Iowa DNR is Destroying our Trout Streams and Abandoning our Public Land

In another unsurprising move for the state of Iowa in regards to our limited and already shakey natural resources, yet another pride and joy has slipped into a putrid state of disrepair and neglect. As if the degradation of our soil and water to a ridiculous state isn’t enough, we have to add this to the list as well.

What do you ask? Iowa’s once beautiful trout streams in the fabled Driftless area are the latest victim of our state’s inability and unwillingness to be a caretaker to public land and waters.

“The DNR manages fish and wildlife programs, ensures the health of Iowa’s forests and prairies, and provides recreational opportunities in Iowa’s state parks. Just as importantly, the DNR carries out state and federal laws that protect air, land and water through technical assistance, permitting and compliance programs.” – DNR website.

Let me paint you a picture.

So you live in a Midwest state, well known for its bad water quality and simple lack of care for most public lands and water.  But, it has one gem left, a slice of heaven that hasn’t been destroyed by agriculture and the constant human expansion of the rest of the state. The well-known Driftless Area.

“The Driftless Area is a unique region in the Upper Midwest of the United States, primarily covering parts of southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and a small portion of northwestern Illinois. What makes this region distinct is its lack of glacial drift, the debris left behind by retreating glaciers. As a result, the area features deeply carved river valleys, rugged hills, and bluffs that contrast with the surrounding glaciated regions.”

This area is home to a plethora of recreating opportunities that many would not connect with the Midwest or Iowa.

• Kayaking and canoeing beautiful streams, rivers, and lakes surrounded by forests and rock formations.
• Hiking and exploring.
• Trout fishing mecca.
• Camping.
• Sightseeing and shopping charming small towns.

For decades or more this area is been, and is, a draw for many people stuck in the endless sea of corn and bean fields, who with a few hours’ drive, can have an outdoor adventure paradise at the tip of their fingers.

What is happening to our outdoor paradise?

Let me paint you another picture. Say you take your family, a young child who you’ve told about this outdoor paradise full of trails, trout, and beauty. You decide to plan a weekend or a Saturday to take that few-hour trip and introduce them to what you expect to be a paradise that you remember.

You do the drive, stop at Casey’s for some junk food, and finally arrive at your destination. You’ve arrived at one of the many trout streams and public lands of a few hundred acres managed by the DNR for the pleasure and consumption of persons like yourself.

Something is wrong from the start.

The first thing you notice when pulling into the parking lot, something that punches you right in the face and makes you wonder what you’re in for, is the dilapidated and abandoned nature of the parking lot.

Overgrown graveled parking lot that hasn’t been touched in years. Cut by ruts of vehicles and water, clearly, you have to carefully wind your way into the overgrown grass and worry if you’ll blow a tire trying to make it back out again.

The place looks like it’s been abandoned for the last 10 years, potholed and overgrown doesn’t bode well for what’s next. You pile out of the car, excited to finally arrive at your destination. 

Your heart sinks as you get your fishing and hiking gear and try to peek over the head-high weeds that have overgrown the trail leading in and obscure any view of this supposed DNR-managed trout stream.

It just gets worse from there.

The concert poured long ago for the handicapped access and family-friendly area for fishing is a broken and overgrown, not just a long-forgotten memory of the distant past.

You keep pushing forward.

Since you came all this way you kept going forward, hopeful but worried about the rest of what lies ahead of you. It’s all the same except worse.

• The sides of the streams have turned to mud and been destroyed by beaver and mink. It looks worse than an urban dirt trail along the stream. It’s ugly and the dirt flows freely into the stream. 
• The stream itself is plugged up with piles of trees and brush from years of neglect. 
• The rock formations and banks that were put in to help control the environment are all but gone.
• Any vestige of a hiking trail is long gone, blocked, and choked out by trees and brush.

It is barely traversable by a hardened outdoors person, let alone a normal person or heaven forbid a family trying to enjoy this place.

Those trout you came looking for? Good luck. It’s clear those DNR folk who are supposedly taking care of these resources haven’t touched anything for years.

This isn’t particular to the Driftless Region of Iowa either, just go visit a State Park near you and you will see the same thing. Nothing is more obvious than the fact that the DNR, whatever they might be doing, are NOT spending their time shepherding Iowa’s outdoor resources for us.

They simply don’t care.

We aren’t asking for much, we are simply asking them to provide and care for outdoor recreation areas so the current residents can raise and share the great outdoors with the next generation!

Oh you say, you’re overflowing the situation, it’s not all that bad, the DNR must be doing something. You are right, they are.

They are approving Cattle feedlots in the middle of our prime Driftless region right next to these areas.

Yes, they are up to something all right.

The DNR has literally abandoned the last vestige of outdoor paradise left in the State.  They have turned their eyes away and simply DO NOT CARE ANYMORE. If you talk to someone, anyone, in the DNR who would argue with you that they DO CARE and THEY DO TAKE CARE of our resources … you can do one simple thing.

Ask them the last time they simply took care of a parking lot that is the gateway to some public area in our Driftless Region. You can see the obvious in the every day mundane. If they are letting the simple infrastructure fall to rack and ruin to simply be able to access these public areas … how much time do you think they are spending to take care of those public areas themselves???

It’s not rocket science people. The DNR has failed you.