Big Ag, Iowa DNR, Money, Power and once in a century destruction of land and water.

It’s funny how we (humans) think we live in the age of enlightenment, have learned our hard lessons from our forefathers, and swear never to make the same mistakes again. But history would prove us otherwise. It seems like we learn something for a moment, but you know that old saying about history repeating itself.

I like to think there is something special about the time we are living in that causes these obvious mistakes to be made, but that’s not true. Money, power, Big Agriculture, corruption, and misused government bodies have wreaked havoc since Roman times. Here we are again today, in the Year of our Lord 2025, staring down the barrel of absolute destruction of our natural resources while the average person goes about their life without a clue. I’m not blaming them.

I have never considered myself a hippie or tree hugger; in fact, like many, I looked down on such shenanigans as unhelpful. But things change, and people change; I suppose I have changed; maybe I’m just a victim of the times in which I live.

My upbringing from a small child to the life I live today, was and is, totally overtaken by a love and desire to be in the outdoors. I can remember rambling for hours through Iowa’s State Parks or one of the thousands of county parks that dot our great state. Nothing has changed, in fact, I probably spent even more time in the great outdoors.

On a weekly basis I ride bikes with my family on the trail systems, take my young daughters to explore public lands and rivers, I hunt and fish almost every season and kind of animal that walks these forests and swims these waters. I’ve found myself reading well known authors and books like A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir.

The difference is now I can relate them and the problems they wrote about, you know what else? I realized something myself and these great authors. They were not some crazy haired hippies chaining themselves to trees. People like Aldo Leopold owned their farms, cut down trees, and generally were extremely normal people. They simply loved the great outdoors and recognized the beauty of trees, plants, water, animals … how they make our lives enjoyable and better.

They recognized that unless you stop the average person on the average rat race who is to0 busy to look up, that they won’t see the beauty that surrounds them and small simple steps that need to be taken to protect it all from … us.

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect”
– Aldo Leopold

“Nothing truly wild is unclean.”
– John Muir

It’s easy to see such quotes and think big picture, like some National Park, and while that is true, when reading these books and going on a bike ride along the Des Moines river … it’s obvious that the nature we use and ignore is very personal. It’s in our own backyard, it’s on that small piece of public land that is 1 mile from your front door.

Iowa’s definite steps towards natural destruction.

I never thought I would live to see the day where I could physically see and watch the actual dismantling of this beautiful prairie Midwest state I call home. It’s something that happens in movies, books, or somewhere else … not right here.

Things that make no sense, that simply reek of special privilege, power, agriculture and a hatred for public lands. I mean if you have some other way to describe what is happening, I’m open to hearing it.

• Iowa DNR blocked from buying public land at auction.
  • something so stupid you couldn’t make it up if you tried
• the ability to destroy wetlands at will.
• Iowa DNR trying to offload State Parks onto counties.
• EPA added seven rivers to imparied water list and the Iowa DNR arguing about it.
  • imagine being silly enough to think that Iowa’s waterways are clean
• Iowa Senators doing funny stuff, cattle operations, and polluting trout streams
• 2300 acres of what few forests Iowa has torched and burned to the ground
• Iowa DNR abandoned our public lands and letting them be trashed
• Iowa government trying to kill the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Fund
  • the pinnacle of political corruption
• Almost on a monthly cadence manure and chemical spills into waterways
• Iowa’s Prairie Chicken Day canceled because of population decline
  • yes, we still live in a time when we are literally killing of species an don’t care

Least you think I’m blaming the “powers that be,” although it’s clear the agenda is the systematic take down of anything related to public lands and water, I place 50% of the blame at the feet of the everyday Iowan. Why? Because I spend an inordinate amount of time in the outdoors and based on the amount of trash and destruction I see no matter where I go, it’s clear most people simply do not care.

Let’s take probably one of the most visited State Parks in the Des Moines metro for example, Big Creek State Park. I’ve been visiting there since I was a child. If you go out there on some random weekday in the summer you would notice a few things.

• Shoreline is littered with trash that has clearly piling up over the years.
• A playground that hasn’t been mulched in years and is falling apart.
• Most of the bathrooms located all around the park are closed and have been for many years.
• Actual nature hiking trails (not paved) that have been abandoned and overgrown.
• Fish kills (yes I’ve seen hundreds+ fish dead and floating to shore within the last year).
• DNR personal cruising around in new Ram Heavy Duty 3500 dually trucks.
  • (no not hauling, just driving around)

How is it even possible to overcome such an array of circumstances that are all trying to drain the life out of what was one such a beautiful oasis in the metro? It’s basically impossible. The average user of the State Park who throws trash on the ground combined with DNR personal who won’t even buy mulch for a playground while driving around a $100,000+ plus truck while trash piles up for literally years, nature doesn’t have chance.

Either the average outdoor user has to care, or the person “in charge” of keeping those outdoor spaces has to care. If neither of them do … no one is left to avoid the natural destruction that will occur with human use.

One might ask, like me, how is it that in the enlighten age we live in, regardless of your political persuasion, that common sense has left the collective mind of everyone and we literally CANCEL a State wide celebration of a bird that once represented the great prairie state we live in … AND NO BLINKS???? It’s like a story from a Dr. Seuss book.

The bleak future.

The truth is the trend is going in the wrong direction and will probably continue to do so until some unforeseeable and bad circumstance in the future that is too hard to ignore. Waterways will continue to become more and more polluted. Our public lands will continue to become more and more rundown and trashed. The powers that be will continue to whittle away and hobble anything that resembles working towards clean and beautiful public lands.

The average midwesterner will continue to be wonderfully oblivious to the actual water quality numbers of the creek or river that flows a mile from their house. They will visit a State Park once or twice a summer with some friends for a picnic and leave again without a second thought, they might notice the rundown facilities for a moment or two, pilled up trash, but that will be long gone from their mind by Monday morning.

It’s been going on since Aldo Leopold sat on his farm writing about how his forebears destroyed everything around them. But, you know, change happens one person at a time. You start with your own household, whatever you can do in your own small way. One bag of trash picked up goes a long way, and teaches that that do it, and those that see it done, that the future might be bleak, but it’s never lost.