Iowans cleaned a river, and began a movement

Not so long ago, a clean environment was soft-headed aesthetics, not the sure-footed substance of economic argument.

By some indicators, Iowans have started to turn around.

Recently, the Legislature's Sustainable Natural Resource Funding Advisory Committee hired a firm to survey 800 Iowans, asking them to rank the seriousness of state issues. The first was predictable - lack of affordable health insurance.

But No. 2, ahead of gasoline prices and the economy, was a surprise: pollution of rivers, lakes and streams.

Another less scientific indicator: River cleanups took root five years ago.

Back then, 35 Iowans, covered in rain gear like swamp ghosts, paddled canoes down the Maquoketa River in eastern Iowa's pouring rain. The air was cold enough that the water and their bodies steamed.

Some participants were middle-aged, with bad backs and knees, standing in chest-deep water and feeling for footing in the river's current. They pulled out a wooden picnic table immersed in water and mud, a herniated disc waiting to happen.

Younger Iowans trying to figure their place in the world tied up their long hair into ponytails and diligently worked on the river banks, picking up beer cans they didn't even drink from.

from the Des Moines Resister