Iowa faces a reckoning over water quality and cancer rates in midterm campaigns

Water pollution and cancer have moved to the center of Iowa's midterm campaigns, drawing attention from candidates of both parties at every level of the ballot. Agriculture is a pillar of the state's economy, and talk of farm runoff was once largely avoided for that reason. That has changed after consecutive years of water-use limits around Des Moines and a rural health movement echoing the national "Make America Healthy Again" cause, according to ABC News.

Only one state has a higher rate of new cancer diagnoses than Iowa, and prostate, breast and lung cases are climbing faster here than nationwide. University of Iowa researchers, funded by the state, found that smoking, binge drinking and demographics explain most, though not all, of the elevated rates for five cancers. Their next step is looking at environmental causes such as nitrates. Some studies connect nitrates in drinking water to disease, but the Environmental Protection Agency does not treat them as a cancer risk.

Democrat Josh Turek, challenging Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for the Senate, calls clean tap water a basic expectation. Hinson says the water meets federal rules. Gov. Kim Reynolds backed another $320 million in May.

Summarized by PolitiKool from ABC News’s reporting. Read the full story at ABC News →