Bohannan Discusses Water Quality and Farming During Belva Deer Visit

BELVA DEER PARK – Congressional Candidate Christina Bohannan visited Belva Deer Park on Aug. 15, as part of a Rural Restoration Project listening tour of small southeastern Iowa communities. The focus of the Aug. 15 tour was on water quality in Iowa. During her Keokuk County Stop, Bohannan toured the watershed at Belva Deer Park and spoke with Keokuk County Conservation Board Executive Director Pie Reighard, Washington County USDA Natural Resources Conservation Office Director Tony Maxwell, and Washington County Watershed Coordinator Alan Brush.

Reighard showed Bohannan the prairie on a watershed hill above the north side of the lake that the conservation department maintains. He explained that Iowa’s native tall grasses are “the best filters in the world” and keep the lake “ultra clean.” Bohannan called the clarity at Belva Deer lake incredible, explaining that a lot of Iowa waterways have serious pollution problems and that it is great to see such a clean lake. Reighard stated it took a lot of work to keep the lake clean.

Brush stated that a lot of work had to go into Belva Deer before the artificial lake was built, which prevented it from having a lot of the erosion problems other lakes in Iowa suffer from. Maxwell brought up Lake Darling, located in Washington County near Brighton, and stated that the DNR had had to spend millions to enhance its water quality. Brush explained that Lake Darling was opened in the 1950s, when it was surrounded by vegetation and pastures. He stated that, in the 1980s, when the land surrounding the lake was converted to farmland for crops, the lake was destroyed, with 40 out of 300 acres being filled with grass and sediment. He stated it took years of funding and the building of dams and terraces to revamp the lake.

Bohannan stated she wanted to see more funding for parks and conservation and that the government was not currently funding what people had voted for. She stated that Iowa should be a destination for outdoor recreation.

Reighard stated that the key to clean water was the conservation department owning the watershed, noting that it had been a struggle to obtain when the park was founded. Bohannan asked what she could do in congress to make things better for conservation departments. Maxwell stated that legislators control their budgets. He noted that government funding had helped to grow cover crops in the watershed, which help with erosion and suck up nitrogen, keeping it out of lakes and rivers. Bohannan said farmers she had spoken with were on board with the idea of growing cover crops, but struggled to grow them while already struggling to make it from year to year. Maxwell stated that, with government funding, conservation departments can help pay the expenses for cover crops. Bohannan brought up the idea of putting cover crop funding into the farm bill.

Bohannan stated that the federal government needed to end the dysfunction and get the farm bill passed, and that passing it was the number one job for any Iowa representative. Maxwell noted that the farm bill also includes nutrition programs like SNAP, which causes deadlock over the bill. Reighard asked if it would be possible to split nutrition programs off of the farm bill. Bohannan stated that was a difficult question, because adding nutrition programs to the farm bill was a compromise to get it passed years ago. She stated that nutritional programs were uncontroversial for years, but are controversial now. She stated that the important thing was getting the farm bill passed and that she would sign anything within reason to do so. Maxwell stated that nutrition programs could be an advantage for the farm bill, because the number of people in agriculture are dwindling and having another piece of the bill be supported by other groups could help maintain funding. He noted that delays are difficult, saying farmers couldn’t wait years for another bill. Bohannan stated that farming was already precarious and that the uncertainty around the farm bill made things worse. She stated it hurt not just farmers, but everyone in Iowa, because of how much of Iowa’s economy is connected to farming.

Bohannan stated she believed farmers want to clean up water, but also have to make a living and struggle to invest in water quality measures in the short term. Maxwell stated that landowners also invest a lot in conservation and that people forget that. Bohannan asked about out of state investors buying farmland. Maxwell stated that, with land prices increasing so much from year to year, there was a ton of investment, but that Iowa would have problems once the investors pull out. Reighard said that rising land prices hurt generational farms. Bohannan stated that farmers she had spoken to are struggling to pay their rents.

