with treated water to produce safe, clean drinking water with nitrate concentrations below the 10-mg/l MCL. This ion exchange process is similar to that of a home water-softening device that removes calcium and magnesium ions from the water, exchanging them for sodium ions.

Coping with high nitrate concentrations has been "a real challenge, especially in the springtime," McMullen notes. "We make decisions on whether to take water from the Raccoon River or the Des Moines River based on nitrate values on a particular day."

Originally intended to operate approximately 35-40 days a year, McMullen says the facility was needed 109 days in 2000, at a daily cost of $3,000. For the DMWW, the most cost-effective option would be to prevent nitrates from getting into the source water by implementing locally driven source-water protection plans throughout the watersheds. "We constructed the nitrate removal facility, but we weren't going to accept it as the solution to the problem," explains McMullen. "We were looking for ways to reverse the trend."

One reason for the watershed's high nitrate concentrations is that 1.7 million of its 2.3 million ac. are in production agriculture: corn, soybeans, livestock, and poultry. "Anywhere from 850,000 to 900,000 acres of corn are grown in the river basin. The average rate of fertilizer application is anywhere from 120 to 140 pounds per acre," explains Roger Wolf, who directed the RRWP and now serves as executive director of a successor organization, Agriculture's Clean Water Alliance (ACWA).

McMullen also notes that the watershed is part of the Des Moines lobe of the Wisconsin Glacier. The result is a swampy, prairie pothole region that farmers must tile and drain if the terrain is to be converted into productive cropland.

"Surface-water professionals know better than anyone that the tiles really end up being a short circuit of the natural process to remove nitrates from water. The tiles are direct pipelines into the river. So the combination of geology and a heavily agricultural use of the land makes the watershed a very big contributor of nitrate into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico," says McMullen.

The Des Moines River watershed, which receives the Raccoon River's flow, has a similar natural composition but has not been subject to the same level of extensive tiling. However, McMullen observes, the nearby Cedar River and Iowa River watersheds that feed into the Mississippi River along Iowa's eastern border also are trending the way of the Raccoon as farmers tile more acres.

"The Stars Lined Up"

In the early 1990s, a number of forces were converging that could eventually benefit the Raccoon River watershed. The state associations of corn and soybean growers and cattle, pork, and poultry producers teamed with the Iowa Agribusiness Association and Iowa Farm Bureau to form the Iowa Nutrient Management Task Force. That task force produced a number of recommendations to improve Iowa's water quality, and the RRWP emerged as an education and demonstration vehicle.

"The stars lined up right," says Wolf. "You have 300,000-plus people in Des Moines who get their water from the Des Moines Water Works. The state's largest newspaper is here raising awareness of the challenges that the water works faces. There was the recognition by farm interests that fertilizer, manure management, and the act of agriculture contribute to water-quality difficulties. Frankly, the potential threat of regulation was playing into it. There was also a lot of recognition that we could improve the on-farm efficiencies of agriculture and achieve environmental protection at the same time if we could show farmers how they could view these types of things. It wasn't what I call a true comprehensive watershed management approach, but we knew it could make a real difference."

Unlike many other watershed-focused initiatives, according to Wolf, the RRWP set out to create a climate of private/public collaboration and action designed to enhance the leadership capabilities of all involved parties. The effort really began to gel with a commitment from the Northwest Area Foundation and involvement from the DMWW and Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.

The Northwest Area Foundation recognized the uniqueness of the RRWP partnership and supported its vision. From 1994 to 2000, the foundation contributed $830,500, which enabled RRWP partners to attract at least another $750,000 in public and private funds. These funds were highly leveraged and served as a catalyst for not only cash, but also many in-kind contributions. The foundation's support was an investment into the social and human capital needed to create more sustainable communities for the future.

The foundation, established in 1934, funds projects in Iowa and seven other states once served by James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway. Created by Hill's son Louis, the foundation invests millions of dollars each year to provide access to knowledge, financial resources, products, and services to help communities overcome barriers that might be hindering their creation of a healthy, sustainable future.

