Dr. Larry Weber (00:00.448) able to do whatever you want whenever you want, to noticing a change there and then your sixties is like, yeah, it's another kind of step function. And I would say I mean I'm still really active. Nicolas Lirio (00:10.977) Well. Dr. Larry Weber (00:13.492) Budget change. Nicolas Lirio (00:14.37) Winston Churchill, that was his big thing. He said it gave it him his edge. He was addicted to being efficient with his own body's energy. Bla la. I'm gonna leave those in and tell everyone that was you, Kent. Nicolas Lirio (00:34.126) Dude, did you see it was a few weeks ago but I put your like a weird intro together for our podcast. Did you hear that? No. It was like we like it was like us coughing several times in a way in a row and then you go, yeah, we're done. Anyway. Kent Boucher (00:49.73) Yeah, I did I did notice that. I felt very proud. It was because you were sleepy and you didn't want to edit one more thing. That's why you did that. Kent Boucher (01:01.337) really? Nicolas Lirio (01:01.742) Are you listening to those guys again? Kent Boucher (01:06.03) They're goofy. Yeah, we are goofy. We are very goofy. We have to be to tolerate each other. Nick and Nick and I lock lock horns often. And it is it is it is funny because nobody else really locks horns with us. Dr. Larry Weber (01:12.878) Yeah, it's been doing it for Nicolas Lirio (01:24.482) Let's have work. And Kent will be like one time Kent's like my partner, right? So technically I'm in charge, but I run almost everything by Kent. And I had to have a hard conversation with someone else that we work with. And this won't be in the pod. yeah. Nicholas pulled us out. But No no no no no Kent was like you j you need to just tread very light, like be very careful. was like, Kent. Kent Boucher (01:44.758) Is it gonna be funny? I don't know. Nicolas Lirio (01:52.642) I'm very kind and careful with every w you're the only person on the team that I like really go after ever. All right. I'm gonna do my double check 'cause you just never know and I So Nicolas Lirio (02:08.446) Of course attacking ISU or University of Iowa. Talking about there was something else I was thinking that we need to make sure we need to kind of just avoid in general. Kent Boucher (02:20.878) Well we don't wanna burn any political bridges because you still have to play the game. Dr. Larry Weber (02:26.006) Th that that's right. And I'm happy to talk about the session and things around it, you know, but I'm not going to work with these people. Yeah, I've got to work with these people. So and and we've gotten some support on both parties and you know, there's some real champions out there, but they're challenges. So Nicolas Lirio (02:41.102) If you want something edited out, physically say it because I will actually just run this through an auto scriptor and then it will literally say these are when you were told to edit things out instead of me watching every second and trying to so like I just did there, like Nicholas edited this out. Kent Boucher (02:56.778) Or just talk about Nick's body weight. That's what Dr. Larry Weber (02:59.816) Yeah, that's a that's a code word. Nicolas Lirio (03:01.772) I finally went to the doctor. Kent Boucher (03:04.718) You don't know the scale, do you? What? You don't know how to scale. It's got dust on it? Nicolas Lirio (03:08.514) We do, but I don't Nicolas Lirio (03:13.13) Okay. Not trying to be weird. My wife thinks that it's a better holistic way to track her cycle is to use a scale. So she regularly uses it. Kent Boucher (03:21.356) Well yeah, but it also works to track your body weight. Nicolas Lirio (03:23.52) I don't know. I don't I'm not trying dude, I there's some mirrors I just don't go near. The one outside the shower Kent Boucher (03:31.55) Yeah, if yeah, if you have a problem with your ego, you just need to put a bathroom mirror right outside the shower. And then you see that and you're like, Okay Nicolas Lirio (03:39.726) Wow, I am frumpy. Kent Boucher (03:42.734) I am hideous. You know you know that you know that white orc from Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (03:52.622) Nicholas keep this in. man. Well, you know the drill before we jump in. and we probably will do a little warm-up talking about your prairie eye, because that's just so cool. well if you do your name, title, and this is the prairie farm podcast, and I'll actually have you look at that little camera. That one's yours. Dr. Larry Weber (03:59.744) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (04:15.68) Okay, you want that now? Yeah. Yeah. Hi, I'm Larry Weber, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa and director of IIHR, Hydroscience and Engineering, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Nicolas Lirio (04:28.526) Awesome. So I announcement to our listeners, I am selling our coffee shop so that we can try and build a house like we're hanging out in now. Larry. Kent Boucher (04:29.24) Was perfect. Kent Boucher (04:40.206) I've never I've never seen Nicholas like like genuinely gushing over like and it's got this feature and it's got this. Yeah, this place is awesome. Nicolas Lirio (04:49.822) It's got everything you can possibly want. And it's it's roomy, but it's not b huge, you know. I I think when people have to make huge houses to feel when they have to build tons of square footage to actually feel inviting, it's because they're not good at interior design. I'm not good at interior design, but my wife holds a candle for it. And but this place you've got a real I wanted you just to describe your water system here, 'cause it's awesome. Dr. Larry Weber (05:15.398) Yeah, so we do rainwater capture off of the roof. and we have a fifteen hundred gallon cistern that we bring the water into that stores it outside underground, and then just a small well pump that brings it in through a pressure regulator into a pressure holding tank that kind of evens the pressure out. it goes through a coarse filter, then we chlorinate it, so it has a little residence time in a chlorine holding tank, a fine filter, and then through a UV light disinfectant to drinkable. And so we go from the rooftop to the ground and then through a a simple water treatment system to drinkable water here in the cabin. Kent Boucher (05:48.782) Cool. Is there is there like a distinct taste to to your water here compared to like in town or Nicolas Lirio (05:49.196) And I I Dr. Larry Weber (05:54.966) Well well certainly you know w we do moderate the chlorine holding time very carefully so there's no chlorine taste. and so it's a very neutrally tasting water. It's a very good water. It's also soft water because it's not being you know brought up through groundwater resources. So it's a very soft water as well. So we don't have any water softening here. Nicolas Lirio (06:16.534) What Knoxville's terrible and it's so bad that the plumbers like don't put a water softener in. Like that you replace it every other year. It's it's really terrible. Yeah. Yeah. well we get it from the Jordan Aquifer, and so I just imagine that's a lot of calcium in that. I I that's my assumption. I guess I haven't I haven't I should interview them. Shouldn't Kent Boucher (06:26.03) That's the cause. Kent Boucher (06:36.514) No. Yeah, that'd be interesting to know. Nicolas Lirio (06:38.656) I and I'm I'm not trying to dox how much you spent on it, but I asked him, it was way cheaper, by orders of magnitude cheaper to do everything he just said than I thought it would be. But I think you should invest in flavored roof tiles. Flavored water. Dr. Larry Weber (06:50.53) There's a Kent Boucher (06:53.102) I'll take another glass of bacon, please. Dr. Larry Weber (06:55.618) Well, you know, when when when we do fill the tank to to that point, Nicholas, oftentimes what we'll do is is we have a diverter so the water from the rooftop isn't continuously running through the s so through the cistern. So it diverts around it. When we need to fill it, my preference is for it to rain for a day or two, then divert over to filling the cistern and then we'll divert back away from it. Because there is some flavoring up there. imagine all the birds that fly through and come through. Nicolas Lirio (07:22.878) Yeah. Kent Boucher (07:23.096) A lot of mulberry this time of year. Dr. Larry Weber (07:24.942) You know, so so that's one one of the strategies, you know, towards doing rooftop water capture. Nicolas Lirio (07:31.594) Interesting. How often do you have to get up there and clean gutters? Dr. Larry Weber (07:34.51) Well we have screens on the gutters. so again to protect and also just to keep that you know heavy organic material out of the cistern. So we keep things clean and then there's another screen before it goes into the cistern should anything come through the gutter screen. Nicolas Lirio (07:47.946) How often do you have to get out and replace that one? Dr. Larry Weber (07:50.496) you know, that one is you know, just really close and local. So just a little spritz of water here and there, you know, to keep that clean, no problem. Interesting. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (08:00.738) Well, you have a beautiful prairie out here that the legend himself, Carl Kurtz, gave you or sold you seed for. And but what I was really amazed by is the diversity you have, because for anyone listening, Carl Kurtz doesn't only do this, but a major way he provides seed is he just goes into his field and harvests with a combine, and he'll give you a list of what was in the field, and a lot of times he'll say There was a lot of this. You should expect to see a lot of pale purple cone flower or a lot of lead plant or something of the sort. And y you've got a little bit of change in the topography from one spot's a prairie to the other. And it is fascinating seeing what is growing out there in the clay, clay areas. that was that was really but you planned like 14 years ago. And I I'm curious, everyone thinks that prairie people sell them sand the first couple of years. Were you Did you kinda understand it was gonna take forever or was there a Dr. Larry Weber (08:57.87) You know, we did. I mean we certainly had guidance in the process and you know my dear friend Connie Mutell who is a a true prairie prairie enthusiast was you know was able to help you know guide me through it and and we did regular mowings for the first two years to keep ahead of the weed pressure. it was planted following a soybean crop, so we had very little stover on the land. So we did hand seeding and then we had a cultimulture come through just to improve the soil seed contact. but it was hand seated in January. we did get snow later that year. and so there was, you know, I think just a really ideal time to get it seated. Yeah, that's it. Kent Boucher (09:35.63) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (09:37.442) Gosh, you know, if if being, you know, lucky the first time is a strategy, we were certainly lucky because it worked out perfectly. We're so delighted. Kent Boucher (09:46.862) Fourteen years later and the diversity you have out here is just astounding. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (09:51.412) And there's a lot of space on the ground. The cool seasons are really kept at bay. There's a video on the Hoxie native seeds social media, Instagram or whatnot, if you wanna see a little bit of it. Kent Boucher (10:03.5) I know it's a little disjointed since we already moved on to the prairie, but I want to go back to the house because I sent I sent my father in law the the notorious Jimpaw a video of of this. I said this is like your dream setup here. So we talked about the water, but I think it's also cool to talk about this is completely off the grid, not just for water, but for your electricity as well. You talk about your system you have for that as well. Dr. Larry Weber (10:28.502) Yeah, that's right. So so we rely on solar here for the power for the cabin and and because we are off grid, we also have to have a battery. And so we're about a ten kilowatt solar system with twenty panels. Nicolas Lirio (10:42.85) What does that mean? What is I mean, I know that's a certain amount of energy, but is that per day or Dr. Larry Weber (10:47.822) That's a a peak a peak generation. And so if you come out and I could show you, you know, all of our data that come off of the solar panels, but the peak capacity is at at say ten kilowatt of power, but that only occurs when the sun is perfectly oriented to the panels, and in our case would only occur if we had full demand and load. So what most often happens here is that you know we see some regression of the battery state of charge overnight. And so in the morning, then the battery has to recharge and so the solar panels start to charge. And before the sun can come up to that perfect peak energy production, the battery's already charged. And and we needed that number of panels because in the winter, when all of a sudden our daylight is only, you know, nine hours, the sun is not at the perfect orientation, and so the the solar panels aren't as efficient. And so we might generate on a winter day if we're out here using power, maybe peak out at about six thousand watts or six KW. in the summer, if we're out here really hammering the air conditioning and trying to keep things cool, you know, we could we could approach, I think, probably eight thousand is the most that we've ever seen. So anyway, so there's a a ground array solar panel set up. and we did put it on the ground so that I could have access to it in the winter to be able to clear it and keep the snow off of it. And then inside of the cabin to cover the power overnight, we have an eighteen point five kilowatt hour lithium ion phosphate battery. Nicolas Lirio (12:23.886) What does that mean? 8.5 kilowatt hour? That means it can output as much as 8.5 kilowatts per hour. Dr. Larry Weber (12:30.526) No, so that means that it could it could output you know eighteen thousand five hundred watts for one hour and then be dead. or you know, it could do one KW for eighteen point five hours continuously. So it's a kilowatt hour. So it's the two multiplied together. Now what's interesting is that when you do have an off-grid property, all of a sudden you know exactly the power demand of everything that you Kent Boucher (12:57.742) Yeah, that's a good point. Dr. Larry Weber (12:58.446) And you know when you turn on a light switch, you know what the the light wattage is gonna draw. with all of the LED technologies and in lighting today, the power demand for the lighting for the cabin is almost insignificant. we have a refrigerator, we have an electric stove, we have a mini split that we use for dehumidification and electrif and and air conditioning. it also provides some heat in the winter. So the the mini split unit would be the most power demanding Nicolas Lirio (13:34.594) It's on the second floor. How cool it is down here on the first floor. You know, especially 'cause the sun's been baking for three days. Kent Boucher (13:41.395) Cold air sinks. Dr. Larry Weber (13:42.604) It does. And so this open stairway that we have serves both winter and summer. so in the summer with the dehumidification and air conditioning upstairs, that cold air kind of slowly moves down through the cabin. In the winter we have hydronic heat in the floor of the cabin in the basement, and we maintain about fifty seven degrees down there. And that slowly rises through the open stairway as heat rises. so we end up with pretty balanced conditions. and and and our set points are high. You know, so we're not trying to cool it to maybe the levels that you would your own home. I did bump it down a bit this morning knowing that we would be here. Yeah. so that was comfortable. Thank you. It was wonderful. Kent Boucher (14:23.194) It's the only air conditioning I'll have for the rest of my day. Dr. Larry Weber (14:25.966) Okay, all right. Nicolas Lirio (14:28.034) Man, so first of all, hydronic heating is water. So you have a water water heater, electric water heater that runs through in the basement floor for anyone who didn't know. But the what is really astounding to me is that that tiny little battery that's the size of a kitchen, you know, your kitchen sink dishwasher. Yeah, so about the size of a dishwasher, it Dr. Larry Weber (14:51.992) About the size of a dishwasher. Nicolas Lirio (14:56.61) Can power this house for I mean, if you were being conservative and the power went out in in the winter, how a day and a half? How how long could it Dr. Larry Weber (15:04.972) Al almost undoubtedly, every year we have the winter solstice on December twentieth, and it takes a few days, you know, it's really about a week before we start gaining any light, you know, after that. And it seems like a miserable time. It's a dark time, right? And it seems like every year that week after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year's, we can have very low overcast, maybe not the coldest weather that we have, but the dreariest, darkest, lowest skies. And we may produce almost no electricity. And we've gone about five days of that that battery being able to support the systems here in a minimalistic operation. Now, if we were out here for three of those five days and we were, you know, firing up the the electric oven every night, cooking, you know, frozen pizzas, obviously we wouldn't be able to, you know, make it five days. But with minimal use we can easily get through five days. Nicolas Lirio (15:58.89) Interesting. Kent Boucher (16:00.162) Yeah, that is that is that is that's kind of reassuring, I mean, to have to have gone through something like that. Because yeah. I imagine if you do you th I mean when you went through those five days, was it by day six? It's like, Whoo, if do we have another day of no charge? Or or d was it like, meh, I think we go another two, three days. Dr. Larry Weber (16:21.058) Well, by nature, I'm a little bit high strung and uptight as it is. And so yeah, so I'm I'm monitoring things. what's nice is that all of these systems can be monitored remotely. in the fiber to rural America, kind of like yeah, that that's gone through in the last several years, fiber optics were installed out at the roadway. and we were able to bring fiber back to the cabin. That's cool. and so, you know, we've got eighty, you know, gigabit service out here. Wow. so I can keep charge keep track of what the state of charge of the battery is, what the power production is on the solar system, what the temperatures are within the cabin. Kent Boucher (16:58.456) So it's just when it's in that minimalistic state it's just basically keeping the house warm enough so pipes aren't freezing and stuff like that, okay. Dr. Larry Weber (17:03.758) That's exactly it. Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, and then we've got, you know, a really nice soapstone wood stove. and and if you kind of know the wood stoves, of course, in the older days when they were just a steel chamber, they would heat up really fast and then of course cool down really fast. And then the cast iron stoves came out and they heated up a little bit slower, but they you know, they radiated heat longer. The soapstone wood stoves are even slower to heat up, but That thing will radiate heat after the fire's gone out for six to eight hours. Wow. And it's just a wonderful, even and warm heat. Kent Boucher (17:41.624) Well there's nothing like I'm in the process I mean the next few weeks I think the installation will begin at my house getting a wood wood stove insert. I ha we had one when I was a kid and there's just nothing like and gas stove doesn't do it, electric stove doesn't do it, a wood A wood burning stove gets whatever that edge when you when you come in from being freezing cold or especially cold and wet. Right. And a wood fire takes that edge off. The only other thing that kind of does it is like if you were to take a hot shower or something. But but Yeah, yeah, like gets it it it gets all the way through ya. Dr. Larry Weber (18:25.134) Right. Nicolas Lirio (18:27.01) Saying it like warms your bones back up. Dr. Larry Weber (18:32.82) It does. And you know, there's nothing like, you know, coming out of a tree stand after a long day of hunting and and you know, I'd I'd have the the fire, you know, kinda stoked before I go into the stand in the afternoon. still going when I come back in, you know, and kinda get it, you know, re energized and run through the shower and put your feet up in front of the wood stove. Man, that that that's living. Right. Kent Boucher (18:53.118) Right. But Iowa based company did all the the Nicolas Lirio (19:05.112) Give him a shout-out who who was Dr. Larry Weber (19:06.318) So Wild Rose Timberworks were three guys up in the decora area that ran a timber framing company for twenty five, thirty years. we had met them and went up and visited them and had an idea about building a cabin. The timing wasn't quite right for us, and so a few years had gone by and we were ready to pull the trigger. And so we we go back to find the guys at Wild Rose and they'd all decided to retire. And it was quite a letdown. that we weren't gonna be able to probably get that done. And I contacted one of the three and you know, started a conversation. And Dale Kittelson decided that he was continuing on, he was still doing some projects, felt that this project was small enough that he would be able to do it on his own. and then one of the other members of their team, Mark Weber, did a design. Unrelated. Yeah. Two B's, not one. but equally as good of a person. Great guy. he helped us with the design and you know, there's some unique aspects to timber framing that aren't maybe the same for a stick built home. and so he helped with the design and he also had a connection with Extreme Panel that provided the structural insulated panels that go on the outside of the timber frame, which come, you know, pre designed and kitted up. So once we set the frame, within a week we were able to set the s the structural insulated panels and basically have the entire cabin enclosed in about ten days. That's Kent Boucher (20:37.634) Crazy. Nicolas Lirio (20:37.998) So your house, when we describe it, sounds extreme. Compared to like an average build per square foot, do you feel like it was comparable or was this just way more expensive? Dr. Larry Weber (20:48.45) Well, it's a little bit hard for me to say because I've done so much of the labor, so much of the work myself. So I I I don't have and and I haven't gone out and tried to price, you know, what it would be to stick build a home versus what we did here. I I think there's probably I I I I would say with certainty that the materials probably cost more. but the energy efficiency in the Kent Boucher (21:13.24) Pays off in in other ways. Nicolas Lirio (21:14.99) Well and if you've seen the growth rings on the two by fours they make with new builds, they make f use for new builds, they're like this is not even comparable to that. It's it's it's you know, where they say a Cadillac versus a a buggy. Dr. Larry Weber (21:29.324) Well and and I'd also, you know, just you know, just like to acknowledge, you know, Dale, when when you built the frame for us, you know, you could get a f a timber frame. I'm sure there are some, you know, large manufacturers that you could probably either build a a a pre kitted timber frame or sometimes they're more post and beam where they don't have the mortise antenna and wood pegs. Yeah. You know, but they're plated and they're just kind of screwed and bolted together. So that would be more of a post and beam design. This is a true timber frame. So mortise antennas with wood pins that draw the joinery together. And all of the the joinery was hand cut. and and and when I say hand cut, I mean that could be with you know with still power tools. Sure, yeah. But but but it didn't like, you know, have three trees at the end of the building, run through an incredible three D C and C process and out out the far end of the building pops a timber frame. Right. you know, d Dale has touched every square inch of this timber frame and And and and then, you know, his his willingness to work with us. you know, as a homeowner, of course, I could imagine being in his business having lots of aspirational people that would contact you and say, Hey, I want to, you know, do a project. And and by the way, I want to erect the timber frame myself and I want to do all these things myself and and wonder just, you know, whether the person's maybe bitten off more than they could do. Nicolas Lirio (22:48.492) Yeah. Or gonna end up being a huge headache. Yeah. yeah, we we have a and they still squeak by. Judd's learning that this year. You tell real quick who it's like, you sound like headache. Yeah. and now what I w will say is that if someone's really picky about a prairie, but it's like, wow, this is gonna be really great that's not a headache. You know, the the headache is when you really clearly explain things out and then they kinda go back and they're like, Well, later when you you s It like have the same price that it was when you quoted and they're like, I don't know, that's more no, that's this you know, they kind of end up stringing along and Kent Boucher (23:24.714) Trauma dumping right now, Nick, is that what this is? Nicolas Lirio (23:26.932) man, it's well you you you start being able to tell real quick. And I'm guessing Dale had a a couple conversations with you and was like, I don't think this guy's a headache. Dr. Larry Weber (23:34.642) Well, we you know, we quickly became, you know, not not client relation, not client customer relationship, but friends, you know, and and I think the world of Dale and and I like to do woodworking and and enjoy the craft and in in in this space of timber framing, you know, Dale is at the top of the craft and and we're we're so pleased to be able to have purchased a frame from him and erected it and and and and back to your comment about you know, the cost of this versus a stick built. cabin. th there's nothing in here that looks like a stick built cabin and there's value in that for us. Absolutely there is because it's it turned out beautifully. Kent Boucher (24:14.616) Yeah, the comparison is logical to go down that path, but at the same time you're talking about two totally different products. Yeah. You know, this versus a regular stick bill home. It's just it's a work of art. Dr. Larry Weber (24:29.402) And I and I think it really brings, you know, to what we're trying to accomplish with this entire property. you know, oftentimes there there's nothing easy about this. And and as occasionally as we've explored different USDA farm bill type conservation practices and we meet with some of the conservation staff at the soil and water conservation district office, I I remind them sometimes that, you know, this there is no income here. This is all about outcomes. Kent Boucher (24:36.526) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (24:58.306) Yeah. And, you know, because we're not a large farming operation, we're you know, we don't have any part of this that's a grain farm or livestock feeding operation. what we're doing here for conservation is simply about the outcomes. And, you know, and that comes at a cost. And it's it's come at a cost to our family in the sense that, you know, we've had to make sacrifices. You know, perhaps we don't get to go on the same vacations that everybody else gets to do. but but Michelle and I Nicolas Lirio (25:25.656) would pay money to come here on vacation, you know what I mean? Dr. Larry Weber (25:30.036) well, you know, and again, so yeah, so so for a moment don't even think that this is a sacrifice in that regard and that I mean we love it here and Michelle and I both love to be out here. Our two boys that live in the area and their wives love to come out here and it's it's simply a magnet for our entire family. Nicolas Lirio (25:47.032) But I get what you're saying. It it didn't come without cost. Like you that it was a hefty fee, even if it wasn't all about money. I mean, you talk about there was a barn you took down and rebuilt here on the property from down the road and it took you four years. Right. You know, and and so that's serious costs. But I before we move on from the house as a whole, I I'm curious on your thoughts of now that it's it's off the grid and you have a taste of it and you're paying attention to your electric bill, I'm curious what you think of Putting solar on roofs across the Midwest and, you know, as a energy source for homes and 'cause we couldn't do that, we couldn't provide that many batteries for every home to have that bat in a current infrastructure. But is it worthwhile having all that energy and pumping it back into the grid where the grid can kind of treat it as a battery? now that you have a little taste from a quote unquote consumer side of it. Dr. Larry Weber (26:38.092) Yeah, so we we've actually tasted kind of both aspects of solar. So this being off grid and and having a battery where the battery basically cost about the same as the solar system to install. and so when you think about the cost of installing solar on a gridded property, then double that if you want to be off grid. So so that's you know one element of it. in our home in which we raised our children for twenty six years, we had solar on the rooftop there. And we lived just outside of Iowa City and Johnson County, and so we were part of an REC. And so they would do a buyback. and so we could use the battery as a grid, and course we'd sell power back to them at a very, very small unit price. and so you know, we certainly benefited from the solar throughout, you know, the day. but it w I wouldn't say we benefited too much in terms of the buyback program that the REC had. Now, with that said, You know, we did it to offset, you know, other s energy production. And and and to me, as we look across our country, and or our state, there are many, many places where the application of solar makes fantastic sense. And again, if it can delay or eliminate the need to build another fossil fired power plant, then you know, I'm all in and all supportive of it. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (28:00.17) I yeah, I I am a big fan of it. I I don't understand all the math. We I've had a couple different companies quote for solar for both my wife and I personally and over at Hoxy. So I know some of the math, but even if it was close to breaking even, I feel like the idea of having it be much more renewable is there's value there. Even if it doesn't show up right on the bank balance, you know, there there is value and that's one of those As Kent says, I think that's a way to love your neighbor is to take a little bit off the bank balance but be able to add that value. Kent Boucher (28:33.154) the one who came up with the love your neighbor phrase. You gotta take that up with somebody who's got little more pull than I do. Nicolas Lirio (28:35.224) That wasn't you originally? Nicolas Lirio (28:40.014) Love your neighbors yourself? That wasn't you? I've been quoting you for years, dude. Dr. Larry Weber (28:45.23) Well, you know, and then certainly, you know, as in the land there's a similar calculation that gets done and and in the hundred and twenty acres that, you know, we describe as old man's timber, we have about fifteen acres in a parcel that we recently acquired that's in row crop. And we have an agreement with a neighbor that farms it for us. He's a fantastic guy. We appreciate, you know, that agreement. but we've enrolled it in or we've applied to enroll it in a CRP program. And of that fifteen acres, about ten acres will be in a C P thirty one where we're gonna plant forty eight hundred trees. Wow. Yeah. And then that's awesome. the remaining five acres will be in a a a diverse species mix focused on quail habitat. Nicolas Lirio (29:30.356) You gotta be careful on those prairie companies. Kent Boucher (29:33.575) Is it raining? 'Cause our windows are down. Nicolas Lirio (29:35.81) No, it's not raining. Dr. Larry Weber (29:37.806) Don't think it's raining. Nicolas Lirio (29:38.826) It is it is kinda No, I haven't I haven't seen anything. I d I was looking. Kent Boucher (29:44.664) I mean I am in my work clothes, so if I have to ride back in a wet butt it's just an hour and a half earlier then my butt will be wet. sweating out in the field. Nicolas Lirio (29:50.262) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (29:53.014) But you do have to be careful, with those seed companies. Nicolas Lirio (29:55.48) Yeah. They're they're dangerous and I I've I've read comments online that they're just there to scam ya, you know. So Dr. Larry Weber (30:01.646) Well, I mean when I can go down to the local foo you know, farm co op and buy, you know, good oats, you know, for you know, a fraction of cost of you know that diverse prairie mix, it makes you kinda wonder what's all in there. Nicolas Lirio (30:14.262) You know, I this lady she bought a bunch of backyard prairie and she was local in Knoxville and she was like, and like do you have gr lawn grass seed? I I need like a thousand square feet or something. And I was like, We don't really sell it, but like You have such a I'll I'll just go to the store. She's kinda like a local friend. I was like, I'll go to the store and I'll just like charge you what it took me to go and pick it out for you. And per acre, it's like ten times what we charge for prairie. Like log. Yeah, 'cause i i I mean, a twenty-five pound bag or a twenty-five dollar bag of seed, which is like ten pounds or something like that, ends up c they say it covers like like five hundred square feet or a thousand square feet, and then you multiply that out by forty three thousand square feet. And it it's a lot. Dr. Larry Weber (31:05.504) Well, back to the point, you know, before on just doing that calculation, we would be money ahead to continue, you know, crop farming it, you know, through a contract with our neighbor than we will in a small CRP payment that we're going to get. CRP program right now is down a little bit in terms of contract pricing. but for us, again, this is more about outcomes than it is about income. And to get that established Yeah, to get that established, you know, woodland area and quail cover down there is gonna be a great addition to our property. Kent Boucher (31:26.83) Great line. That's a great line. Kent Boucher (31:35.139) Yeah man, it's more about outcomes than income. Yeah. I like that a lot. That's that's really good. Nicolas Lirio (31:41.922) All right, well, everyone read the title. They know we're here for water quality. And what would it be? A couple weeks ago, I promised them on a coffee time that we would we would be catching up with you on on water quality. and there's a lot of things that we want to touch, but first let's just jump right into the meat and potatoes. you guys have a new program and I don't understand all the ins and outs in it. I read an I read a news article about it that our friend Katie shared. on social media. And that's about all that I understood from it. And so could you explain what was going on there and how that came about? Dr. Larry Weber (32:20.044) Yeah, so last week we had an announcement and and in fact we had a l a little press conference and and that's not something that we do very commonly. Yeah. but we felt that because of Kent Boucher (32:30.87) Do you one of those boards that has like the Iowa you know, like basic what Kirk Ferrent stands in front of after an Iowa game? Did you get did you get that same press room? Dr. Larry Weber (32:38.764) It it was it was well branded with the University of Iowa logos behind Yes it was and so yeah, so I I guess the short answer is yes. Although of course Coach Ferrence, you know, commands a a different room than we do. Sure as as academics and scientists. But Kent Boucher (32:55.052) Okay, the press conference about how you you know what's gonna keep you from dying of cancers over here. okay. Where's the one about football? Nicolas Lirio (33:02.254) man, also I got a bone to pick with you, Kent. You have been making fun of University of Kansas instead of Kansas University. Our state does the same thing. University of Iowa Kent Boucher (33:13.475) Yeah. Kent Boucher (33:17.164) No no no I say it should be University of Kansas instead of Kansas University. It's so irritating