Reighard stated it was becoming nearly impossible for the next generation to inherit or buy farmland and that many farmers won’t pay off their land in their lifetimes. Maxwell stated that Stepped-up basis tax code was very important and that without it family farms would die. Bohannan stated that we need to allow the next generation to take over, because the alternative is worse. Maxwell said the alternative was corporate farming, which he feels will turn Iowa into a big factory, and that the family unit was the best caretaker for the land. Reighard stated that corporate farmers will destroy the land. Bohannan stated that out of state investors don’t have to answer to their family or neighbors. Maxwell stated that family farmers don’t tear up the land, because they have their grandparents looking down on them and their kids to take over after them, and that family farmers want to keep the land as good and productive as possible. Bohannan stated that her grandparents were farmers and that her father had wanted to take over, but could never make it work, something that her grandmother was always sad about.

After touring the watershed, Bohannan attended a fundraiser dinner at the park put on by the Keokuk County Democratic Party. In a speech, Bohannan described growing up in a mobile home in a 700 person town. She said her family didn’t vote or talk about politics, but were forced to start caring about politics when her father became ill with emphysema. Bohannan explained that her father’s health insurance was canceled, causing her family to lose everything and be forced to choose between groceries and prescription drugs.

She stated that a big problem with both parties is a refusal to do anything for the people they represent, if it will give the other party a win. She stated that politics was about going out to the district, talking to people, and finding out how to make their lives better. She stated that her opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, had fallen into the trap of doing what special interest groups and corporate PACs tell her to do.

Bohannan stated that Miller-Meeks had voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate to lower drug prices and add a $35 cap on the out-of-pocket price of insulin. This was a reference to the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive spending bill championed by President Joe Biden that reformed drug prices, in addition to heavy spending on energy, climate change, affordable care subsidies, and an expansion of the IRS. Miller-Meeks voted against the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. In a press release sent out by the congresswoman after her vote, Miller-Meeks criticized the high price of the bill, the expansion of the IRS, and said it would allow the federal government to control drug pricing, which she argued would limit innovation and availability.

Bohannan claimed that Miller-Meeks voted the way she did because she had taken a quarter million from drug companies in the time she had been in congress. According to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign contributions, Miller-Meeks has received $262,201 from the health professional industry and $154,332 from the pharmaceutical industry during her current campaign. She had received $865,038 from health professionals and $196,812 from the pharmaceuticals industry over the course of her career. Over the same pair of elections, Bohannan has received $167,767 for health professionals and none from the pharmaceutical industry. The biggest donor for both candidates is the retired industry, with Miller-Meeks also receiving heavy investment from the securities and investment industry and Bohannan receiving heavy investment from the education industry.

Bohannan stated that America needed politicians willing to swallow their pride and work with the other party if they have to to help the people they represent. She stated that she had stepped up to her own party back in June when she called for Joe Biden to step aside.

She stated that she believes women ought to be able to control their own bodies, calling it a freedom Americans had for half a century. She stated that Roe v. Wade’s protections should be reinstated as federal law.

Bohannan claimed that, to her disappointment, the State of Iowa had disinvested in public education. She brought up a previous tour, where she spoke to rural educators, and stated they were distraught with what Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds had done to public educators. She noted that one educator had told her it felt like the state was trying to shut down small schools, and that Bohannan saw that as the logical result of disinvestment. Bohannan stated that public education had changed her life and that she owed every opportunity she’d received to public education and public school teachers. Bohannan stated that, in the 90s, people moved to Iowa because it had the best schools in the country, and that Iowa needs to return to that.

Bohannan mentioned a television ad she had produced, which featured local farmer Nick Wehr and his daughter Jolie playing her father and her respectively in a recreation of a scene from her childhood, where her father taught her how to hunt. Bohannan stated that she had grown up hunting and fishing, and that people were shocked she was a Democrat. She stated that her father had given her her gun before he died and that no one would take it away from her, and that lawful gun ownership was important to her.