Iowa politicians are too deferential to those most responsible for polluting the state’s environment to make any meaningful improvements in the near future, according to Iowa City lawyer Jim Larew.

And that’s the reason why he will spend his remaining years litigating those issues in court. At 70, he is part of a new Northeast Iowa movement to improve the impaired waters of an area long known for its pristine streams.

The Driftless Water Defenders group formed last year to gather clean-water proponents and organize their efforts. Its name is tied to an area that was less affected by glacial sediment drift, which contributed to its porous geology.

That geology is responsible for spring-fed streams and caves, and it also makes groundwater more at risk from surface pollution.

The group is seeking to block a manure digester from being built and operated west of Decorah, arguing that it would lead to increased dairy herd sizes and more manure to be spread on farm fields.

Last month, the group sent notice to a Postville meat-packer that it intends to file a federal lawsuit over the facility’s wastewater violations that have yet to incur fines from the state.

An administrative law judge recently sided with Larew and his clients who challenged a water-use permit for a large cattle feedlot near the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek near Monona.

His efforts are helping to build on the work of longtime environmental lawyers like Wally Taylor, who with the Sierra Club of Iowa has also challenged state approval for the same Supreme Beef feedlot.

Larew’s current focus on environmental law marks a return to his youth, when modern environmentalism was born. He foresees a renaissance.

“I view us on the cusp of a new civil rights movement in Iowa,” he told The Gazette. “It will take some time, but I think in due course the right to access clean water and clean air will be recognized as a fundamental right for Iowans.”

Larew was inspired by his grandfather at a young age to become a lawyer — a career he wanted as early as third grade.

He graduated from Iowa City’s West High School in 1972 and remembers demonstrating in support of the first Earth Day during his time there.

Not long before, a polluted river in Ohio caught fire. Larew described it as “a milestone event” that strengthened his desire to protect nature.

He went to the East Coast for college, where he studied at Harvard University and also worked for Democratic U.S. Sen. John Culver of Iowa, who sought to strengthen protections for endangered species.

“It made an immediate and lasting impression — this nexus between environmental law and the need for legislators and political processes to make it work, or to have them fail to work,” Larew said of his behind-the-scenes peek at how the legislation was crafted.

After college, Larew returned to Iowa and ran an unsuccessful campaign to oust U.S. Rep. Jim Leach, who then was near the start of his three decades in office. Leach, a moderate Republican, crushed Larew, a Democrat, in the 1980 election by nearly 30 percentage points.

“It was a profoundly important moment for me — to lose at a young age in a public way by a huge margin — and then wake up the next morning and realize that life goes on,” he said.

Larew earned a law degree at the University of Iowa and advocated for the public’s expanded access to rail travel before being retained by Iowa Interstate Railroad, for which he was trial counsel for about 23 years. He thought the work was important because he views rail transportation as more environmentally friendly than other modes.

His private-practice career paused when Democrat Gov. Chet Culver — the son of John Culver — was elected for his first and only term in Iowa. Larew was Culver’s general counsel and later a policy director and chief of staff during Culver’s four years as governor.

When Republican Gov. Terry Branstad defeated Culver in the 2010 election, Larew reopened his law firm and sought to focus on issues he thought were important to the public good. His time with the governor’s office revealed an uphill battle he saw to improve air and water quality in Iowa.

“I had seen something I just wasn’t aware of — the strength of the lobby and the power structure of those entities who are not as friendly to the environment as I thought they should be,” he said. “For those who pollute, it is often a bottom-line decision.”

Shortly thereafter, Larew and other lawyers took a case that targeted the air pollution of Grain Processing Corporation in Muscatine. It was Larew’s focus for about a decade and culminated with a $51.5 million class-action settlement with the company, to benefit residents who live near the facility.

His recent work in Northeast Iowa reflects a strategy to win legal cases in perhaps the most environmentally conscious part of the state — cases that might affect all of Iowa.

“It’s a culture that’s dying,” Larew said. “There are some parts of Iowa where the water is so polluted, people are no longer in contact with their waters. They no longer swim. They no longer fish.

“In Northeast Iowa, there is still a culture that values clean water, and it’s something that goes beyond partisanship. We have these wonderful streams that are increasingly polluted, but they’re still wonderful.”

Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com