Governor-elect Sand says he is committed to clean water

Nobody likes to lose, least of all Chris Jones. He thought he could beat incumbent Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, a Republican. Jones lost by six points. The former Simpson College baller left it all on the court. He was coughing and beat, badly in need of a bed.

“I’m retired again. That’s the good news,” quipped Jones, a former water research scientist.

After a nap he can go back to trolling for walleye in the Mississippi backwaters near Lansing, as close to paradise as you can get, and trolling the Iowa establishment over the sorry state of our air and water. His full outrage can be felt at The Swine Republic on Substack, with charts and graphs.

Jones doesn’t fit with government. He was too radical for the University of Iowa, because he told the truth about swimming in manure. He got sidelined. He suggested that we should kick our addiction to corn ethanol. That was heresy. Public employees don’t say that sort of thing out loud.

Jones would be ill-suited to office and zipping his lip. He can wield more influence outside government. He was able to insinuate the link between pollution and cancer into every statewide race. It worked for Nate Willems, who unseated Attorney General Brenna Bird over pollution claims. It didn’t work for cash-poor Jones. Bird is easy to dislike. Naig is easy to like, with Farm Bureau money.

“When we started, few other candidates were even talking about water quality as an issue. Iowa residents were left to wonder if their government would ever take the issue seriously,” Jones said Tuesday night.

Rob Sand approached the issue cautiously. Jones was critical of him, as he was other Democrats like Tom Vilsack who Jones thought were bound up in the corn/soy/hog/ethanol supply chain. Sand approaches all things cautiously like a good lawyer. He came to embrace the clean water cause as Jones was attracting sizable crowds around the state. Sand’s Republican opponent for governor, Zach Lahn, touted conservation agriculture from his farm at Belle Plaine.

Get on board the clean water boat.

“Let’s use that bipartisan support from Iowa voters to actually get our water cleaned up and our cancer rates under control,” Sand said in his victory statement.

Caution and moderation won. Jones is not moderate. He correctly believes we need a system change to save Iowa. Bird is a right-wing radical who was rejected for it. Lahn campaigned with RFK2, enough said.

Sand outlined incentives for conservation. He wants to implement a sales tax for natural resources. He steered clear of talking about increased regulation. We will learn how committed he is to cleaning up pollution by who he appoints to run the Department of Natural Resources. The governor can exercise a lot of power through this agency over fertilizer and livestock. Oversight has been abandoned over the past decade. Sand indicated that he will reappoint Kayla Lyon as director. You can hear water advocates gagging already.

Josh Turek flipped a Senate seat over pollution and corruption. He is way more conservative than former Sen. Tom Harkin. Turek won by painting Ashley Hinson as greedy and connected at the hip to Trump. But he said he was eager to work with Trump on immigration, and does not favor public funding for trans surgeries. (Just to be clear, redneck friends!) Turek was endorsed by the Iowa Farmers Union, which is an ardent advocate for natural resources. He should be appointed to the Agriculture Committee where Turek can advocate for conservation and nutrition programs in Harkin’s legacy.

While voters flipped three of Iowa’s four congressional districts from red to blue, they left the GOP in control of the legislature. They voted to amend the constitution to make it nearly impossible to increase income taxes.

The verdict was for moderation, centrism, pragmatism. It was a rejection of Iowa going backwards. Sand ran on strengthening public education and being fiscally responsible. Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, a former school superintendent, gets it. He can read the election whiteboard. He said Republicans should work with Sand.

A logical place to start is where you agree. Everyone wants to know why Iowa has a cancer problem. Sand wants to devote $20 million to finding out. The research already tells us that polluted air and water lead to cancer. Ultimately, the state must tell industry to clean up its act.

That will be tough to do when agribusiness still funds our political process. Jones will watch and bark. So will the Lobe Rangers, a bipartisan trio of northern Iowa farmers who have gathered a flock of followers demanding healthy soil, air, water and rural life. They have Gov.-elect Sand’s attention.

In that respect, Jones is a winner. He knows it. The people continue to press for answers to cancer and progress against pollution. Our next governor declares that we will “actually” clean up our water. The talking part is over. Iowans expect clean air and water.