Iowa Environmental Council

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Iowa Environmental Council

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Our mission: A just, healthy environment & sustainable future for all Iowans

The Iowa Environmental Council manages the content on this site for the purpose of disseminating information and encouraging engagement with the public. However, IEC reserves the right to monitor, prohibit, restrict, filter, block, suspend, terminate, delete or discontinue any contribution, content, and/or access to any content and/or IEC social media channel at any time, without notice and for any reason and in our sole discretion. This includes, but is not limited to, content that constitutes electioneering, such as user appeals to vote for or against specific parties or candidates for any public office.

10/21/2026

So many of you have asked about these t-shirts, and we're thrilled to share that you can now purchase your own — and support the Protect Water, Prevent Cancer movement!

Visit ignition.ink/iowa-environmental-council-1 to order your shirt today. The online store is open until November 15, so don't wait!

Big thanks to the good folks at the Side Garage for the t-shirt design and online storefront. They've continuously supported important community projects and causes, and we're grateful to have them in our corner.

The Side Garage

10/20/2026

MidAmerican Energy wants to raise gas delivery rates for Iowa customers, and the
proposed rate hike will lead to a $54.9 million annual increase in profits for MidAmerican. The rate hike comes as MidAmerican's parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), is collecting record-breaking profits.

Our team joined partners from the Clean Up MidAm campaign at a football game in Ames to call out this corporate greed. Visit cleanupmidam.com/rates to learn how you can submit a comment to the Iowa Utilities Commission and tell them that you don't want to foot the bill for MidAmerican's gas rate hike.

Doubling down on gas spending will increase MidAmerican's earnings, while locking customers into paying for fossil assets, and every penny of fuel costs, for decades.

Clean Up MidAm

10/18/2026

As we prepare our homes and yards for winter, managing leaves, trimmings, and landscape debris responsibly is one way to make a difference for soil health and water quality. In IEC's latest blog, Director of Climate Initiatives Cody Smith writes that keeping leaves on the land or utilizing services like the City of Des Moines' Yard Waste and Compost It! programs can help reduce urban nutrient runoff.

Read more at iaenvironment.org/blog.

Des Moines Public Works
City of Des Moines - Government

10/16/2026

Thank you to the Iowa Cancer Consortium for recognizing IEC with the 2026 Iowa Cancer Champion Award. This is a meaningful honor, and we're grateful. The Iowa Cancer Champion Award recognizes individuals or organizations committed to reducing the burden of cancer in Iowa through policy, systems, and environmental changes.

With this recognition, IEC joins an esteemed list of people and organizations who have made important strides in creating a healthier Iowa. Thank you to Dr. Richard Deming for presenting our team with the award at the 2026 Iowa Cancer Summit and for his steadfast support and determination to reduce cancer risk factors — including environmental pollution — in Iowa.

Iowa Cancer Consortium
Above + Beyond Cancer

10/07/2026

From our IEC team to everyone who attended the IEC Annual Conference — students, speakers, exhibitors, sponsors, longtime friends, new advocates — thank you! With record attendance at this event, you all showed that this movement for a healthy environment and healthy communities is vibrant and strong. Want to stay in the loop on future IEC events? Sign up for emails at iaenvironment.org/email.

09/20/2026

In “From Pinhook Farm to the Gulf: With Privilege Comes Responsibility,” Iowa farmer Seth Watkins and his daughter Tatum Watkins, a student at Grinnell College and the University of Iowa, will share thoughts and images from their family’s fact-finding trip along the Mississippi River Watershed. They followed the water, starting from a stream on their farm all the way to the Gulf, took water samples, talked to local folks impacted by pollution and changing waterways, and came home with a renewed sense of responsibility about Iowa’s role in healing the watershed.

Don't miss this presentation, plus a full day of programming!

IEC Annual Conference
8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., September 29, 2026
Olmsted Center, Drake University, Des Moines
See the lineup and purchase tickets: iaenvironment.org/26conference

09/16/2026

The Lobe Rangers brought a message to Des Moines: We can do better.

On Monday evening, in front of a standing-room only crowd at the Iowa Taproom, James Hepp, Matt Bormann, and Zack Smith talked about the conservation practices they implement on their farms — cover crops, strip-till and no-till, and in-season nutrient management.

