MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — For Megan Lane, concerns about drinking water are part of her everyday life. She lives in Slater in the central part of this swing state and has had several instances where the nitrate levels were too high, prompting officials to advise against drinking tap water.
Her choices: buy expensive bottled water or invest in a reverse osmosis filtration system that costs generally $1,000 to $4,800 in a tough economy, despite both adults in her household holding full-time jobs.
Slater, a town of around 1,500 residents and about 10 miles south of Ames, has no grocery stores, meaning that Lane needed to remember to purchase water before making the roughly 20-minute drive home from work her workplace in Ames. “If I get home and my water bottle is empty, then you really are forced into really no healthy options,” Lane said.
At Dog-Eared Books in Ames, Lane spends her day shelving books, talking to customers and introducing book recommendations. At home, she faced another responsibility of budgeting upon the concern of water.
The household had “a very significant conversation” about money before getting the reverse osmosis system, which also will come with ongoing expenses of replacement and system maintenance.
“I feel very privileged because we have the ability to afford a reverse osmosis system,” Lane said. “But I know that not everyone in Slater or even in any community will be able to afford those investments.”
According to a 2025 report from Central Iowa Source Water Resource Assessment, nitrate levels in central Iowa are among the highest in the nation.
Walking through communities in Iowa, conversations with residents revealed a shared insecurity in water use, from agricultural chemicals seeping into drinking water to the environmental costs of emerging data centers. Water has been an issue in midterm elections as well, with Iowa a critical state that will determine the balance of power in Washington.
“Industrial agriculture has been poisoning Iowa waters for years — this year, the issue is coming to a head with record numbers of beach closures, record waterway nitrate contamination, and sky-high cancer rates,” Jennifer Breon, the senior Iowa organizer of Food and Water Action, said in a statement. The organization is the political and lobbying arm of a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit environmental and consumer rights advocacy organization.
Breon noted the connection between cancer rates and water. Iowa has the second-highest rate of cancer in the country and is one of a few states that has rising rates of cancer.
“Heightened awareness of Iowa’s cancer crisis has only further forced the water quality issue this year,” Breon said. “With the research clearer than ever that Iowa’s high and rising cancer rates are linked to the agricultural chemicals in our drinking water.”
“I am very concerned about the water quality. I mean, it’s always been crap, to be honest,” said Emily Hoy, an employee at Fizz & Fiction in Marshalltown, a shop offering books, dirty sodas and games.
Citing a recent Polk County report, Breon noted that 80% of Des Moines source rivers’ nitrate pollution was linked to industrial agriculture. “Barely any of this pollution is regulated, monitored or restricted,” Breon said.
The expansion of data centers in Iowa has raised debates among residents on their potential impact. The state currently owns 116 data centers, but not all Iowans welcome them.
In Marshalltown, opponents of data center construction called on residents to attend a community meeting with a flyer headlined “No New Data Centers Marshalltown!” It described concerns about rapid expansion of data centers and pressure on finite resources, inviting community members to connect and learn strategies to prevent data center development and stop existing projects.
When asked about the proposed data center, Hoy expressed uncertainty about supporting it and questioned why it needed to be built in this community. Hoy said more research was needed to better understand the project and why the location had been chosen.
Alexis Hrbek, who moved from Estherville to Story County in June, held a strong opposition to the construction of the data center. Speaking at a playground in Ames with her child, Hrbek voiced her concerns about the project’s potential harm based on what she saw on the news across the state.
“They’re sucking up all of our water… and with how hot data center waters are, that’s gonna kill all the organisms and fish and all that, and that’s gonna disrupt our ecosystem in so many ways. And I think data centers are gonna poison our way of life, and I don’t want that,” Hrbek said.
While some Iowans worry about the environmental consequences of data centers, others, with a cautious optimism, point to the state’s abundant open land as one reason it has become an attractive destination for these facilities.
“Oh, we have a lot of open land. Yeah, so that makes us a good target,” said Mary Whisenand, a resident in Polk County. While she said she has no issues with the data centers, “some guardrails are not out of line.”
“We do need to make sure they’re not pulling resources that are needed elsewhere,” she said. “But if they can show that that’s what they’re doing, let them build it.”
With water a top issue, it puts pressure on the politicians seeking to lead Iowa.
In early October, Rep. Ashley Hinson met with community stakeholders at the West Des Moines City Hall to discuss water quality, inviting farmers, landowners, researchers and parents to share challenges and facilitate collaborations. The Republican, who is running for U.S. Senate, said water quality is not a partisan issue.
Ashley Hinson talks about water quality issues at the roundtable. (Photo by Leo Li)
“I think it is an American issue, and we should be addressing it with common sense solutions,” Hinson said during the event. She added that she had “partners on both sides of the aisle” and would continue working on the solution in Washington D.C.
Suzi Murphy attended the round table as a landowner and a mom. After the discussion she said she felt optimistic. “There’s more light shed upon this issue, and more people are concerned than ever. And so, with that expanse in awareness of our water problem, I think we’re getting there.”
“We need more education and more transparency to show that we are actually taking firm steps, and that our water is safe, so we can send our kids outside and feel good about the future,” Murphy said.
Hinson’s rival, Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, has also made water issues a key campaign priority. They are locked in a Tossup race for the seat, which likely will be determinative of which party controls the Senate.
During their debate on Oct 13, Turek described the water crisis as deeply personal, citing his grandmother’s death from pancreatic cancer, his father’s exposure to Agent Orange and his sister’s stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis.
Turek also claimed that Hinson has pulled $33 million in relevant research, voted four times to weaken the Clean Water Act and taken thousands of dollars from Chinese companies while seeking to provide them legal immunity.
In an August speech, Turek acknowledged that the water quality is tied with the state’s cancer crisis, proposing solutions including more infrastructure for nitrate renewable plants and more incentives to farmers for land barriers and cover crops.
At Iowa State University, Catherine Delong and her colleagues have long worked on the other main source of drinking water in Iowa besides the public water supplies: private wells.
“About 230,000 Iowans rely on private wells as their drinking water source,” explained Delong, water quality program manager at ISU Extension and Outreach. “Private wells are very different than public water systems in that they are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It is entirely the responsibility of the landowner to test their well and to make sure it’s safe — there are no state or federal requirements for testing or mitigating private well contaminants.”
Through its Private Well Stewardship Program, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach has helped more than 1,000 private well owners understand these responsibilities and access resources to manage their wells.
Delong started her career in the 2010s. She recalled the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy and the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit, which helped water quality be front of mind for many Iowans.
“Water quality is certainly a big issue, and it is good to see people vetting candidates based on their valuation of water quality,” said Delong. “But, our state has struggled with these issues for a long time.”