Iowa Agency That Challenged Farm Runoff Faces Elimination

For years a utility that supplies drinking water to Iowa's capital city has spent millions of dollars to rid its water supply of pollutants that run off farm fields upstream. Finally, exasperated officials filed a lawsuit to force the agricultural counties to clamp down on the runoff. But the state Legislature, now controlled by Republicans who won big majorities in the November election, has decided to address the issue in a different way. It's preparing to dissolve the utility, effectively killing the lawsuit. GOP lawmakers say the change is meant to allow the cities in the area more direct control of their own water. But supporters of the Des Moines Water Works, an independent utility that has served the region for a century, say the move is a bold show of power by farm interests in a legislature where conservatives now hold sway.