how they do that. Kansas University. It just sounds so clunky. Doesn't there's zero flow. Nicolas Lirio (33:20.861) okay, okay. Nicolas Lirio (33:27.118) K U. There's zero f yeah, but Kansas is a weird word. Kansas Kent Boucher (33:33.792) So much easier to say university of Nicolas Lirio (33:36.268) Man. Anyway, I'm so sorry. You you had a great branded board behind ya. Please continue. Dr. Larry Weber (33:40.424) Yeah, so we're we're very proud of a new program that is going to be a collaboration of IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering, for which I'm the director, and the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, led by David Swartney. Nicolas Lirio (33:52.662) Is that at the y University Valley? Dr. Larry Weber (33:54.506) Iowa also at the University of Iowa. And you know, together we're going to really start to combine environmental health and environmental exposure to various pollutants to public health. And because of the importance of this topic in Iowa, we did feel it was appropriate to have a press conference and to be able to announce this program and really to share with the folks of Iowa that there's a new effort to really try to Bring the scientific evidence and scientific data and information to bear on such a very complex issue. The IHR program, you know, is a hundred and six years old. we have Kent Boucher (34:34.286) Yeah, when was reading that in the so in the information I was reading, I was like, Man, a hundred and six years old. Yeah. That is that's quite a legacy to be there. Dr. Larry Weber (34:42.264) Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, quite a legacy to to be involved in the program. It's a it's an even greater challenge for me as the director of the program to uphold that legacy. Sure. And as I shared in my comments at the press conference, what I think really makes IHR unique is how over a hundred and six years we have stepped up and we've met the moment of the need for scientific research based on social and societal demands at the time. You know, World War Two is an example. You know, we had faculty, staff, and students working seven days a week and often twenty four hours a day to help in the war effort. That's a big deal. That ended up launching, you know, a naval hydrodynamics program that's been funded by the Office of Naval Research since nineteen forty eight. Wow. So seventy eight years continuous funding. Kent Boucher (35:32.696) That's that's amazing. Nicolas Lirio (35:33.868) Something I really like about you personally is nitrates and water and other water quality issues have it they're really sexy right now. Like people love talking about It's it's one of the main things in a gubernatorial race. It's a national levels. There's a the the union, the farmers union or something. It's a YouTube channel, big YouTube channel. They just covered Iowa's water quality. But great Great YouTube video. It's like 11 minutes long. Please go watch it. way before all this was sexy, Dr. Larry Weber over here ringing his bell, nobody was watching, but he knew it was the right thing to do, even when the walls in front of you were vast and thick and looked unsurmountable. Did you ever think you'd get to this point where you're like, Wow, there's the the public is demanding change? Dr. Larry Weber (36:30.478) you know, I I I do. I I did think that we would get to this point. I I I think it sometimes it's a it's an invisible problem. You know, it's when we when we go to our rivers and streams, you can't look at them and say by estimate what the nitrate concentration is. You could say if they're muddy or, you know, if it's high or low or flood or drought, but you don't know what the nitrate concentration is when you look at it. And as we started this program and and you know, of doing water quality monitoring that goes back to, you know, nine twenty thirteen. So we've been at that for about thirteen or or so years. You know, we run the nation's largest real time continuous water quality monitoring network and we've faced some, you know, incredible opposition for doing that scientific research. Kent Boucher (37:15.298) Yeah, the state tried saying we don't need it anymore. All's good, right? Dr. Larry Weber (37:19.586) Yeah, they you know, they cut our funding, you know, fur first partially in twenty twenty three and then fully in twenty twenty four. And so we've been operating for two years without state funding. we've been able to keep the program that water quality portion of our program funded through a grant, a two year grant from the Walton Family Foundation. But the Walton Family Foundation program officer Kent Boucher (37:40.472) Is that the same Wal Walmart Waltz? Yeah. Yeah. We learned about that from a guy at Pheasant Fest a couple years ago. He explained like how incredible conservation work it's done on behalf of that. Do you know why? Well I'm sure I'm sure greenwashing is is thrown in there with it. Nicolas Lirio (37:42.552) No. Nicolas Lirio (37:52.526) Do you know why? Nicolas Lirio (37:57.57) But rooted back from when Walmart was started and it's because Sam Walton was an avid bird hunter. Avid. Like that's all all he wanted to do was go to Walmart and make more money or bird hunt. Yeah. So Kent Boucher (38:09.504) That's one butt the greenwashing is just takes a beating right now on you you try like if we made a r a reel out of this right now, everyone would say we were bought and paid for by w by Walmart. True. And I get it. I get I I understand the criticism. And a lot of people even say go as far as to say that about American Prairie out in Montana, which has been Nicolas Lirio (38:22.902) Yeah, that that's Kent Boucher (38:37.312) one at least in North America, the biggest prairie conservation effort that's actually put I mean, other than maybe Pheasants Forever, you know, Pheasants Forever has has put a ridiculous amount of prairie back on the landscape. But American prairie's right there with them. And so I under I'm not a fan of people using greenwashing to cover their sins. So I can I can I can get there with with the criticism. But I'm also not a fan of saying we're better off getting nothing out of it. You know Nicolas Lirio (39:12.512) Balls and strikes. Everyone does bad and good things. Some people do way more bad things, but it doesn't mean they didn't do anything that was ever good. You know, and if you c as long as you're calling both of them and not ignoring the strikes because there's a bunch of balls and not ignoring the balls because there's a bunch strikes, then it seems a little more fair. We should put a pause on it, because I'm willing to bet it will start raining here in a second. Nicholas edit this out. Dr. Larry Weber (39:34.798) And I'm gonna turn on those lights a little more light on us. Nicolas Lirio (39:37.218) Yeah. Kent Boucher (39:40.034) Put some strain on that battery. yeah, okay. All right, is this is this making you uncomfortable for us to talk about the greenwasher? Okay. Nicolas Lirio (39:42.094) Okay. Nicolas Lirio (39:47.96) Yeah, where we're at. Do you have the keys? I don't know. Kent Boucher (39:53.142) No, they're in the truck. 'Cause you drove over here, remember? Nicolas Lirio (39:55.71) Kent Boucher (39:58.542) I just threw in the woods. Kent Boucher (40:06.057) right, I said it's raining like crazy back there. Kent Boucher (40:14.158) Are your truck windows up? Nicolas Lirio (40:15.81) No Dr. Larry Weber (40:16.51) are cracked but I can close them from here. The thing is nothing but a computer on wheels. Kent Boucher (40:18.919) Really? Of course. That is amazing. Kent Boucher (40:24.79) That's so cool. Kent Boucher (40:35.948) Yeah, I think you drove that Rubyan out to our place last year, didn't you? Yeah. In fact, I might have been the first you might have been the first person I knew that had a ribbon. You know what's interesting, some some anecdotal data. My family is my dad is conservation minded, but he's he's not I wouldn't say he's like studied up on it. And honestly that's how I ended up having a interest. Because of that. And and my brother who just bought a Rubian is not you know he's not like Yeah, it's already his text. yeah, is that is that Nicolas Lirio (41:18.894) Apparently it's pouring rain. Nothing in your backpack, right? Well, it did rain a little bit, but your backpack's safe. Kent Boucher (41:29.64) it is or it's already raining, huh? Dr. Larry Weber (41:35.714) Does the light look okay with the lights on now? Nicolas Lirio (41:40.034) Yes. Kent Boucher (41:41.33) my brother though, he's not like he's not anti-conservation or anything like that. He just I would say he's more agnostic towards it. And then my grandpa he enrolled acres in the CRP basically when the program was brand new. But Dr. Larry Weber (41:55.585) Yeah. Kent Boucher (42:03.382) I think it was more of a it made sense to do kind of thing as opposed to man I'm real concerned about taking care of the planet, you know. Right. And all three of those people within the last month have purchased either a hybrid or a fully electric vehicle. Dr. Larry Weber (42:21.922) Yeah, interesting. Kent Boucher (42:22.952) And and I think that that serves as good data for what my dad was saying earlier, like, hey, it's it's going that the world is going that way. And I can say, yeah, my own close family, not I don't have to, you know, talk about second cousins twice removed. My basically immediate family, three of them have been purchased in the last Nicolas Lirio (42:44.076) month. Yeah. Yeah, I was just talking to someone yesterday who's like, Yeah, my wife and I are thinking about starting a family, but we're kinda like do we want to in Iowa? You know, just be simply because of the water I was talking about conservation. sorry. Yeah yeah E V Yeah yeah. Sorry dude I thought you were talking broader I w Nicholas you can start the podcast here. where were Kent Boucher (43:03.754) are you resuming the podcast? Kent Boucher (43:12.608) We we were talking about greenwashing. So So you were saying that you gotta call balls and strikes people. Nicolas Lirio (43:14.801) yeah yeah. Nicolas Lirio (43:18.754) Yes, and but you so Larry you were saying that two years from the Walton Foundation, but there wasn't any funding past that, which would start this year, right? Dr. Larry Weber (43:28.812) That's right. And I'll also I just want to kind of bounce back very quickly to the greenwashing. There is greenwashing and that's certainly, you know, corporate entities giving money to, you know, various nonprofits with really no expected outcome from it. the Walton Family Foundation has very strong Mississippi River program. Th they follow up on it, they're doing research and one of the things that was a follow up to the grant that we were provided as a bridge to getting future funding. Kent Boucher (43:45.358) So they they follow up. Dr. Larry Weber (43:55.468) was an expectation that we would have funding at the end of that two year period to keep this network up and running. Last summer, as you might recall, there was the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment Report that came out and talked about you know, the waters of the Des Moines and Raccoon River. And that was announced at the Harkin Institute at Drake University in August, early August. And that initiated a conversation that I had Kent Boucher (44:09.454) Yeah, yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (44:23.948) with Polk County supervisors, with Johnson County and Lynn County supervisors, that we needed funding to keep this network running. And those are the three counties with the largest populations reliant on surface water as source water for their drinking water utilities. And Polk County stepped up right away. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (44:43.662) We interviewed Jonathan Swanson. Great dude. Really like that guy. Dr. Larry Weber (44:46.616) Great dude and and and a good friend of mine and I do recall in that, you asked him if he knew me. Yeah, and he said, yeah, Larry Larry Weber would love me. And I do love John. And so I want to make sure that you know that that's on record. J John's been a friend i in conservation for a long time. And we were really delighted that Pole County stepped forward with two hundred thousand dollars towards that network. Their funding is to support our overall network. you know, and really it's unrestricted funding. Of course we'll have sensors in the Des Moines and Raccoon and around Poole County. but it but it is unrestricted funds to support our network operations. Wow. Johnson County matched that with two hundred thousand. Wow. But a little bit more restrictive in that they have some expectations of the number of sensors in Johnson County and the number in the Iowa River flowing to Johnson County. Lynn County came forward with a hundred thousand dollars. Again, we're very appreciative of that, with some expectations on Lynn County and the Cedar River watershed. Nicolas Lirio (45:36.536) That makes sense. Dr. Larry Weber (45:46.494) Wright County came forward with thirty-five thousand dollars for a new sensor on the Boone River in Wright County. the city of Decora met us with seventeen thousand dollars to keep two sensors running on the upper Iowa River. So that's been fantastic. And then the Isaac Walton League through a GoFundMe page. That's right. Collecting I mean, five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars, hundred dollars donations from people across Iowa. Raised eighty thousand dollars. Incredible. And in and they raised an incredible amount of awareness of the issue. So we've met our goal. Kent Boucher (46:16.407) That's a great Kent Boucher (46:23.082) That's a I believe that's a hunter based conservation group, right? Isaac Walton League. It is a very old organization. Dr. Larry Weber (46:29.9) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (46:31.978) So when you say your goal that's for to for keeping these monitors running for another year? Dr. Larry Weber (46:37.752) For one year. Yeah. for one year. And then throughout this last year, we've also had a number of these same groups, Isaac Walton League and other conservation groups, Iowa Environmental Council, and a few others, that have been advocating to the Iowa legislature that this should be a state funded network. Yeah. You know, as as as I describe the source of fundings, you'll note that, you know, we could end up in a condition in the future where we've got some counties with monitoring. other counties with no monitoring depending on the source of funds and the restrictions put on those monies. And so all of a sudden we could imagine a an Iowa where we've got the haves and have nots as it relates to information about, you know, their water quality. And we really need to have that be statewide again. Nicolas Lirio (47:25.344) That is interest so think about asbestos. I remember you can apply for a bunch of different things to remove asbestos, which is good. Asbestos gets in your lungs, very toxic, it'll kill ya. toxic water is how how are we spending more money on asbestos removal than we are on monitoring to see if our water has the quality we need to survive off of it? but I understand what you were saying earlier. I don't feel my safe myself gain a bunch of weight. I don't get a headache after I drink the water. I don't it's it's really if if it is bad for you, i it's slow. It it it takes quite a while. You know, we're not we're not talking about like E. coli in the water. We're we're talking about nitrates and and their effect are much slower. So there's no immediate gratification on on solving this issue on on the ground level. But still the fact that we can't rally in the Midwest to solve our water problem for our largest metropolitan areas is wild because I learned in fifth grade from my science teacher, Miss Sihoosen, that the three things you need for human life is water, food, and shelter. And water's first. You know? It's just it's just so crazy. And five hundred thousand dollars is just Not that much money on on the state budget. Even a state as small of an economy as Iowa, it is not that much money. You know, and in fact it wouldn't be that big of a deal if they five X'd it two point five million dollars. Dr. Larry Weber (49:03.316) Well, and and I think as I've said for probably the last ten years, is that water quality will not be important in Iowa until it becomes a public health issue. And and I think that's the you know, kind of the turning point that we're at, you know, today in our state is that it's become more of a public health issue. we've learned through the Iowa Cancer Registry and the wonderful work that Mary Charlton has done over there, you know, that we have the second highest incidence of cancer in the country. and the highest rate of increasing cancer of any state in the nation. Kent Boucher (49:36.152) Yeah, a friend of mine who lives nearby, a I should say a Facebook friend of mine just posted yesterday, just found out he has cancer yesterday, colorectal cancer. Dr. Larry Weber (49:47.778) Yeah, and and you know, again, one of those that are very closely tied to nitrate exposure. And because, as Nicholas says you've said, this is a long term exposure issue. It's not, boy, I drank the water and I became ill, or I drank the water and my stomach became upset. this is o over a long period of time and long exposures. And now we're seeing in the city of Des Moines, yet again this year, where their nitrate removal system is running at full capacity. in order for the water utility to meet the demands, they've gotta start to do some water curtailments and limit the use of water for different members of the community. Which is interesting. It's not a problem. And and and remarkably this year Nicolas Lirio (50:26.614) Interesting 'cause it's not a drought issue. In no way a drought issue. Dr. Larry Weber (50:33.558) And and and maybe we heard last year, depending on what sources you were listening to, that it was all it's just it's this one time thing and you know, we just have to get through this year and well maybe it was because of the weather, because it rained and and and we had rain after a few drought years. you know, we're