‘Clearly misguided’: Experts condemn EPA’s decision to rescind expansion of Iowa impaired water list

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.

Less than a year after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added segments of five Iowa rivers to the impaired waters list for nitrate, the same agency — now operating under the Trump administration — has re scinded the decision.

The move comes during a summer when Iowa has seen elevated levels of nitrate in some of its rivers.

The EPA’s region 7 office — which covers Iowa and much of the Midwest — on July 11 notified the Iowa Department of Natural Resources that the agency had reversed its November decision to add seven segments of the Cedar, Des Moines, Iowa, Raccoon and South Skunk rivers on Iowa’s list of impaired waterways.

The letter from the EPA to the Iowa DNR stated that the