Civilized and Inclusive

Appendix D: Watershed Approach to Floods

Outline for the "Watershed Approach to Floods"

This is a discussion about floods and how much damage has been incurred so far; what cities can do to protect themselves from flooding now and in the future; and, how much it may cost for new flood control systems. It is also a discussion about models of agriculture; about models of agriculture that exist today that can mimic historical patterns of flora; what adopting those models would mean for agriculture and flooding; and about what people can do to make sure those models are adopted.

In the recent historical past, Iowa was covered with forests, prairies, wetlands, thick sod, streams and rivers. Rain that fell to the earth was retained, cleansed, used and slowly passed through the state. That changed with the coming of settlers who broke the sod of the prairies for cultivation agriculture. The historic hydrology of the state was altered with the need to drain fields. To accomplish that draining, we now have some 880,000 miles of field tile in Iowa. Records show a doubling and even tripling of the flow of some rivers over the last 100 years. Also, because tile lines provide a direct conduit to surface and ground waters, we have lost the water's contact with the cleansing soil and surface flora resulting in streams and rivers that are, in many cases, little more than silt, fecal and chemical filled canals.

This discussion includes changes to the watershed and to the agricultural cropping systems which would end floods as we know them; and would cost cities no money what-so-ever for flood control. This discussion will include presettlement vegetation cover before we turned the landscape upside down and put the soil on the top; what rain infiltration amounts historic and recent vegetation permitted; and, agricultural systems available today which mimic that presettlement vegetation as far as rain infiltration rates and returning the landscape to a system with soil beneath vegetation. Also discussed is what using those perennial cropping systems would mean for cleaning up water, holding and creating soil, cleaning our air, and ending our contribution to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Briefly discussed is an end to toxic and greenhouse gasses contributed by industrial agriculture; an end to antibiotic resistant diseases; and an end to untreated confinement and feedlot waste washing into our streams and rivers. Along with bacteria from this waste, the other non-point pollution contributors to our water quality problems are nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment (soil). As long as we are corn and bean, and confinement and feedlot farmers, we will continue to have this non-point pollution and surface runoff contributing to flooding and water quality. Change the federal farm programs and you will affect quantity and quality of water in the state.

This discussion includes manufacturing and processing which would need to be done locally from new cropping systems and crops being raised in Iowa, a bio-regional and sustainable approach. And, we will touch on the multitude of new products from these crops. We will discuss humans becoming healthier by not eating processed corn and soybeans, and an end to obesity, heart disease, and type II diabetes which have exploded since we changed to a diet of processed foods.

We will talk about the need to modernize our transportation system because of new crops and more people living in rural areas. This includes roads and rail.

We will talk about what city dwellers can do to help make these changes. What it will cost you in political capital instead of in dollars, and how you as cities can change the watershed cropping systems to protect yourselves from flooding in the future.

Surprisingly, the floods of '08 have provided an opportunity to test Wendell Berry's axiom that "the problem of agriculture is an urban problem"; by that I take it he meant the ignorance of urban people to what our agricultural system has become. This can be tested by saying to Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and other flood damaged cities that you can prevent floods by changing cropping practices in agriculture instead of spending billions (CR) and millions (DSM) on flood control infrastructure. We are corn and bean farmers, because that is what the federal programs pay for. A change in those programs will lead to changes in the hydrology of the state.

This outline shows the means to stop flood damage to towns and cities; clean up our water, soil, and air; provide more jobs in farming and manufacturing; get people eating healthy; and, save towns and cities money otherwise spent on flood control projects.

1. Flood Control for Cities:

AAAAAA. Cities wouldn't need to spend billions of dollars on levees and pumping systems with a watershed approach to control flooding in place.

AAAAAAAAAA(1) Cedar Rapids $1 Billion dollar project.

AAAAAAAAAA(2) Des Moines $250 Million dollar project.

2. Discussion of vegetation covers and their relation to water flow:

Land Management Options AAAAAAAAAAInfiltration Rates (in./hr.)