sitting here today having measured the highest nitrate concentration in a stream in Iowa that we've ever measured was forty nine point one milligrams per liter. Wow. Forty nine point one in the stream. We're measuring concentrations upward towards a hundred milligrams per liter in tile discharges. Wow. And so now when I look out over, you know, our Iowa water quality information ten. Ten. The EPA recommended limit the EPA limit is ten. Now there are folks that have, again, for a decade or longer, have argued that that standard should be reduced to five or even be reduced to three. Ten limit Kent Boucher (51:13.206) What's the EPA recommended? Dr. Larry Weber (51:35.2) No, there is legitimacy to that argument. Ten was established for sort of the instantaneous or one time exposure to infants and blue baby syndrome. The longer term health effects of continuous high levels, let's say above five, were n have nothing to do with blue baby syndrome. That's the colorectal cancer, that's the bladder cancer, that's the other things that are coming into play. So here we are in our state. look across the network that we operate. and routinely they're above ten, often, and if we go there right now, there are many above fifteen, there are several above twenty, and there are some that are at twenty five. That's too high. Got to start to figure this out. Nicolas Lirio (52:17.602) Yeah. Kent Boucher (52:17.944) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (52:21.42) We think about load, you know, so if we measure concentration and we know the discharge from the USGS geological survey, they they have the flow, we can put those together and get pounds per day or pounds per month or pounds per year. We are on track right now in the second week of June to being the highest nitrate load loss for the state of Iowa of our measured history. Nicolas Lirio (52:47.468) Wow. Which is since when you said Dr. Larry Weber (52:49.496) Well we you know, about twenty twelve, twenty thirteen that we've had this type of data. The DNR has been tracking load leaving the state of Iowa back into the early two thousands based on their monthly grab samples and their ambient water quality monitoring network. Nicolas Lirio (53:04.682) Why? But we have that every year. So why is this year more? Dr. Larry Weber (53:17.602) Well again, there's this ongoing long term continuous application of commercial fertilizer. There's a long term ongoing continuous application of livestock manure, and we're building up a nitrate surplus in our soils that Nicolas Lirio (53:31.81) We're not an outlier. This is just on the graph. We're just on the graph. Dr. Larry Weber (53:35.022) It's on the graph. Yeah, it's on the graph. Now again, you know, we we think about this in in two different ways. Is it source limited or is it is it is it transport limited? Kent Boucher (53:36.47) Sticking up, yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (53:49.72) So is it supply limited or transport limited? We have an unlimited source or an unlimited supply because of the commercial fertilizer and manure livestock applications. We can be transport limited. So on a dry year, of course it goes down. On a wet year, of course it comes up. But if there's water flowing vertically through our soil column to those tile lines, at this moment, there is an excess amount of nitrate that's readily available to absorb to that water. to then be transported downstream. Kent Boucher (54:20.362) A new explanation I've I've heard pitched is no till farming is to blame for the sudden bump in in high nitrates. Back in the old days you tilled that field black, you incorporated all your your corn husks and and you know, bean trash back into the soil and that that nitro you know, the nitrogen was held in place better because it was incorporated into the soil. Is there any to me it sounds like a big excuse. is there any validity to that? Dr. Larry Weber (55:07.63) So I'm neither a soil scientist nor an agronomist and and so there it would be other people that would be better, you know, educated to answer that question. But when when I hear questions like that, the other thing that I often think about is what if we think back over longer periods of time? So often we're so focused on what's happening today or what happened this year. Well it rained a lot or it's dry or yeah, we did this or we did that. But When we look at the data from a long time ago, in the early nineteen hundreds, water quality samples were collected, oftentimes around the creation of the flood mitigation reservoirs that were installed in Iowa, Sailorville, Red Rock, at Rathman and Coralville. And in those water quality samples, we continuously saw nitrate concentrations of one to two milligrams per liter. So I I would think of that as the ambient, you know, the background. This is our our legacy nitrate concentrations in our streams. Now of course a lot's changed. We've added all the tile line, we've intensified our agriculture. We started applying commercial fertilizer more routinely in the sixties and seventies, seventies and eighties. Well, all of a sudden that one to two milligrams per liter rose to become, you know, three to four and then four to five. Kent Boucher (56:22.954) In the in the sixties and seventies before no till farming was correct was used at any scale. Dr. Larry Weber (56:28.544) All of a sudden we go up to four to five. You know, and now again we see, you know, with with the explosion or the increases in confined animal feeding operations and the number of hogs that we have in our state under roof at any given time. Yeah. You know, we see a large increase in livestock operations. And today we're at, you know, six to eight milligrams per liter, or or perhaps I should say yesterday. today we might even be higher. And I I'm expecting that under the current trajectory We may have a statewide annual average nitrate concentration in our streams that exceeds ten milligrams per liter. Statewide annual average. And that's not going in the right direction. I mean I said years ago, back you know, in twenty fifteen was the original target of the nutrient reduction strategy across the entire agricultural Midwest. Kent Boucher (57:12.024) No. Dr. Larry Weber (57:22.466) To reduce nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico by forty-five percent. Didn't meet the goal in 2015, so they moved the goal target out to 2035, and they put an intermediate target of ten percent reduction by twenty twenty-five in place. Well in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen I was saying that not only will we not meet the ten percent reduction by twenty twenty five, in Iowa we will have doubled our load by twenty twenty five. Well in fact that came true by twenty nineteen. The s the load leaving Iowa doubled. It's continu Nicolas Lirio (57:54.958) What changed between the twenty thirteen time and the twenty nineteen on increasing levels? Dr. Larry Weber (57:58.4) All the same things I've already mentioned. Just on increasing levels of fertilization, of livestock manure, of additional additional tile. Kent Boucher (58:07.886) Pattern tiling has been around for a long time. But I have just noticed from driving across much of the state around twenty twenty I just started seeing way more. And and very, very man, that I feel so privileged that we're getting to enjoy a a June thumbers thunderstorm in this case. Can we light that fire? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a hundred and five degrees outside, but can we But the just Nicolas Lirio (58:25.097) This cabin in a Kent Boucher (58:37.324) From watching and maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, you know, that's the thing about anecdotal evidence, right? Right, you see what you're looking for. But but it's just in that window of that big jump that that Nick is asking about, it I just I just noticed a lot of pattern tiling. Nicolas Lirio (58:44.566) Rely what you're looking for. Dr. Larry Weber (58:59.406) Well again, so so you sa you've seen that and have that memory anecdotally. When we were running the Iowa Watershed Approach Project and we built eight hundred conservation practices and eight watersheds across Iowa, spent forty million dollars on cost share in that program, worked all across the state. In the middle Cedar watershed, so basically from Cedar Falls to Cedar Rapids, that's a Huck Eight watershed, one of fifty eight in the state of Iowa. we s there spent around seven million dollars on conservation practices and we built about eighty practices. Over the same six year period, eight thousand four hundred miles of new agricultural drainage were installed in that same watershed. So we're we're looking at roughly, you know, twelve to fourteen hundred miles of agricultural drainage in one watershed installed over that same on an annual basis over that same period of time. And so again, I I I'm I say this often, we are not keeping up with the pace of the industrialization and intensification of agriculture in our state. And I celebrate every bioreactor and every saturated buffer and every re nutrient removal wetland that get installed, but the pace of that conservation is is it pales by comparison to the pace of the industrialization of ag. Kent Boucher (01:00:22.734) Yeah, the input the input is infinite at this point, right? Yeah. Because it's a annual crop and it's annually fertilized. So there's a new there's a fresh new supply every single year. Dr. Larry Weber (01:00:35.97) Right. And you know, sometimes again we we we talk about, you know, golf courses and goose poop and all these other you know, kinda albatross ideas. You know, and and studies have been done, Keith Schilling, and maybe we've even talked about this when I came on last year. But you know, golf courses, the managers have access to that that fairway and that green every single day of the season. You know, in our row crop agricultural system, the fertilizer and the livestock manure in particular get applied before the crop is planted in the spring and after it's harvested in the fall with you know perhaps a little side dressing that happens early in the growing season. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:11.38) 'Cause that's the big difference is that there is something alive to pick up things at the golf course. Dr. Larry Weber (01:01:16.536) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:01:16.918) You did the math on this once at how many golf courses we would need in order to equal the the well amount contributed by Nicolas Lirio (01:01:21.244) maybe years ago after I read Swine Republic. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:28.62) In terms of in terms of fertilizer added to golf courses and lawns, I did the math on that once and there's like forty million acres of lawns and golf courses and they add Kent Boucher (01:01:41.122) Yeah, Lobrangers, they just had a reel on this. It was great. Yeah. It was like it was like seven thousand pounds per acre or something like that of fertilizer. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:44.496) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:01:49.652) I I commented that this was a criminally low viewed reel. Because their reels Kent Boucher (01:01:55.694) Well, I think it's picking up views 'cause I keep getting notifications about it 'cause I reposted it. Nicolas Lirio (01:02:00.584) yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean they they're they're sharp guys. But but what it boiled down to was just it was obscenely more fertilizer when on on yards and golf courses. but the big difference is there is a live root there to pick it up. There is a live route to do something with. Dr. Larry Weber (01:02:21.548) Well the other big difference is that in many of our watersheds we have eighty five percent by land area is in row crop production. We don't have eighty five percent of it in turf lawns. Nicolas Lirio (01:02:33.496) Well I think Keith Schilling's results was that if the Raccoon River was if you replaced all of the cropland with golf courses, it would be like ninety percent cleaner of nitrate. Very well true. Yeah, could very it's just I I get it makes sense, it's a good excuse to start, but then as soon as you actually do research and data, you go, okay, actually that wasn't a good excuse. It was worth looking into, but we've settled it. Please stop saying it in the comment section. It's just not the same. Dr. Larry Weber (01:03:01.752) Well and you we're sitting here right now and it's pouring out, right? I mean we're getting a pretty heavy r thunderstorm coming through here. And you know, the the the scientific data and the research shows that when we monitor saturated buffers and bioreactors and we put a sensor on the inlet and put a sensor on the outlet, that under let's say low flow operating conditions, they're reasonably effective. But when we get rains like this and the tile flows start to come up then immediately those saturated buffers and bioreactors go into a bypass mode. Right? There's a head box. There's a there there's a diversion box that they put a couple stop logs in that increase a pool level that push water over to that saturated buffer and bioreactor. When the tile starts to flow high, then that stop log gets overwhelmed or or overtopped and it's bypassed directly to the creek. Well when you think about nitrate load that's coming off of a tile system Not only when it's heavy rain like this do we have an increased concentration, but we have an increased flow. Those get multiplied together. So if our concentration went up by a factor of four and our and and our flows went up by a factor of four, well four times four, it's sixteen times the load has just gone up. And so when we when you evaluate a a saturated buffer or a bioreactor based on load, their their benefit is very low. And so the not meant to be a criticism of the practice, but it's meant to demonstrate the dynamic nature of how the system operates and the need for more scientific data to then improve the design of those saturated buffers or bioreactors, or maybe divert whatever funding we have into other practices and other strategies and to do different things. But if we do it without data, then how could we ever expect that anything will change? Nicolas Lirio (01:04:50.742) If we put a saturated buffer and a bioreactor at the end of every tile, that would still not fix our problem you're saying. Dr. Larry Weber (01:04:58.058) I d I don't believe. So not not under their current designs and not with the allowance for for the flows to bypass during heavy rain. Nicolas Lirio (01:05:05.386) Now it is you're but you are saying it is a step in the right direction, but not to what we'd need, especially in storms like this. Dr. Larry Weber (01:05:11.914) It it you know, again, we celebrate every conservation practice. Every pound of nitrate that we can remove from our stream is a good pound of nitrate to remove. But when it's at such low effectiveness, it's never going to meet the needs that our society is beginning to demand that we have drinkable, fishable, weightable waters. What would Nicolas Lirio (01:05:35.17) Would you if i I'm glad that we don't have dictators, you know, in the state of Iowa and that we don't and that there is a democratic process. But let's pretend you were a dictator and you were allowed to make a law about water. What would you do that you think could fix it? 'Cause I know it's not your job to figure this out, on the socioeconomic side, but I know you think about it. You know, and and w what could we do? Dr. Larry Weber (01:06:02.348) Right. And and so because it's not my job, but I but but doesn't mean that I don't have ideas and insights and opinions. You know, certainly the the number one most effective conservation practice is land retirement. And and when I think about this, it it just it i d I don't know, it just seems so obvious to me that we really need to develop a water plan for the state of Iowa that focuses both on surface water and groundwater. And the last time that we did a meaningful update to our water plan was in the early nineteen nineties. That's thirty some years ago. Our climate is changing, our agricultural system is changing. you know, there's been a lot of changes over that period of time. And we just haven't had the courage or the strength or the leadership to be able to step forward and do a meaningful water plan for the state of Iowa. If we did so, it's likely that we would find out that we've surpassed some tipping points. Tipping points in terms of perhaps the amount of livestock feeding operations that we have in the state. Maybe we're oversubscribed on that. Now, could there be through policy or through generational change an opportunity to reduce the number of those feeding operations? That would be one strategy. Perhaps we've exceeded the tipping point in terms of row crop agriculture in our watersheds. Could there be an opportunity through generational change or through the next flood disaster that we have? to take more of that land that's in production, especially those lands that are so closely connected to our rivers and streams, and put those into a perpetual, permanent floodplain easement and have a benefit. So I I think we've got to start thinking about, you know, this natural world and and and this living world that we that we live and work and play in as more of a in more of a systems approach. And so to me, I think starting there is the most important piece. coming in as a dictator and saying that we're gonna establish rules or regulations or laws that immediately stop certain things, I I think that, you know, perhaps again there's some obvious things, but first I think we we should have a plan. there are, you know, some practices. we should be doing soil testing, we should be applying the right rate, the right amount, the right time of nutrients, although those things make sense. Dr. Larry Weber (01:08:22.882) I think that we've got to think more carefully about, you know, our fall tillage and our fall fertilizer applications, especially in light of climate change. a few years ago we had a rainfall event that happened around Thanksgiving or just after Thanksgiving holiday. We had a subsequent rainfall event between Christmas and New Year's. Those are gonna happen more and more often as our climate continues to warm and change. Well th those two hydrologic events. resulted in so much of that fall manure that was applied and so much of the fall anhydrous ammonia that was applied coming out of our system. And so over a 30 year record that we have of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, that year was the highest for that three month period of thirty years. And not only was it the highest, but it was three times higher on one of the rivers than the previous high and two and a half times higher on the other river than the previous high. Nicolas Lirio (01:09:18.55) Wow. How do how do you grapple with sovereignty for someone to do with their land as they please and the general good for the public, especially when it comes to water, right? 