Legislative Representative
2013 Legislative Session (4/30/2013)
The 2013 legislative session began in January with few changes from the previous General Assembly. Democrats retained control of the Senate and Republicans retained control of the House, albeit with a closer margin. There were twelve new senators and twenty-six new members in the House.
The centerpiece issues remain largely the same as in the last legislative session – commercial property tax relief and education reform. Legislators begin the session with a healthy budget balance and stronger growth in state revenues. This sets the battle for funding issues as Democrats seek to restore significant funding cuts to their priorities and Republicans seek to further reduce the tax burden on Iowans and Iowa businesses while maintaining control over spending increases.
At the time of this article, the Legislature is two-thirds away from the statutory conclusion of the legislative session. The two key issues facing rural water systems and small communities are related to the drought and to territorial issues related to the interaction of growing communities and the presence of rural water systems.
Drought Management & Water Conservation
IRWA joined with other water utility groups to support efforts to improve the state’s system to study and understand water needs and recovery from the drought. SF 307 is an appropriations bill that would support a number of initiatives to improve monitoring of water quantity and provide improved mapping of water sources to help communities, industry, agriculture and water supply systems. This initiative includes:
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF AQUIFER MONITORING NETWORK for the measurement of water levels in the existing aquifer monitoring well system to allow for creating new and updating existing models utilizing groundwater level monitoring and for the analysis and dissemination of this information using a web based system. This work will cost $60,000 annually with a one time cost of $25,000 for a total of $85,000.
GROUNDWATER SOURCE MAPPING AND AQUIFER MODELING FOR WATER SUPPLY PREDICTION to produce enhanced mapping of groundwater sources for community, agricultural, and industrial use including alluvial and other sand and gravel aquifers, to enable community, agricultural, and industrial water users to track the status of shallow water table levels, and both shallow and deep groundwater aquifers, and to provide an early warning system for water supply problems. This work cost $150,000 annually.
WATER CONSERVATION TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE to provide technical assistance for drought and water conservation planning for community and other water supplies. The department shall obtain water conservation plans (including both short term and long term plans) over the next ten years from all permitted users (excluding storage allocations) and will require regular periodic updating of those plans thereafter. This work will cost $250,000 in one time funding.
SOIL MOISTURE, WEATHER, AND SHALLOW WATER TABLE OBSERVATION NETWORK for the installation of a network of hydrologic monitoring stations capable of collecting weather data, multi-level soil moisture data, and shallow groundwater level information. This network will be developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) and integrated into a web-based hydrologic information system at a cost of $ 475,000.
MAINTENANCE OF SOIL MOISTURE, WEATHER, AND SHALLOW GROUNDWATER NETWORK for the maintenance of a network of hydrologic monitoring stations and for the maintenance of an electronic system for making the information from that system available in real-time. This work will cost $ 75,000 annually.
Territorial Issues Between Cities and Rural Water Systems
The Legislature considered legislation that attempted to better define the relationship between cities and rural water systems. The House has legislation active that would place further limits on the activities of rural water systems within two miles of an incorporated city limit. This bill was an attempt to resolve disputes between a handful of cities and one rural water district but would have statewide impact if enacted.
The legislation attempts to set parameters on the amount of compensation that a rural water system would receive if a city sought to take over existing rural water territory. These parameters would allow a city to compensate a rural water system for the pipes in the ground and ten years of revenue. This fails to consider the other improvements to the system to provide service in that territory, future growth in the territory or the fact that rural water loans are 40-year loans that use revenue as collateral. In addition, the legislation require any rural water service within two miles of a city to include fire suppression capacity, the ability to meet any future water needs and have competitive rates. As of this writing, the bill sits on the House debate calendar but appears to have insufficient support to move forward.
Emily Piper
DC Water Rally - Feb 11-13th
Iowa had eight representatives in attendance at the NRWA Water Rally — Randy Pleima, Mahaska Rural Water System, Jim LaPlant, Central Iowa Water Association, Randy Van Dyke, Robert and Audrey Peton, Cole Heikens, Iowa Lakes Regional Water, Rodney Holben, City of Pisgah and Greg Huff, IRWA. Jim Auen with Lewis and Clark Rural Water System also accompanied the Iowa delegation to some of the meetings.
As luck would have it, the Iowa group was able to visit with five out of the six members of Iowa’s Congressional Delegation - see photos below. IRWA’s delegation focused on the successes of the federal technical assistance programs in Iowa and advocated for continued funding for these programs for FY13 and FY14. Funding commitments were also sought for the USDA WEP Loan and Grant Program and the Water and Wastewater State Revolving Fund loan programs.
Click on photo below to view a larger image. Slideshow presentation is also available.
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Iowa's delegation meeting with Senator Charles Grassley |
Iowa's delegation meeting with Senator Tom Harkin |
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Iowa's delegation meeting with Congressman Steve King |
Iowa's delegation meeting with Congressman Tom Latham |
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Iowa's delegation meeting with Congressman Dave Loebsack |