Supervisors receive info on new conservation project

By: 
Rob Maharry

 

A former teacher who has recently taken a strong interest in preserving a local waterway spoke to the Grundy County Board of Supervisors about his new project, the Black Hawk Creek Water and Soil Coalition, on Monday morning.
 
Clark Porter, now a resident of Waterloo, grew up around the creek, which runs through Grundy County before emptying into the Cedar River, and his family owns land near Reinbeck. The watershed that it sits over covers 217,000 acres and supplies water to both the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area and Cedar Rapids, and Porter noted that he has observed issues such as increased flooding, sedimentation and levels of chloride, E. coli and, periodically, nutrient runoff during some of his recent visits.
 
“Everybody’s aware of what happened in Des Moines, and no one wants that to happen again,” he said, in reference to the recently dismissed Des Moines Water Works lawsuit against three counties in northwest Iowa over high nitrate levels. “I simply want to listen and communicate and speak with everybody who has some stake in it.”
 
According to Porter, his short-term goal is to make contacts with both farmers and public and private entities concerned with water quality while promoting better conservation practices, including an upcoming trash pickup event on Earth Day in Waterloo.
 
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