'Cause it's just impossible to own water when it's flowing through our system. How d how do you wrestle with those ideas? Dr. Larry Weber (01:09:41.72) Well, I again I think first and foremost, you know, we y you had mentioned I think it was water, food and shelter. we can also think about the commons. You know, our water and the air that we breathe are part of our commons. Yeah. You know, Paul Johnson so eloquently described in the Groundwater Protection Act in nineteen eighty seven that groundwater is part of our commons. We need to protect it. It is responsibility of all of us to protect our groundwater for the common good and usage of everybody. Yeah. We need to start thinking about our surface water in the same way. It is part of our commons. We sh all have a responsibility. And it's so it shouldn't be that we just continue to expand treatment facilities to make sure that we can provide treatable, potable, drinkable water, but we should think about the other uses within the watershed. We would like to be able to fish and swim and hunt and wade and paddle and do things of that nature. likewise with the air that we breathe. We should all be responsible to protecting the air that we breathe against chemical drift and other contaminants because we all benefit from having clean air. people have asked often, you know, am I concerned about the water that we drink? And I say yes. But thankfully for many Iowans, their drinking water comes through a treatment plant. And we can argue about the levels and the standards for which the drinking plant is required to adhere to. Kent Boucher (01:11:07.41) Let's let's take a tiny little town in Iowa, but not too tiny. 'Cause I imagine if you get small enough everyone's just on a well. But let's say Williamsburg, Iowa, it's close to where we're at right now. I mean not you know, what do they got? They got the they the strip mall over they got McDonald's and an Arby's. It's a pretty small town. Nicolas Lirio (01:11:26.104) Five thousand people. Kent Boucher (01:11:29.4) Do they have I assume they have city water? does a town like that have the capability of taking of denitrifying, is that the right term denitrifying the water the city water like you know, what is it, Des Moines Waterworks has? Do they have that similar those similar technologies and capabilities to say, you know, this is coming in at at you know fourteen, fifteen, what is it, milligrams per liter? Milligrams per liter. We gotta get that down to EPA standard of ten. Are they able to do that? Dr. Larry Weber (01:12:01.866) Milligrams per liter. Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (01:12:09.4) Well, for the most part, those communities rely almost entirely on groundwater for their drinking water utilities. So they're so they're taking it in through a well, they're drawing it from deeper either the you know, one of the deeper groundwater, the Jordan and Solarian well, lenses of groundwater. And so generally speaking, that water is gonna be in very low nitrate concentrations. Now it may have to be treated for other things, but very low. It's usually more expensive, but at that smaller scale Kent Boucher (01:12:16.504) They're taking it in through a well. Dr. Larry Weber (01:12:39.094) That makes the most sense. Okay. Nicolas Lirio (01:12:40.638) As opposed to building a giant nitrate denitrification. Kent Boucher (01:12:42.094) That's good to know. Yeah, 'cause this has been a real fear of mine, is all these small towns everywhere. It's been sure great. You know, Des Moines has enough of a customer base to do the heavy financial lifting on the technology, but what's what is a Williamsburg? Dr. Larry Weber (01:12:55.5) Right. The other thing is just locationally, a lot of those small communities just aren't located on a river or a stream that could support a surface water water drinking utility. And so, you know, we think about the early settlement and again there would be, you know, historians that would know all of this better than than I do, but you know, the major settlements are oftentimes on river corridors because of transportation related benefits that they gain from that. So Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Des Moines. you s council bluffs, you the Mississippi and Missouri River communities would benefit in that way. The larger rivers, again, the Missouri and Mississippi tend to be low nitrate concentrations because the source water is coming from much further away. You know, the Mississippi, you know, typically is in the two to three milligram per liter range. Wow. but the drainages are coming from Wisconsin and Minnesota and you know, the upper part of the headwaters where row crop production might be ten percent or less. Kent Boucher (01:13:51.244) Missouri's coming from prairie states. Dr. Larry Weber (01:13:53.358) Yeah, it's coming from prairie states and it's coming from the Dakotas and Montana and you know, the western states. And so not the same effect there. So i again, you know, typically those larger urban areas were were were immediately drawn to that surface water because it was a good source and it was plentiful. Yeah. And I think one of the challenges again, if if if we're moving forward without a plan, groundwater surface water plan. There's so many pressures that are coming into our water resources, both in terms of quantity and quality, that we may be facing difficult disk decisions that are unplanned for. How do we decide is it a community that gets first access to the water or is it an ethanol plant? Is it a community or is it a large animal feeding operation? is it a large animal feeding operation or a data center? and and we're starting to see, you know, the the number of folks that are tapping into those resources simply expecting that water to be available. And climate scientists have have projected for decades that our part of the world is going to see deeper, longer, prolonged droughts that get broken ended by intensified torrential rainfall. In twenty twenty four. Nicolas Lirio (01:15:16.428) Hmm. Kent Boucher (01:15:19.074) Why do sounds familiar? Dr. Larry Weber (01:15:20.458) Is yeah, doesn't that sound familiar? And so again, anecdotally, Kent, you might have seen that. Scientifically, we can record that. Yeah. And and and again, we're in a really unique spot in earth on Earth in that have you turned have you heard the term atmospheric river? Yeah. So California had a drought, right? Ten year drought, decadal drought that was broken by a hydrometeorological condition that was set up. Kent Boucher (01:15:37.26) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (01:15:48.194) with warm moist air coming off of the Pacific, as atmospheric rivers and providing torrential rainfall. Exactly. We have a similar occurrence here with warm moist air that comes from the Gulf. And that warm moist air that comes up from the Gulf then intersects cold Arctic air and where that intersection happens is where we get this very intense rainfall. Nicolas Lirio (01:16:10.851) interesting. So Minnesota, Iowa, northern Missouri, Illinois, we but if you go if you keep going further north or further south, we don't have it. Dr. Larry Weber (01:16:18.862) Correct. And and and that's called a mesoscale convective rainfall event. So that's the you know, the scientific term for it. Yep. We'll we'll call it atmospheric river. Now we can count those and count the occurrence of when those have happened. And and you can put a little red dot where they happened. And when you look at a map of the lower forty eight, the bullseye of that map is in Iowa in the northern third of Missouri. That we have the greatest occurrence of mesoscale convective rainfall events. Nicolas Lirio (01:16:48.374) It's a torrential downpour. Dr. Larry Weber (01:16:49.608) Torrential downpours. And as our climate continues to warm and change, the expectation is that line is gonna shift northward. Nicolas Lirio (01:16:59.214) Well Kent Boucher (01:16:59.598) Interesting. So then so then we'll be seeing more of the nitrate problem. Nicolas Lirio (01:17:04.842) No, I think he's saying we'll get less rain, right? Dr. Larry Weber (01:17:06.966) Right. Well, we're we're going to see and and so what we've seen again historically is that with climate change, if you look at the annual average rainfall event, average rainfall in Iowa, roughly, you know, thirty to thirty-six inches depending on what part of the state we're in. Right. Annual average precipitation. That trend line is going up very, very, very slowly. Maybe thirty became thirty one and thirty, you know, five has become thirty-six. But it's happening in fewer events. Kent Boucher (01:17:38.358) Right, so so we get we're right, so wouldn't that create more nitrate runoff problems further upstream because now they're getting this how do you say it, meso? Dr. Larry Weber (01:17:51.01) Mesoscale Convective Rainfall. Kent Boucher (01:17:53.26) Mesoscale convective rainfall to the north is because those are really when the nitrates spike, right? It's because this intense you have you have all this water erosion, this runoff erosion that's pulling these nitrates through the tile lines. Probably some across the surface, right? I mean, it when you get when it gets heavy enough and it hits saturation point, right? Nicolas Lirio (01:18:07.308) Land can't handle the stress. Dr. Larry Weber (01:18:14.138) That's right. And so so it's the two points really. It goes back to that that need for a plan. that our water resources are gonna become more and more scarce or or or s or or stressed. And when when that rainfall doesn't come, you know, as you know, three quarters of an inch every week, you know, fifty two weeks of the year. But it but but it comes once a month or it comes once in May and then not again until September. Kent Boucher (01:18:34.049) Once a month. Kent Boucher (01:18:39.296) Yeah. You don't get the benefit. Dr. Larry Weber (01:18:40.962) You y you don't get the benefit because so much of it is coming off so fast and moving through our system so quickly that we're not getting the benefit of it. what you know, like so that there's a lot of hydro explorers, that, you know, as energy prices, you know, fluctuate, people have an interest in developing a lot of distributed low head hydro. And, you know, oftentimes they'll look at a river and they'll say, Well what's the mean annual average flow? And then they can do a calculation to see how much power they generate. Well that mean average annual flow only exists like two days a year, you know, as as the hydrograph is going up and the hydrograph is going down. So if you built a a plant for that, during higher flows, you miss all the energy capture. During lower flows, you've got equipment that's not even spinning because there's not enough water to, you know, to power the plant. And so we can think about our usage of water in the same way. Is that if we plan for the average as an available resource for all the things that we want to do with it for industry and agriculture and urban uses, we're never gonna have the right amount of water. At the times when we have too much water, we can't take advantage of it because we don't have the demand. At times when the water is too low, we're gonna have too much demand and no available resource. Nicolas Lirio (01:20:01.182) Riley said that a year ago. He kind of predicted he's like, I don't think I was gonna have as much of an issue with how much rain we get. but his argument was that we won't be able to catch any of it. And he's like, if you get twenty-five inches of rain, but you only keep three inches of it, and his argument was tile, because it all goes out the tile, well, congratulations, you're Oklahoma. Yeah you know, and I I'm curious. Does tile play a measurable part in climate and meteorology? Dr. Larry Weber (01:20:37.118) Nicolas Lirio (01:20:37.582) 'Cause I'm sure an acre of it doesn't, but I mean we're at like over ten million acres of tiled Kent Boucher (01:20:43.138) I think we have what is it? Can you verify me on your phone? Because I'll sound like a buffoon if I'm way off on this. But I'll do it. I'll I'll take the I guess. There's two numbers that stick out in my head 800,000 miles and two million miles of tile. and I can't remember which one it is, and if one is just in Iowa and one is in all the Midwest or something. But do you know, Larry, how many miles of of drainage tile Dr. Larry Weber (01:20:51.48) Take a Kent Boucher (01:21:13.196) We have in Iowa. I wanna say it's eight hundred Dr. Larry Weber (01:21:15.674) I think it's the eight hundred thousand number. I think it's around a million. I think that is a number that resonates more with me. Nicolas Lirio (01:21:23.327) Thirteen million acres and this says nine hundred and twenty five thousand miles. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:21:30.51) So it's gone up. Dr. Larry Weber (01:21:32.514) Yeah, a mil a a million miles of tile. Kent Boucher (01:21:34.978) By th by the way, if you wanna know when a direct subsidy payment has just been released and you're not a farmer, just look for those giant reels of tile. Nicolas Lirio (01:21:44.27) Ask the tile diggers. They they yeah, make or break for But I wanna we gotta be totally honest because CRP's the same way. CRP is make or break. You prairie companies, I know this by having conversations from the smallest guys to the biggest guys. You rub two pennies together two, three, four years in a row, and then one year there's some big CRP thing, and boom, there's everybody's got a Kent Boucher (01:22:11.072) We go to the Golden Corral for lunch every day, dude. Nicolas Lirio (01:22:13.998) Don't let Kemp fool you. He goes to zipping. He goes to Gourmet Zippin and he gets his yeah. I went to one in I think it was Louisiana. Kent Boucher (01:22:20.046) Have you ever wondered Golden Corral? Kent Boucher (01:22:25.698) I don't I gotta I don't think I've been to one probably fifteen years almost. But man, back in their heyday they were the place. Nicolas Lirio (01:22:27.212) I'll tell you what, no local Nicolas Lirio (01:22:34.682) They yeah, yeah. But the the tile is it it is very interesting because it's it's a total disruptor, you know, of our of our water cycle. And then and I get it, this comes back to the conversation of sovereignty of land versus the commons, which I made a comment on the a podcast the other day where it's like if you could keep all the water that falls on your ground on your ground and it never touched anyone, then I'm all for you doing whatever you want with that water. But if it's gonna end up in a commons river or a lake, you know, then we have to have, you know, some sort of something to I hate the word regulation. Dr. Larry Weber (01:23:17.14) No, but but but I think back to the point and and whether you know we think thinking of it as the commons is kind of this holistic and kinda altruistic kind of viewpoint and and w you know of course I'd love it if everyone Some some some might. You know, but but but I would also, you know, take it another step and and that is that, you know, the agricultural system as it has evolved and and perhaps even been designed into a two crop system that's, you know, h heavily vested in corn and soybean production, heavily vested in ethanol production, heavily invested in, you know, in confined animal feeding operations, is also been heavily supported through federal programs, USDA programs. that have come in and really design this system and support this system. And so we need changes in the Farm Bill. We need to set different priorities and in the funding that comes through the Farm Bill that supports other things, supports more diversification. And for those farmers that take and are beneficiaries of federal taxpayer subsid subsidies and and support, then also need to be serving you know, the the folks that provide that tax base. And I just I I can't get it through through my head that you know that you know there could be you know major program funding that comes to agriculture because of things like trade imbalance that are direct dollars to farmers' hands with no environmental benefits provided back you know to the society. Kent Boucher (01:24:49.612) Yeah, no strings attached. Nicolas Lirio (01:24:52.428) We could let's say we change policy to be really good. Do you think policy alone could change it where we start seeing way more diverse crops and landscapes in Iowa and the Midwest? Dr. Larry Weber (01:25:02.946) Well, I I I do and again I think, you know, as I said, you know, people won't care about water quality until it becomes a public health issue. People also are caring more about where their food comes from. Right. Yeah. They really care, I think, about or people are beginning to care more about how much processed food, how much sugar, how many carbs, you know, where their food is coming from. There's a real interest in in local food markets, people developing, you know, direct farmer to consumer models for things and and and and doing it in a way that also makes these producers whole. I mean I I I've heard, you know, that the farmers market culture amongst the producers can be cutthroat. You know, people want to start and they want to do an organic farm and they you know they start with a half an acre or a quarter of an acre and all of a sudden they're at the farmer's