Opinion: Keeping meat plants running can hurt small towns' failing water systems; residents end up paying unfair share

Art Cullen

Meat processing plants use tremendous amounts of water, and in rural towns where water systems need an overhaul, that's a problem. When the Federal Emergency Management Agency doesn't have the funding to intervene, residents have to cover an unfair share of the water bill, Iowa editor Art Cullen writes in his Storm Lake Times Pilot opinion, "Storm Lake gets sucked dry so the world gets cheap meat."

"For the second time in two years, the city's application to the FEMA to rescue our failing water system was rejected," Cullen writes. "That means Storm Lakers are likely to pay a disproportionate share of more than $80 million in improvements — including a $15 million water line that runs to Tyson Foods' pork plant.

"Tyson just signed a water service agreement with Storm Lake under which it will pay for a new water tower. Other capital improvements, like that water main, will be shared by everyone. Residential users already pay a higher rate than industrial consumers. The city is hiking rates 7% on all classes, but the compounding effect is greater on the higher rate payers — the folks who take a shower after work.

"Storm Lake has huge water needs for a town its size. That's because it's a protein center for the world. The pork plant is one of the Top 10 in America. The turkey plant draws from three states. Our little town is expected to float the boat so the world gets cheap pork and abundant deli meat. . . . This summer, when RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) rolled through with 40,000 thirsty bikers, two of our wells failed.

"FEMA says it's out of cash from mounting climate casualties. Storm Lake is out in the cold. That's what it boils down to. FEMA is strapped — Maui is expensive. So is Florida. We get that. You would think that one of the helpful folks at the regional office in Kansas City could hook us up with someone friendly at the Department of Agriculture, where there might be some of that climate-smart ag money that could be routed through Tyson. We already are routing millions of climate-smart ag funds through Tyson so it can address the water needs of the beef industry. How about Storm Lake gets a little piece of that pie?

"All the money flows out of Storm Lake while we local yokels are expected to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and not drink so much water. We will pay higher and higher rates . . . to feed the agri-industry. Could we get a thank-you, at least?"