The organization American Rivers has released its list of America’s 10 most endangered rivers, and the Iowa River is number 3 on the list, thanks to “weak enforcement of the Clean Water Act.”

Here is the short explanation for the ranking:

The Iowa River and its tributaries provide a boon to local economies, offering drinking water to nearby communities and wonderful recreational opportunities. Yet a host of polluters inundate the river with toxins and untreated sewage. Unfortunately, the state of Iowa trails far behind the rest of the country in implementing and enforcing the federal Clean Water Act. Unless the state wants water quality in the Iowa and other rivers to deteriorate even further, Iowa must adequately implement key provisions of the Clean Water Act and provide its Department of Natural Resources sufficient funding to enforce these regulations.

If you click through, you can download a pdf that has more detail about this assessment, and you can watch a video of Susan Heathcote, Water Program Director of the Iowa Environmental Council, explaining why the river is considered “endangered.”

At first I worried about this report, but then I remembered that Iowa is an agricultural state and anyone who doesn’t like it can leave in any of four directions.