Des Moines Water Works might be willing to settle its lawsuit against three northwest Iowa counties over nitrate pollution if the utility is compensated for ratepayers’ expenses and there is a firm agreement to take action to reduce pollution, the utility’s CEO said.

Water Works General Manager and CEO Bill Stowe said he’s preparing for the case to run its full course, without a settlement. Short of some meetings right after the utility filed its intent to sue under the Clean Water Act — talks that weren’t exactly amicable or settlement-friendly, Stowe said — there has been no serious discussion of a detailed settlement he could take to his board.

“It was pretty intense,” Stowe said of the early meetings with Gov. Terry Branstad, Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and representatives of the drainage districts that are at the heart of the lawsuit. “That was not very constructive.”

“We are going to prepare as though this should and has to go to trial,” Stowe said. “We have nothing to lose” but legal fees, he added. 

“The lawsuit will remain scheduled for trial in August 2016,” Stowe said. “The only thing that can change that is a consent decree with agriculture and voluntary protections with data that will be available to the public and with sanctions” if certain thresholds aren’t met, he added.

Consent decrees are judge-approved pacts among parties that are filed as a way to settle a lawsuit. They are used often in environmental cases, including when the Iowa Department of Natural Resources orders a city to, say, expand its sewage treatment to reduce pollution levels.

Lawyers for the counties declined to comment for this story. Kirk Leeds of the Iowa Soybean Association, one of the most vocal defenders of the agricultural interests’ position in the case, did not return a call seeking comment.

But John Torbert, executive director of the Iowa Drainage District Association, which has solicited money from counties to fight the lawsuit, said he would welcome a settlement. But he doesn’t see that coming anytime soon, if ever.

“I hope we can find some common ground to keep this from going to court,” Torbert said. “Right now, what we have is a bunch of money being spent on lawyers, and it isn’t helping water quality in any way.”

Torbert isn’t holding his breath for a settlement. “The indications that (Water Works has) given in the past is that they want to have the drainage districts subject to federal regulation. That is not something we are interested in,” said Torbert, whose organization is deciding whether to intervene in the case. 

“I don’t know where the middle ground is,” Torbert said. “You can’t be sort of regulated. Either you are or you aren’t.”

Stowe wants the counties to admit the pollution problem is serious, set up sampling and publish the results, and ensure that Water Works customers aren’t paying for pollution that should have been controlled upstream.

“I’m not going to sit down with people who say the water is the best it’s been in 20 years,” Stowe said. “Folks have to admit this is a real problem that is immediate. This has to be addressed.”

Stowe said he isn’t necessarily out to save the Earth, clean all of Iowa’s waterways or become the point man for a new environmental movement, even though the utility’s lawsuit was well-received among environmental interests. He wants to save the utility’s ratepayers money, and doesn’t like the idea that they are being asked to subsidize farm interests he considers the source of most of the nitrate polluting the Raccoon River. The river is a chief source of water for 500,000 customers in Central Iowa.

“This is a business proposition,” Stowe said.

So what are the odds this case goes to court next year, as scheduled? 50-50, in Stowe’s view.

For Stowe, the only answer is a specific agreement that requires measurable actions by ag interests and specific payments to the utility to cover the costs of running Water Works’ nitrate-removal plant and for its future replacement with a bigger system that could cost close to $200 million. 

This year, Water Works set another record, running the nitrate-removal system for 148 days at a cost of $1.25 million.

Farm interests counter that the lawsuit is divisive and unproductive. They contend that the state is better off giving the voluntary conservation and pollution-cutting actions listed in the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy time to work. 

Stowe said the political winds aren’t in his favor, given the strength of the farm lobby. And he wonders if agricultural interests will negotiate the type of specific agreement he wants. So it wouldn’t surprise him if the case goes to court as scheduled.