The RRWP sought to increase the adoption of agricultural technologies or best management practices through demonstration projects and publicity. Active grassroots efforts were instrumental to the project.

"Contrary to traditional, public-sponsored research and programming, participation by local residents in many RRWP efforts likely achieved greater sense of ownership of the efforts. Volunteer farmers taking water samples from their land gained a better understanding of the connections between resources, management systems, and research," Wolf says. "On-farm research demonstration tends to be more credible to farming audiences due to similar climates, landscapes, and management practices."

During the RRWP's first three years, from 1994 to 1997, demonstration programs emphasized "best and better practices" for nitrogen handling and use, narrow-row crop planting, livestock and manure management, pasture management, and precision farming.

Activities from 1998 to 2000 integrated greater volunteer involvement and collaboration into the picture. During this period, for instance, IOWATER–founded in May 1998 as a cooperative effort of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Iowa Division of the Izaak Walton League, Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Farm Bureau, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory–teamed with the RRWP to conduct its first pilot workshop. The partnership helped the RRWP get its volunteers involved in water monitoring and helped IOWATER improve its manual and future training efforts.

Meanwhile, Iowa's largest municipal waterworks facility analyzed samples gathered by farmers, students, and a host of other volunteers. Future Farmers of America chapters assisted Iowa State University researchers by gathering nitrogen data from farm test plots. And the RRWP's leadership worked with the Lake Panorama Association to encourage landowners upstream from that recreational lake to participate in a voluntary Conservation Reserve Program that established 40 mi. of stream buffer strips in the project's first year.

Iowa State University experts, including Professor William Crumpton, took a lead role in developing and selecting sites for constructed wetlands. Monitoring shows those wetlands are effective. Data show that 1 ac. of constructed wetlands at an optimum site can remove as much as 90% of nitrates entering the river from a 100-ac. plot of land.

"The strategic location of the wetlands is very important. If we just pay the farmer to do it where he wants, we are not going to get biggest bang for the buck," notes Jack Riessen, Water Quality Bureau chief at the Iowa DNR.

Some people describe the relationships with the RRWP as, ironically, "oil and water," Wolf says. "And in some issues I suppose that's true, but in reality we're all in the same boat together, and you need to make real, meaningful relationship opportunities occur with people who don't think like you. It truly needs to happen if we're going to be serious about these issues, and that's hard work." The RRWP operated by consensus, he says, "meaning we could all live with decisions we chose to make or we didn't do them.

"With water monitoring," Wolf continues, "we had people who wanted to shut down this hog operation or that hog operation, and they wanted to know how to collect water samples to do it. We didn't need vigilantes; we needed people interested in solving problems, and that's what we tried to stay focused on. We tried to stay away from ‘attack elements' in our programs. You're always going to have that going on, but we needed to stay focused on what we were set up to do and make something happen."

The project ended in 2000, as intended, when grants stopped funding specific activities. However, just as the Raccoon empties into the Des Moines River in the heart of the state's capital city of Des Moines, the RRWP flowed into the private consortium, ACWA. Its members, 11 fertilizer dealers who sell virtually 100% of the farm chemicals used in the watershed, are competitors in business but partners in the protection of the river watershed.

Building on Success

Further refining the RRWP's mission, ACWA's focus is to reduce nutrient loss, specifically nitrogen, from the watershed's miles and miles of gently rolling farmland and keep those nutrients from getting into the Raccoon River and its tributaries. Motivations run the gamut from concern for the environment to concern for public image, but an overriding reason also is pragmatic.

"ACWA members believe that farmers and businesses, working together, can successfully–and without federal regulations–reduce nitrate levels in the Raccoon River watershed," Wolf says.

That's important to farmers not just in Iowa, he adds. A failure to adequately address problems at the local level could well mean an increase in federal regulations on production agriculture that would cost farmers in this one watershed alone millions of dollars in added expenses and reduced crop yields. Multiplied across the nation, those regulations would have an impact on American farmers–and consumers–in the billions of dollars.