Pasture and Row Crops AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1 - 3
Rotational Grazing, Alfalfas AAAAAAAAAAAAAAI3 - 7
Un-Pastured Native Grasses AAAAAAAAAAAAAI7 - 13
Mature Trees AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI10 - 14

3. Land Practices:

From the Jackson/Keeney chapter "Perennial Farming Systems That Resist Flooding" in the Connie Mutel edited 2010 book, "A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008" we have the following discussion:

"To prevent rains from flowing rapidly into channels and raising water levels, some of their moisture must be returned directly to the atmosphere or discharged steadily and slowly into drainage ways. Agriculture can help achieve these ends and thus make the land more flood-resilient if it can:

AAAAA1. Minimize runoff by increasing the speed at which water soaks into the soil and the quantity of water the soil can hold.

AAAAA2. Store an abundance of water in healthy soils that are high in organic matter, instead of immediately draining it into streams.

AAAAA3. Increase the amount of time that growing crops are pumping water back into the atmosphere.

AAAAA4. Intercept any runoff from intense rainfall, passing it into nearby wetlands or through buffer strips that protect streams.

The truth is, the corn and soybeans that now dominate Iowa's agriculture [92% of planted acres are row crops. Only 50% in the 1950's.] It would be difficult to find two crops that do a worse job of handling Iowa's rainfall. In conjunction, these croplands pollute our waterways by their release of sediment, fertilizers, and pesticides. [The fourth non-point pollutant, non-soil bacteria, comes mainly from the untreated waste from feedlots and confinements; Watson] Scientists studying the problems of surface and groundwater contamination, the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and flooding have arrived at the same conclusion: we need to re-perennialize the landscape. Quite literally, we have to rediscover and cultivate our deepest roots.

Before the coming of European Americans in the mid-1800s, the prairie soils of Iowa were filled with a dense and deep underground network of perennial plant roots. These roots filled the soil year round, not just in July and August. They made the soil more crumbly, porous, and spongy. They shielded it from the destructive power of raindrops. Year in and year out, perennial plant roots added humus to the soil, built pores, and supported a rich community of arthropods, fungi, and bacteria. The perennial sod could absorb tremendous quantities of rain without producing runoff. Perennials active in early spring began using water in April, and the diversity of plant growth ensured that soil water was used through October. Excess water not used by plants steadily percolated into the shallow groundwater and onto wetlands and streams, or it recharged deeper aquifers. Many features made this landscape flood-resistant. It is no wonder that Know (2006) describes the agricultural conversion of prairie and forest in the upper Mississippi River basin as "the most important environmental change that influenced fluvial {river and stream} activity in this region during the last 10,000 years."

Agriculture can increase perennial plant cover and contribute to Iowa's hydro-logical health in a variety of ways. Corn and soybeans could become part of four-to-five year crop rotations that include small grains, hay and pasture; …and by implementing conservation tillage, better options for pest control, intensively managed rotational grazing, and cover crops to protect the soil before the row crops are well established. …we need to critically examine subsurface water (tile) drainage. Farmlands are tiled to dry out the root zone as fast as possible. This has caused more water to flow into our rivers in the spring, instead of lingering in the soils (Schilling and Helmers 2008). Thus, as happened in 2008, rivers are often running full when a really big early summer storm arrives.

Researchers at Iowa State University are modifying strip-cropping practices (which now alternate row crops with European pasture grasses or legumes, such as alfalfa, in strips along the contour) by using deeper-rooted native prairie strips instead. Preliminary results indicate that prairie strips covering just 10 to 20 percent of the total field area were able to reduce sediment loss by 95 percent. Prairie strips should also be able to draw down soil moisture earlier in the spring and later in the fall. By occasionally moving these strips, better soil structure could be restored throughout a field.

Taking the use of perennials one step further, they could be incorporated directly into grain production. Farmers in Australia have pioneered a new method to grow their winter grains (oats, wheat, and barley) in the same field with perennial warm-season pasture grasses. And for over 25 years, researchers at The Land Institute in Kansas have worked to develop high-yielding mixtures of perennial grains (Cox et al. 2006). Recently they have made rapid progress by hybridizing wheat, sorghum, and sunflower with their wild perennial relatives. Perennial grains could revolutionize our whole way of doing agriculture, but a great deal more research will be required to develop crops with economic yields. [The time needed for this research and the time it will take to make political changes to the federal farm programs and implementation of this model should coincide. In other words by the time we change the programs, the perennial crops will be ready; Watson.]

Although cropland runoff can be decreased, some will remain. This should flow into a wetland or buffer strip before reaching a stream. Buffer strips of prairie grasses, shrubs, and trees along streams will trap sediments, improve soil quality, remove some nitrogen and phosphorus and increase water infiltration into the soil. By breaking selected field tiles as they meet the buffer strip, we could further slow the movement of water into streams.

