| petite6 |
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| Jokers Wild |
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| Reged: 08/14/06 |
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 ‘Cancer Doesn't Care What Party You Belong To’: Poisoned Water Is Turning This Rural State Bluer
07/21/26 11:49 AM
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https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/07/19/iowa-water-democrats-agriculture-00992753?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
MT. VERNON, Iowa — Chris Jones, the 65-year-old Democratic nominee for Iowa secretary of agriculture, stands at the edge of a pond on a 72-acre farm in eastern Iowa. “What you see here is how fertile Iowa is,” he says, looking intently into the water. Massive bluegills dart about in the clear depths. “When we go up to a corn or soy field, we don’t see this anymore.”
Jones isn’t just talking about the fish. He means the water’s clarity. Iowa’s lakes and ponds are often murky and fetid from algae blooms fed by fertilizer runoff, a byproduct of the state’s vast agricultural industry’s reliance on farming chemicals. Jones spent about a decade as a research engineer, monitoring the state’s rivers and streams. What he learned in that role about Iowa’s water is what spurred his run for office.
Iowa has a long-simmering water problem that has finally begun to boil over — and it’s changing Iowa politics. People are angry and worried about the quality of the state’s water, the health risks it poses and its increasingly undeniable tie to the state’s signature industry: agriculture.
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