market and the, you know, guy down the the street Kent Boucher (01:25:47.074) Yeah, I have heard that too. Dr. Larry Weber (01:25:58.018) You know, selling his tomatoes for ten cents a pound less. Of course he's selling out and you're going home with a a truckload of tomatoes. Nicolas Lirio (01:26:05.07) Actually in larger farmers markets, they're having issues with I don't even know if they'd call it issues, just middlemen. They're really good at farmers markets. They'll go and buy truckload from the Amish. Yep. They'll show up at the farmers market and sell out, and they didn't actually grow it. And now I'm not saying that's just totally wrong. I know I'd I'd like to eat tomatoes from the Amish, but there's an it like in Knoxville, we've been fighting really hard to get our farmers market going. But it's chicken or the egg, man. It is the chicken or the egg. Because if to get people to show up as vendors, you gotta have people there. But to have people there, you gotta have people show up as vendors. And it's easy to get people to show up with their little cool whip containers of whatever they but it is very hard. It it dude it Well, have you seen the people they like sell it they like sell Tupperware at farmers markets? What? You've never seen this? No. dude, they like go around and they go from market Kent Boucher (01:26:50.434) Cool with containers of what? Kent Boucher (01:27:03.492) you're talking about like little trinket vendor type stuff. Nicolas Lirio (01:27:06.528) Yeah, but I mean it's cool, like when people come in, there's a person at Knoxville who sells like three D like cats, but they're they're three D printed and they're puzzles for kids. so they're you can like pull them apart each part of the cat and they're actually pretty hard to put back together. That's cool. But there's not that much food at the and so I go around to all the vegetable all the vegetable people there every week and I go and I buy something and it's Kent Boucher (01:27:32.246) It's a knickknack market instead of a farmer's market. Nicolas Lirio (01:27:35.202) Yeah, and that's fine, but it's n it's not farmers market. Right, yeah. And and so you have a a a chicken or the egg. Well then the problem, Kent's been harping on this for a while, is if you have y and let's say we all got back to farmers market, it's great, you're still gonna have one farmer, the farmers market who's a lot better at selling stuff. And then he goes to the other and goes, Hey, don't even show up on Saturday. I'll buy your stuff from you, I'll sell it on the Saturday morning farmers market and then you got Walmart again. Right. You you're you're ten years from having Walmart. And and that does become an issue, but I don't know. It it it feels like a ruthless cycle that I don't know how to get out of. Well Kent Boucher (01:28:14.158) Zach Lane has talked about this a lot in his his campaign with what does he call it? Market fundamentalism, where this idea where you just let you let the economy take care of itself and I think we want it to work that way, but you just can't remove intentionality from from buying and selling. Nicolas Lirio (01:28:38.134) Or the human condition. Right. Kent Boucher (01:28:39.602) Right. Because the human yes, the human condition is what ends up spoiling it. And and I think you just have to be intentional in where you're buying your stuff, not just for your own good, but for the good of your neighbor. And really, you know, the the we we kind of joked about earlier, but it it does come down to loving your neighbor. I think that'd be a great campaign slogan for somebody. Hey, love your neighbor. And And that's that's really what gets you concerned about all this. I wanna step away from the high-mindedness here though for a second and go to I have a practicality question on the nitrates, and then I wanna talk about PFOS a bit. Poss PFAS always get left out, and I think it's an important part of all this. That I should have put two and two together with my question earlier about the small towns where they get their water. Who Nicolas Lirio (01:29:18.53) Yes, I wanted to bring up the Kent Boucher (01:29:34.29) has a nitrate concern flowing through their faucets without the excessive intervention from the water treatment centers in Iowa. So so we know that the Des Moines area. What other part so I mean is my my I'm on rural water where I live, so it's coming I know it's coming from an aquifer. Do I have much of a nitrate concern? I have a we have a filtering system on our on our drinking water. But is that a concern for a guy like me? It doesn't seem like it is for a guy in Williamsburg so much. Nicolas Lirio (01:30:13.966) Well is there anywhere that doesn't worry about the nitrates in Iowa? Dr. Larry Weber (01:30:17.768) Well again, some of those deeper groundwater sourced utilities will not have a nitrate issue, so so they should be okay. But because you're on rural water doesn't necessarily mean that it's a groundwater sourced. Some of it can be groundwater under the influence of river water. Kent Boucher (01:30:32.46) Yeah, mine is from I think it's six I think they have six deep wells near the skunk river though. So it's word worded. So is that getting polluted by the skunk? Dr. Larry Weber (01:30:38.466) Yeah, great. Dr. Larry Weber (01:30:43.95) Again, I can't say without going back and looking at that particular rural water utility. but if they're deep wells then they're most likely actually sealed on the upper part of it. So the actual extraction is happening at the bottom of the well. So so that's probably okay. The other part that I think is is really important for folks to understand, and again someone like David Swartney would be able to answer this more directly, but the number of rural wells that we have that are individual private wells or smaller community wells that are under some community size also have the ability to have arsenic in them, could have PFAS in them, could have other contaminants and need to be tested. And so commonly those wells are grossly under tested and under sampled. Kent Boucher (01:31:33.718) Just your just your average farmer Joe out in the countryside. Yeah. Drinking from his his personal wealth. Dr. Larry Weber (01:31:40.066) Th that's right. Or, you know, small acreage owner or even unincorporated unincorporated areas that may have individual wells or a small little community area. Kent Boucher (01:31:49.014) Are those likely influenced by nitrates because they're more shallow? Dr. Larry Weber (01:31:52.846) Could very well be influenced by nitrates. Even some of our smaller communities that don't go all the way down to the Jordan and Silurian aquifers can be influenced by nitrates. Nicolas Lirio (01:32:01.644) Jordan because that's where I get my water. That was that was pretty good. Dr. Larry Weber (01:32:03.96) That's the worst one. No, that that one should be good. Okay. But yeah, there are but but the point is is that we need to be sampling. We need to be not not not the collective we, but those individuals need to be having their water tested. for too long folks have just taken it for granted and and and only by assumption have assumed that their water's fine. But there's a lot of prevalence of arsenic in waters of arsenic? it's a naturally occurring Kent Boucher (01:32:33.1) Yeah. Toxic element. Dr. Larry Weber (01:32:34.787) element that's in our that's in our geologic bedrock. that that can be what can be exposed through our drinking water. Kent Boucher (01:32:42.722) Fans never seen arsenic in old lace. Classic old play. Dr. Larry Weber (01:32:45.443) Hmm. Nicolas Lirio (01:32:45.984) No. What is yes. What Kent does every weekend goes Kent Boucher (01:32:52.246) I love go I love going to to plays. Yeah, I like plays no, I like plays too. I do yeah, I like musicals better probably. Nicolas Lirio (01:32:54.936) Would you no, I think you like musical. Animates and musical are very no, I I do enjoy musical. Man, yeah, old cultured Kent. You know it. Okay. Anime's is cultures ahead of its time. Have you ever been to Tokyo? No, ahead of its time. They've got five downtowns. Kent Boucher (01:33:09.033) Say what you want, I don't watch anime. Dr. Larry Weber (01:33:19.582) That time hasn't arrived for me, Kent. Nicolas Lirio (01:33:21.678) So so P Foz, I what was that watershed seminar? Kent Boucher (01:33:25.102) Mm-hmm. Kent Boucher (01:33:31.47) Well hang on, I don't I'm not ready to move on yet from so so in Iowa, who needs to be concerned about nitrates coming through their faucet? Like what what regions of the state, what yeah municipalities maybe? Dr. Larry Weber (01:33:43.926) So so really anybody that's getting water that is under the influence of surface water. Okay. And and and again, most often that's direct extraction. Oftentimes there are lateral wells and other collection devices near the the stream. And then the third piece of that would be, you know, there's a number of communities that have very shallow wells. they had a resource because they have a river that's nearby. There's alluvium that holds water, and so they've drilled into that and they're taking water out. Manchester a few years ago had an issue with nitrate in their drinking water. and in and again, some of those cases they're just not very deep. And so it's directly under the influence of what's happening on the land surface. Kent Boucher (01:34:27.104) Okay, that's that's I think that's good practical information. Dr. Larry Weber (01:34:29.986) Again, there's there's probably some you know some study that should be done. You know, the farm that I grew up on, you know, our well was thirty-two feet deep. And it was located right next to the fuel barrels. and it had a hydrant. Leaded fuel, of course. It had a hydrant there that we cleaned out all of our you know farm equipment, the sprayers and everything, you know, right there. And so who knows what was in that well. Kent Boucher (01:34:43.096) Fuel. Nicolas Lirio (01:34:53.904) I drank out of that w the well at Hoxie. I drank out of that well my drank straight out of that sucker. It was as shallow as could be, right next to where we clean off all the equipment yeah, chemicals over there. Dr. Larry Weber (01:34:58.712) My whole childhood, sure. Dr. Larry Weber (01:35:07.488) And and so one of the things that's so important when when we say that, so I have no idea and it would not be humanly possible to recreate what my exposure history was to the water that I drank. Mm-hmm. Nor for you, Nicholas. And nor for you, Kent, in irrespective of where it came from. But we can't recreate that. And so part of what we're trying to do in this new program, Iowa Insight, which is the Iowa Integrated Network for Science, Information, and Geospatial Health Tracking, is to look at the environmental data of environmental contamination that we have, increase the monitoring that we have of our surface waters and our groundwater, looking for arsenic and radon and and the nitrates and the PFOS and everything else that's out there in our environment. Also then do biomonitoring to understand what's in our body. There's more and more technologies available that we can look at blood samples and urine samples and body tissue samples and start to get a a composite of all the contaminants that are in our body. Then the next piece of it is going to be with epidemiologists to connect those two. What have been your exposures, what's in your body. what then are the health outcomes and health effects that you might have, and then you know, try to create not just correlations between what we see happening with people's health in Iowa, but the linkage in causation and knowing that, okay, Nicholas, in fact, you know, you have this exposure history, you have these things, you have this health outcome, make that causal connection. Kent Boucher (01:36:42.765) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:36:43.318) How strong does the correlation have to be before you jump to causal? Dr. Larry Weber (01:36:47.116) Well, we have to go beyond and so putting dots on a line is one thing, but then it's really to to to go beyond just the dots on the line or the dots on the graph. But to through the epidemiology context studies, we gotta either you know, in my case it'd be understand the physics of fluids and is that physically possible for that thing to happen and and really get to the root cause of what are those triggers, what are the you know, the disruptors that have happened that have created that health condition. Kent Boucher (01:37:12.178) I I have one more nitrate question before we go to PFAS. so Matt Hatala, I believe, brought this up to us. I think I promised I'd ask you about it because he knew we were coming here soon. his his I don't know if it's really a complaint, but maybe a concern was we hear all the time about fertilizer applied, but we don't hear enough about the KFO side of our of our nitrate. Dr. Larry Weber (01:37:41.912) Problem. Mm-hmm. Kent Boucher (01:37:45.022) I assume that the they're they're mostly the same issue because we're using you'll hear industry people say, yep, and w we have to keep we have to have this watertight, you know, pit that collects all that manure. And you know, the next logical step is, it's an infinitely deep pit, huh? the our our good friend Luke Fritch who you would love. He he farms and teaches AP calculus. he goes, Yeah, but then don't you just spray that all out of the ground? Right. And and so to me, it's one and the same, right? They're the roe croppers are using this immense amount of manure that is produced, not just by hogs, but poultry as well. We have I think we're like one of the top, if not the top Like I think it's turkey produ producers in the country. Yeah, so we have incredible bird confinements as well, in our state. That manure it's not the problem that it's being generated up front. It's the fact if we have to do something with it and it's going on the ground in a row crop operation. Is that is that a correct understanding for how the confinement part of the contribution happens. Dr. Larry Weber (01:39:12.436) It is. that that's a correct understanding. And I think the other piece of that that's important to note is that, you know, applying it in the spring before the crop gets planted, as that seed germinates and as that crop starts uptaking nutrients and is relying on those nutrients, you know, to grow and thrive, that's one thing. it's another piece to know that that confined animal feeding operation pit has a storage capacity of about six months and it needs to be emptied in the fall as well. And so when that gets emptied in the fall, then of course that it's a newer ground for a long time. It's on the ground for a long time. With no live root. And again, as we see, you know, our falls and and totally we're how full how how much w you know warmer it's been in the fall. We have our own you know points of that as it relates to hunting. Yeah. you know, but we're seeing these, you know, less deep frost and freeze levels in the winter. we may get some extreme cold. That's all part of climate change. Kent Boucher (01:39:48.172) Library. Kent Boucher (01:39:54.286) Yeah no. Dr. Larry Weber (01:40:10.822) but it doesn't last very long. And you know, we may get some heavy snow, but it doesn't stick around very long. so we get these thaws and and again we saw active tile flow all winter long last year. And so that manure that was applied in October, you know, is just sitting there waiting to be taken. And and so I think it's it's fairly common that if you were a producer, that if you had to if you had a true type system and you wanted to put a value on that manure applied in the fall, you would put less value on it than the manure that gets applied in the spring. Mm-hmm. Because the likelihood of it being available for the plant in June and July is much lower than what it gets applied in the spring. And that's half the manure. That's half. It's not a small fraction, it's half. Kent Boucher (01:40:56.216) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:40:59.96) Yeah, that's so that I mean it is part part of it is the generation of it too, just because we have so many dang animals that yeah, we have to get our pits emptied twice a year. