Citizen scientists take a “snapshot” of nitrate levels in the Cedar River

CEDAR RAPIDS – In the cool morning air, Candice Kucera walked to the edge of a small pier jutting out of Cedar Rapids’ Mohawk Park into the Cedar River. She gripped a small bucket-like container in one hand, tied to a string she held in the other palm.

In one smooth motion, he tossed the container into the air. She landed with a thud. Hand by hand, he roped her back to the dock and was rewarded with a bucket full of river water for her efforts.

Kucera — a water quality analyst for the city of Cedar Rapids — was at the dock with several other city staffers and members of the Izaak Walton League conservation organization. Together, the group participated in the league’s first “clean water snapshot” of nitrate levels in the Cedar River on Tuesday.

Nitrate is a form of nitrogen that is a pervasive pollutant in Iowa waterways, typically originating from agricultural runoff. The Cedar River has a history of nitrate impairment dating back to at least 2006, when a water quality protection plan was created to combat the contaminant.

The Izaak Walton League aims to fill monitoring gaps and encourage water quality conservation with its snapshot.

“People really look at water quality. Particularly in Iowa, nitrates are such a big part because of our large agricultural presence,” said Neil Mittelberg, chairman of the league’s Linn Chapter conservation committee. “There is just a statewide interest in watch (nitrate), monitor it and really try to keep an eye on it.”

How “Nitrate Watch” was born.

The Izaak Walton League is a nationwide conservation organization that has an Iowa division with local chapters. There are approximately 725 members in the Linn County chapter, which is headquartered northeast of Cedar Rapids.

The league has hosted a similar testing initiative to map chloride concentrations in streams, called the Salt Watch, for more than five years. The effort aims to monitor the impacts of road salt on aquatic ecosystems. This February, the league launched Nitrate Watch to include another common contaminant in its monitoring.

Nitrate levels in drinking water are regulated at 10 milligrams per liter or less under the Safe Drinking Water Act to protect children from blue baby syndrome. There is also emerging evidence that high nitrate levels could present risks to adults such as cancer, although there is no scientific consensus yet.

The “clear water snapshot” took place Tuesday along the Cedar River both upstream and downstream from Cedar Rapids. Citizen scientists also tested around Cedar Falls and Waterloo and as far away as the Osage. It marked the league’s first such event along the waterway, drawing at least a dozen attendees.

A parallel, and even larger, effort has also taken place in the Raccoon River watershed upstream from Des Moines, where the league has been active for years.

Public results coming soon

Once Kucera collected his samples from the Cedar River, members of the Izaak Walton League used their own nitrate test kits to get an idea of ​​nitrate levels.

Mittelberg dipped what looked like a thin wafer of white paper into the water and quickly pulled it out. Thirty seconds later, he examined the paper, where one spot had turned pink. He matched it to the labels on the kit bottle: a beige color meant very low nitrate levels and a bright magenta meant high levels.

Mittelberg’s pink color has aligned with levels between 5 and 10 parts per million. A sample taken elsewhere downstream showed a similar hue.

The result, along with all other snapshot results, will be uploaded online to the Clean Water Hub, a publicly available database maintained by the Izaak Walton League where people across the country can enter their water monitoring results. The hub has a specific site dedicated to Nitrate Watch.

Cedar Rapids staff will upload their analysis of Tuesday’s water samples, which will include data on nitrates and other variables. The results should be online within a week.

Results from basic nitrate test kits are simple and not accurate. But they can serve as directional indicators of water quality across the watershed, said Justin Schroeder, manager of the city’s utilities laboratory.

“These collaborations help us tell the bigger picture, the bigger story of what’s happening in our watershed,” he said. “For us, it’s just about expanding these partnerships and continuing to educate people about what’s happening in our watershed.”

Recent nitrate peaks

The snapshot came just days after nitrate levels in the Cedar River rose, according to interim data collected by a US Geological Survey sensor near Palo.

Nitrite levels in the stream peaked at 12.9 milligrams per liter on Friday night. Levels remained above 10 milligrams per liter – the limit for safe drinking water – from Wednesday through early Tuesday morning.

Cedar Rapids drinking water is drawn from below the river bed downstream with wells. As the water percolates through the riverbed, the sand and gravel help purify it of contaminants like nitrate. Therefore, the city’s source water is less affected by surface pollutants.

This past weekend, for example, some wells experienced small spikes in nitrate levels. But none of them exceeded 10 milligrams per liter. Collected water from wells can be blended together to reduce nitrate levels in the source water, and the most affected wells can be taken offline if necessary.

“Surges like this are not abnormal during rainy seasons,” Schroeder said. “There is no significant or notable impact on our finished water quality since the small spike we saw this weekend.”

Legislative decisions

The snapshot also came on the heels of Iowa lawmakers passing a bill that transferred $500,000 from Iowa State University’s Nutrient Research Fund to the Department of the State’s Water Quality Initiative Fund. state agriculture. The move could jeopardize the network of sensors that measure nitrogen and phosphorus levels in Iowa’s waterways.

That makes the league’s efforts especially important for two reasons, said Dale Braun, president of the league’s Iowa division: “One is obviously to take action. The other is to show people that there are organizations that care about water monitoring.

In November, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources proposed withdrawing a water quality improvement plan for the Cedar River watershed created to help keep Cedar Rapids drinking water safe from nitrate contamination. The department also found that the stretch of river in question was not compromised for nitrates, a classification that several water quality experts disagreed with, The Gazette reported.

As of last week, the Iowa DNR has had no updates on its proposal to remove the plan, the department told The Gazette.

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places reporters in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com