DES MOINES, Iowa — Three Iowa environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Trump administration after seven Iowa waterways were removed from the state’s impaired waters list.

The organizations involved are Food and Water Watch, Iowa Environmental Council and Environmental Law and Policy Center.

The seven Iowa waterways were added to the list in the first place due to high nitrate levels. As a reminder, consuming anything above 10 milligrams per liter is linked to cancer, according to research.

The waterways include portions of the Des Moines, Raccoon, Cedar, Iowa and South Skunk rivers. All of those supply drinking water to various Iowa cities and their residents.

“When you’re on the impaired waters list, essentially what that means is the water is dirty,” said Josh Mandelbaum, Environmental Law and Policy Center senior attorney. “It’s polluted. It’s not meeting water quality standards.”

Every two years, states are required to submit a list to the EPA of all their impaired waterways. 

The seven waterways were not initially on Iowa’s list in 2024, but the EPA later added them. Federal officials said in a briefing at the time “the EPA determined that the seven identified [waterways] are not attaining the applicable water quality standards associated with the drinking water use.”

“When the waters are added to the impaired waters list, that signals an obligation for the state to develop a plan to calculate how much pollution is going into the river and where that pollution is coming from,” Food and Water Watch attorney Dani Replogle said.

A year after they were added, the EPA removed the waterways from the list.

“Part of what we know is that the DNR wasn’t happy that they got added back and the DNR and Farm Bureau lobbied the EPA to change this,” Mandelbaum said.

Environmental attorneys feel frustrated by the EPA backtracking and want something to change.

“It sends the message that Trump’s EPA is leaving these communities out to dry and cares more about industrial ag’s profits than it does about the public health of Iowans,” Replogle said.

Local 5 reached out to the EPA for a response to the suit but has not yet heard back.