The problem? Only a small fraction of agricultural acres in Iowa utilize these practices, and too much nutrient runoff — manure, pesticides, and agricultural chemicals — is flowing off fields and into our waterways, leading to heavy nitrate pollution downstream. The Rangers say Iowa's voluntary approaches have not delivered the scale of change required to improve our water quality.

IEC and Des Moines Water Works hosted the event with The Lobe Rangers, where attendees could ask the Rangers anything — and nearly 300 Iowans showed up to engage. The takeaway? Farmers and city folks want the same thing: clean drinking water, and healthy families and communities.

Learn more about the Rangers: The Lobe Rangers

09/13/2026

This week, a statewide coalition of farmers, healthcare providers, advocates, and families impacted by cancer launched Protect Water Prevent Cancer, a united campaign to clean up Iowa's polluted waterways and reduce our climbing cancer rates.

Join thousands of Iowans calling for meaningful change. Visit protectwaterpreventcancer.org to learn about environmental risk factors associated with Iowa's high cancer rates — and what we can do about it together.

Photo 📷 credit: the amazing Joe Crimmings

09/10/2026

Iowa’s cancer crisis is not inevitable. Polluted water does not have to be our future. We can do better, and we must.

Today, surrounded by clean water advocates, family farmers, healthcare workers, and people whose lives have been changed by cancer, IEC launched the Protect Water Prevent Cancer campaign.

IEC and our partners spent nearly two years listening deeply to Iowans' experiences with cancer. We followed the science and released a groundbreaking report on the associations between environmental contaminants (nitrate, pesticides, PFAS, and radon) and cancer in Iowa.

Now we’re ready for action. At protectwaterpreventcancer.org, you'll find an action hub with tools to contact your policymakers and other ways to advocate in your local community.

This campaign brings together farmers, parents, students, seniors, people from small towns and big cities, across the political spectrum to achieve something we all deserve, but are not getting from decisionmakers and special interests in our state. We are united around one common goal: the commitment to protect our water and prevent cancer in the state we love.

Iowans deserve better. Iowans deserve transformational change.

Visit protectwaterpreventcancer.org to join the movement.

Protect Water Prevent Cancer Partners:
Iowa Farmers Union
Nishnabotna Water Defenders
Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, Inc. - JFAN
Iowa Food System Coalition
Environmental Law & Policy Center
The Harkin Institute
Poweshiek Community Action to Restore Environmental Stewardship

09/04/2026

What a lineup!

We're thrilled to announce the experts who will share the latest in pesticide and health research, as well as pioneering practices in organic agriculture and diverse crop rotations as alternatives to pesticide use.

See all of the sessions and speakers and register for IEC's Annual Conference on September 29 in Des Moines at iaenvironment.org/26conference.

Grant Cope is the Environmental Health Policy Lead at the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, where he he translates science into policies to prevent Parkinson’s disease. Previously, Grant served as Senior Counselor to the U.S. EPA Administrator and in leadership roles at California EPA and the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Dr. Sean Stokes is the Research Director at Rodale Institute’s Midwest Organic Center, a 30-acre certified organic research farm just north of Cedar Rapids. The research focuses on diversifying corn-soybean rotations with cereal grains and reintegrating livestock into these systems. He also oversees research on organic vegetable production that utilizes different tillage practices in combination with a biochar soil amendment and a silvopasture trial that integrates chickens into chestnut trees. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Iowa Organic Association and co-leads the Environmental Stewardship team for the Iowa Food System Coalition.

Since 2017, Audrey Tran Lam has led the Center for Energy & Environmental Education's environmental health initiatives, working where human health and environmental sustainability meet. Audrey serves on the boards of the Heartland Health Research Alliance, Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, and Plant-Based Foods Institute, as well as on the Executive Committee for the Cancer Free Economy Network and Design Team for Green America’s Soil & Climate Alliance. She holds advisory board positions for the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, the Collaborative for Health and Environment, and the University of Iowa’s Environmental Health Sciences Research Center Community Engagement Core.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
Rodale Institute
UNI Center for Energy and Environmental Education

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505 Fifth Avenue, Suite 850
Des Moines, IA
50309

Website

http://www.iaenvironment.org/

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