Alejandra Perez: Please tell me your history of academia work in Iowa, and what inspired you to research water quality in agricultural watersheds?
Chris Jones: Well I came to academia late in my career, I’ve done a number of other things before that including working at the Des Moines Water Works. I also worked for the Iowa Soybean Association, I went to the University of Iowa in 2015. I had an interest in Environmental Chemistry and environmental issues in general. That dates back to my graduate school days where I got a degree in analytical chemistry and so I was exposed to issues related to water throughout my career and so that was a natural thing for me to work on when I got to the University of Iowa.
Perez: Why did you want to write The Swine Republic and did you reach your goal with how it turned out?
Jones: I really felt that a lot of the information that the public was getting about water quality in Iowa was wrong and was false. I felt that industry interests were driving a narrative that was just inaccurate about the current situation and what the solutions were and what the causes of the polluted water were and so I wrote. Me writing the book was an effort to set the record straight and to try to bring people the truth about what has happened to our water and our natural resources in Iowa and what the best solutions are going forward to improve. As far as did it meet my goals, yes. I had pretty modest expectations for the book. I think it’s done pretty well. I know in 2023 it was the number 4 selling book at Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City and the number 1 selling book at Beaverdale Books in Des Moines. The book was also Iowa’s selection for the National Book Festival which is put on by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. So I’m happy with the success of the book.
Perez: What has been the reception of people by the book, and what will happen at your event on April 5th here in Sioux City?
Jones: I think the book connects the dots for people. People had an instinctive belief about what was happening in Iowa with our water and agriculture and with other things related to the environment. Since these issues span a lot of different disciplines: science, economics, culture, agriculture and politics all these other things. Maybe it wasn’t easy for people to connect the dots to see why we have the current conditions. So I think the book connected the dots. That's the message I’m getting and that’s the reception I think that it’s had with people. At the event in Sioux City I’m going to talk about water quality in Iowa. I’m going to be talking about the Mississippi River and the Missouri River and the changes that have occurred in both the big rivers and in our interior rivers within the context of historical agriculture in the state of Iowa. That's what people are going to hear if they attend and I think people will learn somethings if they come.
Perez: Is it true that the Mississippi River and Missouri River watersheds combined makeup the largest watershed in the United States?
Jones: That is true, it's one of the biggest in the world. I think the combined Mississippi and Missouri basin is the fourth largest drainage basin in the world. Certainly the biggest in the United States it covers about half the continental United States.
Perez: Why are these watersheds important?
Jones: We rely on not only the Missouri and Mississippi, but also other streams in the state as a source of municipal drinking water supply for recreation and all sorts of aesthetic quality of life ambitions that we have. Human beings like to be around water. They like to enjoy water, like to fish. They like to hunt. They like to look at birds and other wildlife, and so the ecological integrity of our rivers is important for our quality of life that we want to have here in Iowa, and so as they become degraded, that has also degraded our quality of life.
Perez: How would you explain to people who haven’t read your book, how contamination of Iowa water systems impacts more than just Iowa?
Jones: Well as we just said the Mississippi and Missouri basin covers half the continental United States and so the water doesn’t stay here. When it gets into our rivers it flows south down to the Gulf of Mexico. It impacts people and ecosystems that are outside of our border. The most important of these is the dead zone that forms in the Gulf of Mexico from the farm pollution that originates in the U.S. midwest. What we are doing here affects water quality 2,000 miles away as the water ultimately gets into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.
Perez: In the book you talk about environmental injustice not environmental justice in Iowa, is that because there are not enough regulations with agricultural pollution or that no one is being held accountable for agricultural pollution?
Jones: I think it’s those two things, both and more than that. We have big, corporate agribusiness that controls a lot of what goes on here in terms of farming, and, so these are governable multinational corporations, and they really control our farming system here in the state. Then we have people that suffer the consequences of that pollution. Many times they are people that do not have wealth or they're people of color, sometimes they're subsistence fishermen. We have immigrants that fish, that’s an important part of their diet, so for them to be impacted by the pollution that results from this farming system, yes, I do think it is a justice issue. It's a justice issue. And is it partly lack of regulation? Partly a bunch of other things? The answer to that is yes.
Perez: In 2024 Iowa had multiple waters that were classified as impaired, do you believe it is due to Iowa’s agricultural practices?
