DES MOINES, Iowa – Over the summer, water quality concerns were brought to the attention of many as nitrate levels reached high levels.

Last week, Polk County announced additional investments in water quality monitoring. While water quality monitoring is important, even more important are the efforts to actually fix the cleanliness of the water across Iowa.

This summer was particularly notable due to the heavy rains that followed years of drought. Those rains flushed out lots of nitrates in the soil. A combination of tiling and piping in the fields and traditional runoff dumped exceptionally high amounts of nitrates into the soil.

While some may believe that nitrate pollution comes from fertilization, the real number tied to farming and fertilization is actually around 3% according to Iowa State University professor Michelle Soupir. A lot of this summer’s nitrate levels came from the soil itself. Those high amounts of nitrate are one of the reasons Iowa’s soil is so productive.

So, efforts need to be made to filter runoff and keep it from running directly into the water. Wetlands can be a useful way to slow the flow of nitrates into rivers and allow them to break down. Other tools, like bioreactors and saturated buffers, have been shown to improve water quality.

Many of these tools are actively being implemented around the state. Polk County is at the forefront of those efforts. Soupir credits Polk County as being nationally recognized for the innovative and proactive projects put in place to clean up the county’s waterways.

While the projects around the state will get conditions headed in the right direction, experts note that more efforts and funding will be needed. Soupir said that “another 50 bioreactors isn’t going to solve the problem. Thousands of bioreactors and saturated buffers and wetlands are going to be needed in order to get a handle on the types of change that we need to see.”