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. Dr. Larry Weber (01:41:12.216) You know, and and there's been, you know, some conversations around you know, land values in Iowa and as commodity prices prices softened for a f you know, a few years ago, that, you know, land kinda remarkably stayed pretty high. And and and one of the competing factors for that land was having places to apply manure from CAFOs. So a producer that's got a number of KAFOs is continually looking, you know, perhaps is producing more manure than what the land that they're, you know, farming on can can reliably accept and so some of that land is getting bought up, so that it's another place for them to you know, to haul their manure to. Kent Boucher (01:41:52.054) Yeah. Yeah, that's really I mean it really puts it into perspective. Okay. Ready for for PFAS? Nicolas Lirio (01:41:58.572) Yeah, I I have so many thoughts. But let's let's jump into Peev. So we were at a seminar thing. I can't remember what it was called. It watershed something. Dr. Larry Weber (01:42:08.852) w the one that you and I were at together it was I think the Mississippi Research Mississippi River Research Consortium. Kent Boucher (01:42:15.31) Jeremiah Haas while you were there? Dr. Larry Weber (01:42:17.304) I don't think it's Nicolas Lirio (01:42:18.034) yeah, I should have shook hands. Well the Dr. Weber here, he wasn't there very long from what I got there late and he had to leave early, so we didn't overlap very very long. But I remember the first talk I was at was a gentleman who talked about PFOS and the water are you going to Watershed Twenty Six this summer? I'm supposed to announce that. I'm gonna be at Watershed Twenty Six, highly recommend it's being Dr. Larry Weber (01:42:39.862) Yeah, so I'll be there. Kent Boucher (01:42:45.55) I think I'm planning to go too. Nicolas Lirio (01:42:47.34) Yeah, Kent's he's busy. He's the the Great Outdoors Foundation. Yeah, no, Judd has to be there. I he's gonna he's gonna be man in the booth and we'll have hats there, I guess. But we really like the Great Outdoors Foundation. You know, I I they just they're just a n needle mover. You know, they're they're able to they're able to actually get some stuff done on the ground. I really appreciate them. but and I I promised Kent Boucher (01:42:52.108) Juds planted to go as well. Nicolas Lirio (01:43:13.768) I that we would announce it. I need to do a better word. I need to get out on social media. So this is my reminder. but we are this last and the person that this was in like February. And the person that I came in and watched first was he was talking about PFAWs in the water, and I was embarrassed to be like, I never really thought I'm so busy talking about nitrates, you know, and PFAWs are like a gateway drug for conservation because because it's really popular and people go, my goodness, plastic, blah blah we need to use more metal jars. I need to have a garden. I need to do this you know, and and the only way Dr. Larry Weber (01:43:54.626) Yeah, blast to the town. Nicolas Lirio (01:43:55.782) man. Yeah, you're not you're not getting away from it. You're just limiting exposure. and what role is that playing in the water? And the fact that you're not not saying you're doing nothing with it, but you're not ringing the bell as hard as you are with nitrates makes me think it's not as big of a deal, but that's just a strong assumption on my part. Dr. Larry Weber (01:44:14.7) Yeah, and I I think with P FAS so Marty Saint Clair gave that talk. he's part of our team a and and works very closely with David Swartney. Martin on what do you you you absolutely should have him on and Nicolas Lirio (01:44:22.947) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:44:26.296) Can we have Robbie come with him? We don't get a hangout with Robbie. No. Dr. Larry Weber (01:44:29.006) Yeah, I know for sure. In fact, we should, you know, if we had a little more time, we should swing by and see what Robbie's doing. I think yeah. Kent Boucher (01:44:33.734) That would be so much fun. Yeah, but Robbie's just cool. Yeah, I like that Robbie smokes. I know it's not good for Robbie to smoke, but I like that Robbie smokes. Nicolas Lirio (01:44:45.27) It has an affinity to millennials and Gen Xers that made it. Kent Boucher (01:44:50.078) People with like neck tattoos, they always get attention. People that are in their twenties and thirties that smoke cigarettes, I'm right there. Tell me what you have to say, dude. Nicolas Lirio (01:44:59.123) His whole argument is that they went through teen challenge and still smoke and he thinks that's just the Kent Boucher (01:45:05.042) Cooling everything, all the all the you don't die from tobac from tobacco, you know, singing cowboy commercials. Right. I just love that about Robbie. Dr. Larry Weber (01:45:11.95) Yeah. You know, r he's a he's a bit of a renaissance guy, right? You know, he's gonna do it his way. Yeah. He is, absolutely. And you know, and so I I can appreciate that. you know, the PFOS issue is is a growing concern. And and and and Nicholas, the fact that we're perhaps not ringing the bell on it, I I think you're gonna hear that bell rung more and more. there's some some some Kent Boucher (01:45:20.03) Also a avid bow hunter. Dr. Larry Weber (01:45:39.65) Growing information and David and Marty have been working on this. PFOS in shallow wells along the Mississippi River. So and again, there's a lot of very shallow wells on the Mississippi River. And so this is PFOS that's born from industries outside of Iowa, in some cases, some cases inside of Iowa or along the river. And and so I think understanding that human health exposure to PFOS is going to be one of the areas within the new Iowa Insight program that we're going to focus on and target. one of the the the things that I would say is surprising to us i is that nitrate has become this issue that ten years ago was hardly talked about. Now it's on the tip of everybody's tongue. Right. People are upset, they're rallying around it, but there's so much more to be concerned about. And The fact that they're rallying around nitrate is good. It it it is a benefit to all of our water quality related issues. but more needs to be done beyond nitrate. And and this is where I I think in this last legislative session, you know, there was some narratives that were out there that, well, the DNR does one thing in their ambient water quality monitoring network, IHR runs this real-time nitrate monitoring system, the USGS is doing some other things. And there were some folks that, you know, made an attempt to sort of pit one against the other. my statement and my standing on that is what the DNR does is absolutely vitally important to understanding the water quality health of the state of Iowa. What the USGS is doing is also equally important. What we're doing is just as important. They complement one another. They don't compete against one another. But within Iowa Insight, one of the things that we will be expanding is also our grab sampling. So in addition to running this large network of real time continuous nitrate sensing, going out collecting grab samples and doing a full environmental chemistry analysis of the contaminants at the location is going to be I think building out a stronger database and a stronger case for things like PFOS, things like Dr. Larry Weber (01:47:54.2) you know, other chemicals that are born from industry, other chemicals that are naturally occurring, other chemicals that are born from agriculture. And so, you know, we're not in in any way targeting any one industry, but rather doing this as a service to help protect the people of Iowa. And I think as we started, you know, we were, you know, chatting about things and you know and and this being an opportune time to be doing this work is people have used that word I don't think of it as an opportunity. I think of this as a responsibility. Kent Boucher (01:48:29.406) Yeah, that's a good that's a good distinction there. Dr. Larry Weber (01:48:32.01) I I I you know, I I lead a group of people, nearly two hundred people strong, faculty, staff and students, that are leading engineers and scientists that focus on water related issues. And given the expertise of our program, if we were not serving the state of Iowa, that would be a dereliction of duty. People would say, Gosh, you're a public university, public funded faculty. Why are you you not bringing your skills on these issues? And yet as we bring these skills on these issues to the state of Iowa, It seems like there's some pushback in some cases that say, well, why are you doing this? We're doing it in service to the people of Iowa. Kent Boucher (01:49:09.088) Yeah, yeah, I love that. What one thing I wonder about with the the the PFOS, if you watch the the movie Dark Waters, the the exposure there for that little community, I don't remember the name of the town was in West Virginia, I believe. was chemical dumping, a chemical dump site. Nicolas Lirio (01:49:10.968) Man. Kent Boucher (01:49:32.8) I mean, I'm not super well versed in Iowa manufacturing, but I got a pretty good idea. I just don't see that as probably being our our reason we have, you know, P PFAS and our in our water here. I I guess I would expect it to be no, since the fifties people have been using Teflon pans and It's in flame retardant stuff. It's in waterproofing materials. So in other words, it's coming to us through a commercial usage. And it the stuff, I mean, it's a forever chemical. So it's it's always there and it gets, you know, as the as the old Gore-Tex, you know, backpack hood that you put over your your backpack breaks down and and flakes apart. Some of those PFAs get dri you know taken away in the river water and and you know from landfills and everywhere else. That's how I would perceive us to have it, or is it kind of both? I mean, we do have don't we have a big ammunition part of the it's like a military base down in Burlington, right? And and maybe some of that. But I mean, what where are we getting all this in our water from? Dr. Larry Weber (01:50:57.932) Yeah, I I think there's a couple of things and and and one thing that we would often talk about, you know, as it relates to flooding is that, you know, Mother Nature always bats last. You know, and that that's been you know probably said in different Kent Boucher (01:51:09.769) That's a great that's a great phrase. Dr. Larry Weber (01:51:12.13) Yeah, and so sometimes we think that we can outsmart, you know, coastal storm protection or building cities and urban areas and doing things where we shouldn't be doing, you know, Mother Nature bats last. I I think that's a a a key one. but as it relates to the you know, just again the industrialization of the world that we live in that has become so reliant on manufactured products. We're always trying to like race ahead of, you know the boogeyman or what what what's happening behind us. And so, you know, we discover something, it's not a great product. we further engineer it, we bring more science to it, we create some new product. Wow, a generation goes by or a decade goes by or a year goes by and we find out, man, that's not really good for us. And then we try to do something else. And and and and where w we're vulnerable is that too often again, we don't have the public health studies that are connecting those new whatever products to what impact they have on on people, what impact they have on our environment, what impact they have on our e ecological systems that are out there. And so we're forever gonna be playing whack a mole with this stuff. And I think a lot of what's happened in these Forever Chemicals is yeah, yeah, you know, probably to nobody's fault that they created Teflon or Gore-Tax or these products that were widely accepted into society because of the benefits that they provided, but we didn't understand what the long term negative effects were. Yeah. And you know, we we start to see some things where, gosh, you know, weeds are becoming glyphosate tolerant. Well let's hit it with another new chemical. Something that's right. Something that's better at taking life more destructive to that particular weed. And and and before we are able to spend the time to understand what impact that has on either ecological or a public health, we quickly get it to market. We get it out there 'cause it's taken care of Palmer Amaranth or something. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:53:15.69) That's always reactionary. Nicolas Lirio (01:53:17.842) The the I agree with you. It was no one's fault that someone invented Teflon. In fact, it was impressive, whoever did it, that they invented it. It was the company's fault when they figured out what was going on or had an inkling of what was going on on their impact they had around the world, and then they covered it up and stuff instead of owning it. and You know, that that's difficult to grapple with and I try to give people benefit of the doubt. In fact I think I annoy Kent when I do that. But I'm like, Well yeah, but you Kent Boucher (01:53:51.943) He gives some pretty undeserving people the benefit of the Jesus is the only one allowed to do that. Nicolas Lirio (01:53:54.818) Well you just I don't know L Loving thy neighbor. and and so but when you're when we as a public are saying water quality matters to us. I mean in Iowa, that basically just decided a primary election for us. It was one of the big things, if not I think the biggest thing. And We're saying that. But you're still like not getting your funding at the legislative office. And What is that that's frustrating to me to me and there are a lot of pieces, right? And so lawmakers and administration, things like they are they are I would say they you know, there's always more variables than just our side of the coin, but it just feels like the only true variable that goes against water quality is money. Is there whether it's money in the public's pocket or money in, you know, a small amount of large company or whoever's pockets, have you found any legitimate reasons why you guys couldn't get your eight pennies from the state office that doesn't involve money? Like I'm asking you to play devil's advocate. Is there any real reason that you could come up with or good arguments that don't involve money because it's really easy when you start talking about money to be like, well, but think about the single moms, you know, we start taxing them heavier and now all of a sudden it's I I I understand that. but you can't use outliers or anecdotes as your decision making process. It's the interpreter that that's that's what's right. Kent Boucher (01:55:42.766) What's wrong with the anecdotes? Kent Boucher (01:55:47.79) Yeah, yeah. You're the problem. Hard data, yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:55:50.19) Well, if I w if it was my anecdote, it would be solid. It'd be rock solid as evidence. But have you are you able to play devil's advocate? Are you able to sit there th and be like, Okay, that makes sense. I don't agree with it, but that's a good reason why, you know, maybe we shouldn't pursue this water quality initiative. Dr. Larry Weber (01:56:09.518) no, I'm not able to play devil's advocate and and and and come up with a determination. as I mentioned before, I think we are, you know, we're facing a monumental task here and I when understanding not only our water quality contamination, but also air quality. And we're at at this moment in our state's history where we need to tackle this with every resource that we have available to us. And I think that we need a strong federal presence on this issue. EPA, USDA, Health and Human Services, you know, there are many different federal resources that can come to bear on this issue. We need every state agency involved, Iowa DNR, IDALS, HHS, Department of Public Health, also leaning in and leaning forward on this particular issue. We need conservation groups, we need commodity groups, we need private individuals, and we need academic researchers. We need all of us working on this issue. to be able to come up with with with with solutions that help to ensure that Iowa is a livable state, you know, for our children and our grandchildren. And I I would say if I had one frustration from this last legislative session, it seemed that as much advocacy as there was for the need for doing this work, there was awful there was also a lot of noise that was out there sort of trying to pit one against another. And it shouldn't be, you know, that our network is better or worse than somebody else's or our data are better or worse than somebody else's data. Again, assuming it's all collected correctly and you know the protocols are all there. it should be about consolidating the best information that we have, bringing the DNR's data along with, you know, other state agencies and federal agency data together, along with research data to really tackle this issue. It is not simple and it's not a single entity's responsibility to solve this. We've got to be working on it together. And I think we lost some of that together this last year. Nicolas Lirio (01:58:15.566) I I've talked about this before, but my concern with with what you're saying there, because I agree with you. I just I point blank I totally agree with you on that. But my concern is that it's hard to describe, but let's imagine someone let's let's talk about debt for a second. If I want a house and it costs $100,000, I Kent Boucher (01:58:43.138) Back on the cabin, aren't we? Nicolas Lirio (01:58:44.826) Yeah, yeah, well it's always about the cabin. We never left. and it cost $100,000. I will pay for that for the next 20 or 25 years or whatever. And every time I make that mortgage payment, I know okay, I already got the benefit for this. I already received it. So I I know that it's still fair. But if I buy a PS5 or let's say a a nice gaming computer and I put on a credit card for $2,000 and And for years I'm paying $120 a month to pay off that credit card. But let's say after four months, I'm tired of the gaming computer. I don't play it anymore. So now I'm paying money on the benefit I already received and a benefit I'm done with. I feel like as citizens in the Midwest, but particularly Iowa, but I think some other states have done this as well, we have done that with our land where we cashed in. We we indebted ourselves and said, I want to get all the benefit right now. So with corn and beans, the thing corn is really good at is getting money out of the land this year. That's what that's why we use it as much as we do. And it's very storable. I don't want to discredit that's like the two major reasons that we use it. But the reason that's why the United States pushed it as a government, the reason individual farmers pushed it and all went into corn was because it's really good at getting money this year. And so now To fix our water quality issues that have been caused by row crop and fertilization, we would have to admit to ourselves, we already got the money. We're not getting any more money. In fact, now we're in debt and we have to pay money for a benefit we got and we spent on an RV. We have to now pay resources, whether it's volunteer time, more tax money, not getting our roads fixed because our tax money is having to go to something else because we can't afford more tax money. we have to. have that pain or give up those resources because seven years ago I bought more land at an inflated rate. And y does that make sense? Like we've already spent our resources and we haven't we've never paid the piper. Now we're having to pay the piper. Dr. Larry Weber (02:00:50.166) Yeah, and I I think just a another way to think about it is that, you know, we're we're producing commodities and whether it's grains or livestock and other food products, and we're selling them for the less than the full cost of production. We have not included the environmental or public health cost of the agricultural system. Okay. So so I think that I think that is is one of Nicolas Lirio (02:01:14.776) Better way to explain that. Dr. Larry Weber (02:01:16.128) Yeah, yeah. And so I think that's that's one way that we look at it. The other thing that