DES MOINES, Iowa — On Tuesday, Central Iowa Water Works announced that both the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers recorded nitrate levels below 10 mg/L for the first time in weeks.
For nearly a month a lawn watering ban has been in place for customers served by Central Iowa Water Works after source waters, the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, reached near record levels of nitrates. Officials with CIWW said the ban was necessary to ensure that water treatment plants could produce enough water that met the Environmental Protection Agency’s safe drinking standard for nitrates, which is 10 mg/L of nitrates or less.
CIWW Executive Director Tami Madsen said the ban has been successful, as it has reduced the strain on treatment plants by cutting demand by roughly 30%. Before the ban was implemented nitrate removal facilities had already been working at full capacity for several months, with peak demand at roughly 70 to 80 million gallons of water a day…