Host Ben Kieffer speaks with director of IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering Larry Weber about the implications if we no longer track water quality and the effort to fund the network of 60 sensors across the state.

Elliot Anderson, Jerald Schnoor, and Larry Weber participated in an event called Our Water, Our Future. It provided an in-depth look at the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment, which studied central Iowa’s Des Moines and Raccoon watersheds.

Larry Weber from the UI Center for Hydrologic Development said residents felt the impact of increased pollution this summer. “This summer, the nitrate levels were above 20 milligrams per liter, more than double the safe water drinking levels,” Weber said. “When we go back 50 years, the nitrate levels were one to 3 milligrams per liter.”

The University of Iowa College of Engineering has received a $7.7 million gift from alumnus Richard "Dick" and Judy Smith to endow the deanship as the Dick and Judy Smith Dean of the College of Engineering and support facility enhancements.

The annual awards from the College of Engineering and University of Iowa recognize excellence and longevity in faculty and staff members

UI engineering professor Larry Weber, director of IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering, said as of now, Polk County’s contribution is “year-by-year” funding. “They can't commit to multiple years, but we will need this on an annual basis going forward,” Weber said. “I'm hopeful that this type of funding would serve as bridge funding until we can convince the legislature that, in fact, it should be funded by the Iowa Legislature.”

“I don’t know that we ever envisioned the scope, scale, intensity, and complexity of [farm chemical] mixtures that we use here in Iowa,” said David Cwiertny, director of the UI’s Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination. “Mixture toxicity is something we just don’t understand very well—and Iowa is one big mixture of chemicals.”

The county is providing about $200,000 to UI's Hydroscience and Engineering (IIHR) statewide water quality monitoring program, saying "what the University of Iowa is putting out is world-renowned.” UI engineering professor and IIHR director Larry Weber said “this is vitally important that we keep a decade-long program of water quality monitoring going.”

The Iowa Geological Survey is on year three of a five-year, legislatively directed initiative to assess levees across the state to help the state Office of Levee Safety to prioritize funding for repairs on the structures that help prevent flood damage.

UI engineering professor and Iowa Flood Center Interim Director Larry Weber shared how shutdowns impact his and colleagues' federally-funded research.