I think is important, you know, for, you know, people to think about and and that is that, you know, if you know if you the old saying again, if I have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Okay. And so if I've got something like corn, then the continued development of uses and and by products of the second, third and fourth order to continue to make sure that we've got a market for that corn. Kent Boucher (02:01:30.38) Yes, yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (02:01:45.688) We've put so much energy and emphasis into that. What if we put an equal amount of energy into diversification to other things that we could grow? You know, and and and and started to think about those in a different way, then I think we would have a different system than we have to do. Why don't we do that? Well, I think we've met we we have we've been Kent Boucher (02:01:56.684) Yeah. Kent Boucher (02:02:09.272) Easier to make one combine that does two crops than three combines that do that do six crops. Dr. Larry Weber (02:02:18.422) Yeah. Right. And and or maybe we're even doing things that that that there there isn't a combine for yet. You know, and we've got to go out and do hand harvest or we've got to, you know, even think about some of our lands that we've put into perpetual easements, again, like these floodplain easements. What about the service that that's providing to our society? Well, it's real and meaningful. Ecoli e ecological services are real and meaningful to our system. But when we ignore and neglect all of those. for only one service and that is the sale you know, the sale of a of a two crop commodity system, you know, then we've lost that part of the of the the value statement. Nicolas Lirio (02:02:56.396) Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a really great point. I I gonna wrap us up, but Kent, did you you got something you wanted you looked contemplative earlier. Kent Boucher (02:03:06.028) Well, I this is Larry Larry is one of the the ultimate guests. Yeah. we get great guests all the time, but there's there's a there's a s a a special there's a special group of guests where you can both pontificate, get philosophical with, but then just hit with rapid fire fashion. And you're a good questions. Yeah. And he's a fun thing. Not just because you have this awesome cabin, you're truly a a Nicolas Lirio (02:03:34.193) We're not just trying to bribe our way back here. Kent Boucher (02:03:36.342) But but so I mean I could I I could go forever today, but you got a place you gotta be. I sort of have a place I have to be now. I was Yeah, that's right. We gotta make it ice cream. Nicolas Lirio (02:03:46.487) Promised ice cream. Kent Boucher (02:03:52.19) What is one practical thing that if you could have all Iowans do in relation to their water use that would make life better for them and and especially any dependents that are in their care? Dr. Larry Weber (02:04:11.576) Well n number one it's to know what water quality they have. So get their water tested, be informed about their water utility if if it's a drinking water. Kent Boucher (02:04:21.25) What's the best way for someone to get their water tested? Dr. Larry Weber (02:04:24.338) so there's a public assistance to counties program that provide free testing for anybody in a private well. so and and again, oftentimes those funds have been left not fully spent and utilized. over the last year or so as this water issue continues to elevate. it's my understanding that they're getting closer if not actually getting to the cap limit on those funds. So get your water tested. That's number one if you're on a private well. Number two, if you're not on a private well, Spend the five minutes or the the the 30 minutes, invest in yourself to understand where your water is coming from and what the water treatment standards are for the water that you're drinking. I when I when I when when people have asked me, you know, through the years, you know, with the flood center and the Iowa Watershed Approach Project and other things that I've been involved in, you know, what what what is the thing that I'm most proud of? And it's very simple. It's that we've raised the literacy on water resources issues in Iowa. People understand what floods mean and what droughts mean. But yet it's remarkable to me that I can I I could identify a person every week that I that I talk to that doesn't know anything about the cancer issue in Iowa, doesn't know that we have water quality concerns and water contamination in our drinking water systems. And so there's it's clear that we need to do more. And education and outreach and communications. And again, that's where I think it's all hands on deck. And, you know, again, I I I applaud what you do in the Prairie Farm Cup podcast because you reach another sector of people on this issue that may not get exposed or may not have been exposed to the issue. So I I I I appreciate everything that you do and the diversity of the audience of the guests that you bring in for your audience. Kent Boucher (02:06:17.436) well thank you very much. That's very high praise coming from you. Nicolas Lirio (02:06:20.91) But I'm really sorry to do this to you right at the end of the podcast. We cannot leave without asking you about data centers. And we don't fully the two big things with data centers that people hate. I mean the job thing, the AI, I get that. The water and the electricity use. So just for now, in your lane, the water, do you know anything about it, how they intake, what they use, you know, that kind of stuff? I don't understand it. Dr. Larry Weber (02:06:47.88) I don't know as much as others. there Keith Schilling is another guest that's been on in the past. He's Does he know a bunch? He does, and and Keith would be a good person to have on to talk more about data center. Nicolas Lirio (02:06:57.698) Didn't he retire recently? Dr. Larry Weber (02:07:00.138) so he is in the process of stepping down as a state geologist and and gonna stay on for about another year or so before he fully retires. but I I suspect Keith is of the type that retirement will still involve scientific and technical work. Kent Boucher (02:07:15.896) Tell you that off air when your day comes to retire, you you're too valuable of a resource to to Iowa that I hope you find a a new avenue to positively impact our state. I hope the same for Keith. Dr. Larry Weber (02:07:29.996) Yeah, thank you for that. That that's that's that's that's thoughtful. but I I think one of the the again missing elements on this data center discussion is what is the state's role in helping to plan these data centers? And I think there's there's too many local one on one transactions that are happening between an entity that could be a giant and a community that could be a relatively Small player in this negotiation. Nicolas Lirio (02:08:01.55) We need to get the power of the state level administrator or lawyers or something. Dr. Larry Weber (02:08:07.65) Well, we need some policy. How many data centers? What is the carrying capacity for data centers? Where do we have water resource availability in excess that we don't have other pressures on that could be used to support a data center? Where might we have energy resources that could better support a data center? Yeah. I I I have, you know, again, concerns and maybe some skepticism that we've got, you know, this well trained, finely tuned. you know, legal and administrative team that shows up in you know in in in community A in Iowa, gets to the ninth step of a tenth step negotiation, and so that now we didn't get what we wanted in step ten, and they go up the river or down the river to the next community, maybe smaller in size, and you know, starts that whole negotiation over. And I I think if there was a better oversight that protected those communities with a little bit stronger administrative and you know legal support to make sure that the deal is a good deal. Yeah. And that the details are understood better. a lot of this is happening under nondisclosure agreements. and so things are held pretty tight lipped. You could say that's, you know, to protect a particular strategic industry. I I I would say that That may be the case, but it may be just simply for the expediency of trying to get something cited, to get an agreement in place, to get the you know, the equipment in to start building these things. And and and for me, I'd say pump the brakes. things are moving fast and and and I'd be a little bit concerned about again long term impacts of of being first in line. Kent Boucher (02:09:59.49) Yeah, we're done posting data center reels, guys, okay? but we're not done talking about them. My right now people are screaming their heads off. No, I don't want I don't want I don't want data centers. You know what? I don't want technology that we've had for ten years now. But my fear is that if we can't come up with some kind of proactive way to deal with this, like you said, I think makes a ton of sense. Right. If all we can can be with is saying, no, I don't want it, no, I don't want it. No, I don't want it, you're gonna get it. Because these are the wealthiest, most powerful com companies in the world. How well did the Epstein That everybody wanted dealt with go. Did we get our way on that, American people? And it it's not that's it's not a question of no, I you know, I'm gonna scream loud enough that I don't want this. It's gonna get force fed to you almost guaranteed. So if you're gonna be pro proactive about it and make sure you don't get screwed in the deal, is you have to come up with a very powerful and unifying plan. To deal with it. And and it you just it was just in the news, I think today. Was it Clinton County just overturned their moratorium? They had a moratorium in place. There will be no data centers. Well, guess what happened? The rich and the powerful show up, and I don't know how, but all of a sudden the moratoriums flipped. Right. And and so that just happened yesterday. There's ninety-nine counties in our state. So if it's that easy, you can expect what, you know, ninety-nine counties of data centers. Then and if we if all we do is just stay angry and unin you know, having no positive way forward with this, pr proactive way forward with this, we're gonna get and it's gonna be a bad deal on top of it. Nicolas Lirio (02:12:01.816) Well and I don't know if we get the most vulnerable communities Kent Boucher (02:12:05.002) Right. The most vulnerable communities will get that already have other problems that they're trying to overcome. Dr. Larry Weber (02:12:09.526) Right. And and and to me again this goes back to, you know, do we have the right systems in place at the state level? Do we have the right state level leadership? You know, is there a a a more balance in that imbalance between power and money that's happening at these small communities? Can we bring a little more balance if we bring the heft of the state of Iowa to bear on this? Now again, we'd have to hope that we have the right minded leadership and people that are doing the right things for the general public. But I I I just I I think it's very difficult for these small communities, again, where a lot of times they're public servants or the butchers, the bakers and the barbershop owners, to all of a sudden be, you know, legal experts and water experts and energy experts to be able to sit down in a negotiation with a data center that, you know, is protecting information, doing things under NDAs, sometimes even coming in and doing their own explorations of resources. without making that available. We've got a geological survey in the state of Iowa that should be charged with understanding the groundwater and mineral resources of the state. Kent Boucher (02:13:13.57) Put them to work. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure some people get their wheels greased and they sell out or whatever. But I gotta imagine, like you said, a lot of these people are just everyday people and they are completely intimidated when Giant Company X, that's a trillion dollar company, shows up and they're le no, they don't show up. Their lawyers show up. Right. Lawyers. And and so Nicolas Lirio (02:13:36.238) Their team. They're a team of many. Kent Boucher (02:13:40.438) We we gotta find I get it. Nobody wants I don't want but we gotta come up with something better than just screaming about it. Nicolas Lirio (02:13:47.086) I think what what really bothers me about it, I don't l I don't love the idea of data centers and I would probably fight pretty hard if one tried to show up in Marion Mask or Jasper County. depend I mean if they came in and said, Hey, we're gonna give every single person a thousand every household a thousand dollars a month, you know, for thirty years, I'd be like, All right, you know that the you know, but the point is like the point is balanced power and balance give and take. Kent Boucher (02:14:12.29) Sell out, you know. Nicolas Lirio (02:14:17.0) Right. And I I like that's what you're talking about. What bothers me about it is like I understand we don't like data centers, but data centers are the price we pay for keeping all ten thousand nine hundred and seventy-two videos you have of your beautiful three year old on iCloud on YouTube. shit making weird Kent Boucher (02:14:33.773) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (02:14:38.376) AI photos of yourself on Facebook and sharing them as your profile picture. Also, side tangent, you should be in your profile picture. That bothers me so much. Your kids can be in it. Your husband or wife can be in it. Your grandparents can be in it, but you should also be in the profile picture. I want to know what you look like. You know, if because if people add me, I'd tons of people, you know, they can't I get p people at us on Facebook all the time. We don't we don't know them at all. Kent Boucher (02:15:03.01) Those people probably just have a mirror right outside their shower. They they're they need a little ego boost. Nicolas Lirio (02:15:07.886) But I don't know who you look like, I'm not gonna add you. But so we email our emails are all stored on data centers. So I understand we hate them and I hate the idea of them, but yeah, if I want Oreos, I gotta be okay with a little belly. Kent Boucher (02:15:27.168) Our data consumption demands them. Nicolas Lirio (02:15:29.302) Yeah. But if you say, Hey, I have totally got for the most part I got off the grid, I use a little email, I Google search a little bit here and there, then I'll listen to your argument about how data centers are the worst thing in the world. I I'll I'll get that. But if you're gonna scream at us and comments on social media that live on a data center, come on. There's better better uses of time. But anyway, I appreciate your outlook on the data center. Dr. Larry Weber (02:15:56.151) Yeah. Kent Boucher (02:15:56.716) Yeah. Do you I mean, do you think that's gonna be the next b big horizon for water quality? Or do you think it'll be kind of a flash in the pan kind of thing? Dr. Larry Weber (02:16:06.326) Yeah, I I think that's also hard to know. I think that there's some evolving technologies there that, you know, maybe the water use and and again, I think demanded by people is going to become more and more sustainable within the data centers. So we start to see the the power density of energy production becoming more and more dense. I think the the use of water could be optimized and made more efficient and more sustainable over time. But I think where we are today, we're just in a i information desert and we just don't know. And and when I don't know, again, I have a little bit of a hard time putting my faith and trust in, you know, the the the powers that be that want to come in and force this issue. And and again when you see the actions of moving into and out of different areas, depending on what they're getting, well, it just makes you kind of wonder if there's something else behind the curtain. Nicolas Lirio (02:17:05.112) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Totally. All right, last question and then we'll hang it up and go get some ice cream. for people who are in deep aquifers, deep wells, and for people who are dealing with nitrate issues as two separate things, what kind of what kind of filtration system should they have in their home? Dr. Larry Weber (02:17:22.306) Well, you know, certainly for the nitrate reverse osmosis is the the the standard out there. it is basically what the Des Moines Waterworks is doing at large scale. but if we can't afford to do that at large scale, then at the home scale that's a very effective system. those are available, the prices are more reasonable today than they were, you know, five or ten years ago. But you know, for some folks, two or three thousand dollars is still a very heavy lift. and just make this point very quickly. David Swartney was giving a talk a a week or two ago talking about what's happening in neighboring states. And when you look into Nebraska, they're actually providing public assistance for reverse osmosis system installation in the home for people that are in high nitrate levels and and would benefit from that. There's again another I think progressive step that our state could be thinking about, you know, because you know, putting twenty five million into expanding the Des Moines Waterworks nitrate removal system, great. for those folks. Gonna take three or four years to get it built and installed and operational, but what about everybody else? and so I think there's an opportunity for some leadership in that different space. Nicolas Lirio (02:18:32.92) That's awesome. Well, we really, really appreciate you hanging out with us. And not everyone can have as brilliant of a mind as you do, but we don't need to. Because as we know, conservation, all this water quality, being able to live in a common good area with the common good people happens one mind at a time. Nicolas Lirio (02:18:55.928) Yeah. Dr. Larry Weber (02:18:57.09) Wonderful. Yeah, great to see you guys. Well, it's always fun to be on and fun to be with you and I I really do hope that we we continue. absolutely Kent Boucher (02:19:07.576) Yeah, I think.