Age
50
Current Occupation/Work Experience
Organizer
Education
BS University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, MILR Cornell University
I am an organizer for a national non-profit that works to stop factory farm pollution in Iowa. Prior to my involvement in the environmental movement, I was a union organizer for many years. I also spent part of my childhood on a farm in Southwest Iowa during the 80s farm crisis. As my parents aged, they put their cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), one of the Federal programs that this commission oversees for Johnson County.
I have experienced the limited economic options available to farmers, but I believe we can bring people together so that future generations can farm sustainably in Iowa.
Soil and Water Conservation District Commissions were formed across the country after the dustbowl in the 1930s to ensure that farming would never again be the cause of an ecological catastrophe. Today, current industrial farming practices have made agriculture the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Iowa, destroyed our water quality, and depleted our topsoil.
We need to maximize the impact of Federal dollars for farm conservation by ensuring funds are utilized on the most vulnerable land on steep hills and along waterways, land that common sense prevented planting in past generations. We also need to seek more funding and increase farmer participation in conservation programs. Johnson county should never return conservation funds for lack of applicants. We have an obligation to lead Iowa.
Please turn your ballot over, vote Yes for the Johnson County Conservation bond, and consider that every acre of corn you pass on the highway was once prairie, wetland, or woodland.
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Age
70
Current Occupation/Work Experience
Retired ophthalmologist
Community Involvement
Johnson County Democratic Party
Education
Lincoln Elementary, Central Junior High, West High School, University of Iowa-B.S., M.D., Ph.D., Harvard University-postdoctoral fellow
Iowa’s streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater are disgracefully polluted. Our rare fertile soil is being abused and depleted. It is long past time that we do more to protect these natural resources.
I was born and raised in Johnson County and I practiced medicine here for decades. I have retired from the practice of medicine, but I still desire to help protect the health of my Johnson County neighbors. Soil health and clean water are fundamental to good health and a strong economy. We own the public waterways–the streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater in Iowa. We have a right to have unpolluted water to drink, swim in, boat on, and fish from. And we need to preserve our fertile soil.
The Commission is tasked by state law to help protect these precious natural resources. I would like the privilege of working on behalf of Johnson County citizens to help protect our water and soil.
Too little is being done to protect our rivers, streams, lakes, and aquifers.
The DNR reports that most of Iowa's water segments are impaired by nitrates, pesticides, fecal bacteria, or other pollutants. Out of over 1,400 segments tested over the last two years, only 24 were unimpaired on all measures.
Iowa lakes in state parks are often unsafe for swimming and boating due to fecal bacteria.
About a third of Johnson County’s private wells tested had significant contamination.
Iowa's cancer rate is second in the nation out of all fifty states. And we are the only state where the rate is rising.
Iowa citizens spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year in an attempt to remove pollutants from our drinking water. This burden falls disproportionately on small towns and rural areas that can least afford it.
We should work with landowners through education, cost-sharing, and other methods to reduce water pollution and soil loss.
