Environmental Justice - Iowa Fertilizer Spill

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: IOWA FERTILIZER SPILL

In March 2024 a valve was left open over a weekend at a liquid-nitrogen fertilizer plant in Iowa. The result was that 265,000 gallons of fertilizer spilled into a drainage ditch and then into the East Nishnabotna River which flows into the Missouri River, killing 789,000 fish in Iowa and Missouri. In 2013 run-off from a dairy farm in Iowa killed more than 800,000 fish. The fish deaths indicate that other wildlife deaths were equally dramatic. And what about the normal day-to-day pollution of US waterways from fertilizer, animal waste, industrial chemicals, sewage treatment plants and heated water from power plants?

Iowa, controlled by conservative Republicans, is going to do little to tighten environmental protection laws. Then it is really up to the federal government to move in. But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives wants less regulation, not more. And there are cases now before the conservative US Supreme Court challenging environmental regulation in general.

Yes, businesses have the right to operate, but they don’t have the right to poison us. 

Source: The New York Times, 3/29/24