"We expect a mix of regulations and incentives. It's hard to know what that mix will be, but the folks in the Raccoon River watershed are better positioned to be able to conform with the regulatory framework and perform at a higher level," Wolf states.

To achieve its mission, ACWA members help farmers apply the best agronomy science on farms throughout the watershed. They do that by providing information about the watershed itself, sound advice, and products that will help farmers improve their land management practices.

As the RRWP wound down, McMullen and others felt the monitoring program needed to be strengthened, and they looked to ACWA as a solution. "The program's thrust was education and demonstration projects, and it really did well in that area," observes McMullen. "When ACWA was formed, they were the guys who stepped forward and said, ‘We'll be with you on the monitoring side.' We're doing great things with volunteer sample collectors, and ACWA contributes to the analytical testing program."

ACWA and DMWW maintain an ongoing water-monitoring program in which samples continue to be collected from 42 remote sites through the watershed. Information gained from the program will help focus future action in the watershed by measuring the effects of changing agricultural practices, according to Wolf. "After years of collecting water samples, we have a better idea what was going on upstream, the differences between the North, Middle, and South Raccoon, their different land formations, and what happens when it rains in one watershed and not the other. That's newfound information, new knowledge, and it puts us at another level of being able to make decisions.

"This ongoing program provides a much better perspective on the flow of nitrates through the watershed," Wolf continues. "We're also going to be working on programs that actually zero in on finding that cause and effect. If we're going to change management, we have to determine what is the true impact at the outflow of the watershed. We're going to have to really go into those subwatersheds and get really fine-tuned so we can capture that cause-and-effect change, because it's very complex."

NPDES Requirements

Because the populations of most of Iowa's 900-plus communities are fewer than 2,000, federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements have so far had little impact on the state. Des Moines has been the only community touched by the regulations, though several more will soon be affected as NPDES Phase II extends to smaller communities.

Because of the high nitrate levels, the Iowa DNR will be required by decade's end to complete the EPA process of determining daily levels of nitrate on the Raccoon River and then setting TMDLs, McMullen points out.

"That's when they have to develop strategies to reduce the loads down to desired levels," he says. "Maybe treatment plants will have to install additional treatment equipment. Maybe it will be more protected wetlands or a ban on fall fertilization to minimize nitrogen input on the land. Feedlots may be required to inject manure into cropland rather than surface-apply it. All these different options have to be considered, and then we need to determine the most economic and effective approaches to achieve the desired result."

McMullen says the DMWW will have a significant voice in the process because it is armed with large amounts of data, thanks to its work with the RRWP and ACWA. At a February meeting with Iowa DNR specialists, for instance, state officials offered advice to fine-tune water sampling efforts.

"The piece we were missing was information about the flow at the time we were doing the measurement so we could calculate the total load coming from various watersheds," McMullen relates. "We're looking at how we can modify our collection system, and the state is looking at how to help us so when they get ready to come over and set TMDLs on the Raccoon River, we have all the data in hand."

By analyzing water samples and assisting with the identification of nonpoint sources, the DMWW is also assisting ACWA develop an educational program in the watershed.

"We feel it is something we should be doing, and hopefully our efforts will result in lower nitrates so we won't have to worry about it from a treatment standpoint," McMullen says. "We were very proactive because we knew everyone was better off if we could prevent contaminants from getting into the water in the first place. Farmers are better off if we can find ways to prevent nitrogen loss, because that's money to them. The environment is better off. And we're better off as a community when we have cleaner water. We know it's a real win-win situation if we can just figure out the right way to do things."

The RRWP's Legacy

The RRWP's demonstration programs emphasized better practices for nitrogen handling and use.

Riessen acknowledges that the RRWP was a successful educational tool and the source of helpful data that has shed more light on the source of nitrogen and nitrates in the water. "One of the problems is that it is such a large watershed, such a large geographic area, many people feel we need to divide it into pieces," he says. "The watershed approach is viable, but it requires good leadership and clear direction, and it has to be a manageable size. They're coming up to the issue of ‘What now? Where do we go from here?'"