As flood damages increase, the need for hydrological resilience grows more urgent. A re-perennialized agricultural landscape will still produce food but also will restore community values and ecosystem services that have been lost. This landscape will once again regulate and purify water, sustain soil fertility, replenish the groundwater supply, support wildlife and pollinators, and carry forward the ancient heritage of our native prairies, woodlands, and wetlands. The challenge will be to incorporate these very real ecosystem services into a market that has until now neglected and nearly destroyed them. An agricultural economy modeled on natural perennial systems will shoulder its share of the responsibility for a healthy, resilient landscape."

This is some data which shows that if we adopt a land use model more similar to what we had earlier in our history, our flooding will more than likely decrease:
"The Raccoon River at Fleur has crested above flood stage 62 times since 1903 according to the Van Meter record.
There have been four separate crests above flood stage in 2010. That has happened only three other times: 1973 (5 times), 1983 (4), and 1984 (4).
By looking at the Van Meter gauge, it is doubted the Raccoon ever left its banks a single time at Fleur from March of 1929 until May of 1944. To look at the most recent 15-year period, the Raccoon has gone out of its banks 16 times since 1995. It can't be said for certain that the table below is exactly accurate, but it is pretty close to what has been observed at Fleur:"

AAAAAI. Phase out:
AAAAAAAAAA(1) most row crops

AAAAAAAAAA(2) all confinements and feedlots

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa. Would end most pollution of our soil, water, and air

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1. Fewer fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, nitrogen and phosphorus being put into our soil, running into our water, and evaporating into our air.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA2. Toxic and poison sewer and greenhouse gasses from confinements and feedlots would no longer be produced and vented into our air. Diseases from proximity to AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhydrogen-sulfide and ammonia (asthma, etc.) would no longer be a problem in rural areas.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA3. Antibiotics, hormones, endocrine disruptors would no longer be put into our soil, water and air from confinement and feedlot waste. Antibiotic resistant diseases would AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAslowly be eliminated.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA4. Infectious diseases such as MRSA, and Ebola would no longer be living in confinement herds or in the people who work with those confined animals. Integrons, which AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAare the vehicle for antibiotic resistance being passed from one organism to another, would not be living in confinement conditions ripe for spreading that resistance to germs AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwhich infect people.

4. Manufacturing and Processing:

AAAAAA. Products from Hemp: see pdf above.

AAAAAAAAAA(1) Because of bulk, the manufacturing and processing of this crop would need to stay local. Bio-regional systems.

AAAAAB. Food preserving and processing:

AAAAAAAAAA(1) Unlike the highly processed foods essentially made from corn and soybeans, these grains, vegetables, and fruits would preserved and processed locally.

AAAAAAAAAA(2) Animal processing plants would be smaller and more wide spread with the capability to process unlike animals.

5. Federal Farm Programs:

AAAAAA. Subsidy per acre only regardless of use.

AAAAAAAAAA(1) Subsidy ($) to the farmer who is actually working the land; not to the owner (takes land out of investment category and returns it to working land).

AAAAAB. Rent limited to 100% of actual tax per acre.

AAAAAC. Farmers today are corn and bean farmers because those are the programs. Change the programs and you will change how farmers farm.

6. 2nd Clean Water Act:

AAAAAA. Regulate non-point source pollution. If we are ever to truly get a handle on water pollution in America, we need a new "Clean Water Act" which regulates non-point pollution which primarily comes from this model of agriculture now in use.

7. Repopulate and Revitalize Rural America:

AAAAAA. By growing crops that need to be processed and made into products locally, you will need to have a greater population base in rural America. These cropping and animal raising models would need labor and management (farmers) instead of inputs (structures, chemicals and energy) and would therefore require many more farmers and laborers in rural areas.

AAAAAB. This would enhance the larger cities prosperity as regional engines of commerce.

8. Rail and Road Infrastructure:

AAAAAA. Because of the bulk of hemp, processing and manufacturing will need to be local and there will be a need to return rail transportation to the rural areas.

AAAAAB. Farm to market roads will attain higher use and as a result will be built and maintained with higher use in mind.

Bob Watson

2736 Lannon Hill Rd
Decorah, IA 52101
563-379-4147
bobandlinda@civandinc.net