Jones: Well of course many of the impairments are for e coli. We have a tremendous amount of livestock in Iowa and we have the manure waste from most animals to manage. We saturated our landscape with manure and what we call indicator bacteria that’s e coli. That’s only one of many things that is impairing our waters. We have waters that are impaired for nitrate comes from fertilizer application and then we have impairments that are related to pollution not connected to farming. The impairments are many in the hundreds, they're many different things but yes the primary driver of our pollution is agriculture.
Perez: In your book you pointed out that Iowa legislature worked to protect West Lake Okoboji as a source of drinking water. What do you think it would take for them to do the same for other sources of water in Iowa?
Jones: Well what it takes is the political will to do it and so West Lake Okoboji that’s the most expensive real estate in Iowa surrounds West Lake Okoboji. There are a lot of wealthy people there and so wealthy people have political clout as a result the state has done some things to protect lake Okoboji with regulation. On the other hand we have something like Raccoon River which is not lined with million dollar homes and people in Des Moines drinking the water and so there is no political will to protect the Raccoon River with regulation, I think the reasons for this are pretty obvious.
Perez: What are some ways that we could lower high nitrogen levels in Iowa’s water sources?
Jones: Well the first thing we need to do is align our fertilizer application rates with what the crops need in terms of their nutrient requirements. We know that Iowa farmers apply at least at a statewide average and apply too much fertilizer. So we need to align the applied amount with what the scientists say the crop needs that would be step one. The second big thing we could do, we could diversify our crops. So we only have two species out there on the landscape: corn and soybeans. We are never going to get the environmental outcomes that we want when we only have two species on the landscape. We need more varieties of crops to be integrated into the rotation. We need a return of crops like oats and alfalfa that are less polluting crops. They deliver better environmental outcomes. We need to get them into the crop rotation mix and so those are my two big things.
Perez: The Mississippi and Missouri watersheds, do you know how many agricultural facilities are connected to them?
Jones: Well you know that’s not really a noble number it’s certainly in the thousands I think there is an order of 8,000 CAFO’S. 7 or 8 thousand CAFOS in Iowa that require construction permits. I am not sure if that’s what you mean by agricultural facilities but about 85% of our land is used for agricultural production. That number would be similar in Illinois, farming dominates this part of the country it dominates land use in this part of the country. In terms of individual farms in Iowa I think the number that we hear these days is 85,000. There’s about 85,000 farmers so I would say there’s about 85,000 farmers.
Perez: Do you think our water quality has improved in the last two years?
Jones: No.
Perez: Do you think it has gotten worse?
Jones: I think in some regards it has gotten worse, I think there is probably not a lot of noticeable change in water quality here in the last 10 to 15 years. I think a lot of the data shows the amount of nitrogen or nitrate in our streams increased some while the amount of phosphorus has maybe stabilized or declined a little bit. Water quality is not just one thing, it's a lot of different things. In my estimation the overall quality of our water has not improved.
Perez: If Iowa wants to improve water quality, what would need to be done to achieve that goal?
Jones: Well just go back to my answer earlier, we need to align fertilizer amounts with the crop needs. We need to diversify crops. We need more crops other than corn and soybeans. We need to get our arms around the livestock industry and determine what population of livestock a watershed can endure and still have decent water quality. We are very open to expansion of the livestock industry. We only rarely, only very, very rarely, do we deny a construction permit if ever. As long as we continue to have this expansion of the livestock industry it’s going to be tough.
Perez: What do you mean we have to reformulate CAFO regulations?
Jones: Well when a CAFO gets a construction permit they have to create a manure management plan, the manure management plants in Iowa. In Iowa law Iowa code endorses an over application of manure nutrients to corn. That needs to be reformulated, we need to align the crop with what the scientists say the crop needs are with the amount of manure nutrients that are being applied. Secondly, we need to give counties authority to zone for CAFO construction. Right now the counties don’t have any effective authority to prevent CAFO construction and so there is no local control, it’s all controlled state level that’s wrong. If a county doesn't want a facility it shouldn’t have to be required to zone. The facility can be constructed so that’s a change that needs to happen. We need to evaluate at the watershed level. The amount of livestock that watershed can endure and still have acceptable water quality. We know how to do that. We know that we can do that. We need to do that, what I’m talking about reformulating livestock regulation that’s what I’m talking about.