Riessen believes the next step is for watershed advocates to break down their work into smaller units and address pressing issues in a localized manner. He acknowledges, however, that long-term efforts to improve the Raccoon River watershed will require a group that takes in the entire 2.3 million ac. with an overarching organization and strategy.

If the RRWP proves anything, Wolf says, it is that surface-water professionals need to look for partners in places they might have thus far overlooked. McMullen concurs that success depends on developing new allies. "I've made some friends–and probably some enemies," he laughs.

Advises Wolf, "You need to relate to the businesses. When industry recognizes its role and opportunity at hand and embraces that, magical things can happen."

The RRWP has received numerous honors, including a National Merit Award from the Soil and Water Conservation Society and recognition as one of 11 marquee successes by the National Ag-Earth Partnership during its 1999 Earth Day Agricultural Celebration in Washington, DC.

In addition to Agriculture's Clean Water Alliance, the watershed project extends to several other new organizations, programs, and directions. For example, in 2000 the Agribusiness Association of Iowa developed a statewide policy for fall application of anhydrous ammonia on croplands based on scientific principles. That policy includes 10 criteria for soil conditions, application rate, and management techniques.

The RRWP's findings from its constructed wetlands project helped lead to the development of a new state and federal program called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). The program restores and constructs wetlands in acreage with large amounts of tile drainage supporting intensive crop production. Those areas are most prone to create serious water pollution with runoff of excessive pesticides, nutrients, and sediments. The goal of CREP is to reduce contaminant loadings, minimize water treatment costs, and improve habitats for fish, waterfowl, and other wildlife.

The Iowa Soybean Association built on its involvement with the RRWP by establishing its own Environmental Services Program and forming a new company, AgInsight, to offer management, marketing, and business consulting services to the farm sector. The Environmental Services Program is designing an initiative known as Certified Environmental Management Systems for Agriculture to help farmers integrate environmental performance objectives into their operations.

McMullen and Wolf know that each watershed has its own traits and challenges, demanding different objectives and actions from surface-water professionals.

"We're interested in reducing nitrates, so in our case the focus is on who is using nitrogen and how we can come up with better solutions," relates McMullen. "That requires input from corn growers and from cattle, pork, and chicken producers. Surface-water professionals dealing with the same issue in other watersheds might find that the experiences we're learning on the Raccoon are easily transferable."

Wolf notes, "You don't have the public calling out for a watershed plan yet, but we're closer to that today because of the work that happened. Raising awareness that starting with the water upstream is how you improve it downstream. So a lot of what we did was to engage people in the watershed, people who were committed to doing a better job and telling the story and using their message to get the message out. That was really the Raccoon River Watershed Project."

Wolf also believes the RRWP and similar projects can reshape public policy on several fronts. "For 30 years, our society has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in upgrading technology on point-source discharges because everyone benefits from cleaner water. That model could be applied to nonpoint sources in the same capacity. Frankly, for agriculture in particular, it's difficult for them to pass along the cost of environmental compliance on and above the level that's technologically feasible for them to maintain their operation.

"It's reasonable to expect that farmers would utilize best available technologies that are agronomically optimal. If we need to go beyond those technologies, we need to ask the question: Who would pay for that?" Wolf says. "When you talk about watershed management or nonpoint-source pollution, I think there's really a market failure. You can't recover the cost of doing that in the market, so at that point, it is an appropriate role for government to come in and compensate that."

Wolf also believes it's time to reexamine the role of rural drainage districts. "Drainage districts are very good at removing water from their watersheds. Now, what if we add another objective: Those people would try to improve the quality of water? Again, the question becomes, ‘Who should pay for it?' Should it be the people, collectively, in those drainage districts? Others would suggest if the people downstream want improved water quality, would they be willing to pay for the capitalization of achieving this other objective? Those are the kinds of issues we should be discussing."

As Wolf looks back on the RRWP, he succinctly concludes, "It has been a grand experience."

It is, however, a grand experience that in many ways is just beginning.