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Central Iowa Water Works confirms water remains safe to drink • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

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Date: 2025-06-20

Central Iowa Water Works reinforced Friday that water coming out of the system’s treatment plants continues to meet federal safe drinking water standards.

The regional water production authority said the lawn-watering ban has been effective at reducing load and allowing treatment facilities to keep the drinking water nitrate levels below the federal limit, despite near historic levels in source water.

“We don’t anticipate that there’s going to be any concern with our water not meeting safe drinking water standards because of the hard work that everyone is doing with the lawn watering ban,” Tami Madsen, CIWW executive director said at a press conference Friday.

CIWW issued a lawn watering ban on June 12 due to exceptionally high levels of nitrate which can cause problems like blue-baby syndrome or other adverse health effects when consumed in high concentrations.

Rumors circulated on social media Thursday that CIWW was expecting nitrate concentrations in output water to exceed the federal safety standards, but Madsen shut down the rumors and said CIWW has “no concerns” of that happening, because the lawn watering ban has been so effective.

Madsen said while CIWW does not expect its output to exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standard, which for nitrates has a maximum of 10 milligrams per liter, but if it did CIWW would communicate with the public.

“Unless you hear it directly from Central Iowa Water Works, our water is still safe to consume through the safe drinking water standards,” Madsen said.

Des Moines Water Works’ Fleur Drive plant and the Saylorville Water Treatment plant have the capacity to remove nitrates from the water. CIWW has plans to expand treatment capacity by 25% in the coming years, which would help to reduce future lawn watering bans.

Madsen said the nitrate levels in the river have gone up slightly due to recent rainfall. Friday afternoon figures from CIWW had the Des Moines River at 14 mg/l and the Raccoon River at 15 mg/l. Water coming out of out of the system had concentrations around 8 mg/l.

Madsen said on average it cost about $16,000 a day to operate the nitrate removal facility, which is only turned on at the Fleur Drive facility when necessary. Nitrate levels tend to spike in the spring and early summer when rain washes nutrients off of fields and other surfaces up the watershed. During the current spring flush of nitrates to the system, the removal facility has been operating for more than 60 days.

Madsen, in an email, said the cost to run the nitrate removal process is part of CIWW’s operational costs. The budget is structured with an anticipation of running the facility for a period of time each year, based on data from past years.

Madsen said when it goes over budget, the cost is covered by “savings elsewhere or reserves.”

The levels in the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers are below 10 mg/l for most of the year, according to charts from the Iowa Water Quality Information System.

Saylorville facility

Madsen spoke Friday outside of the Saylorville Water Treatment Plant which uses ultra filtration membranes and reverse osmosis filtering to remove contaminants, including nitrates, from water it sources from groundwater wells along the Des Moines River.

Ted Corrigan, CIWW’s system operator, said this dual-membrane filtration is the normal process, regardless of nitrate levels, for the 10-million-gallon per day facility.

Corrigan said membrane treatment is “the next generation” of water treatment technology, and represents the direction the industry is moving to treat drinking water.

The Saylorville facility is in the design phase to double its capacity as part of several planned CIWW projects to expand capacity. Madsen said this expansion was in response to the anticipated capacity increases from residential growth, rather than higher anticipated levels of nitrates in source water.

The Saylorville expansion, along with a new facility in West Des Moines and expansion in Grimes, however, will all have the ability to filter nitrates. The expansion is expected to be completed within the next seven years, and Madsen said the facilities would cost around $350 million.

Madsen, when asked about efforts to control nitrate runoff up the watershed, said the focus of CIWW is to “continue to provide safe drinking water” to the region.

For now, that means the lawn watering ban stays in place until further notice. CIWW allowed splash pads and spraygrounds to reopen Thursday to help Iowans cool off during the anticipated high temperatures this weekend.

“We just need to continue to stay vigilant with the lawn watering ban so that we can reduce the capacity to be able to continue providing water that meets all safe drinking water standards,” Madsen said.

Central Iowa Water Works posts regular updates about the ban and nitrate levels on social media and on its website.

This article has been updated to include information on CIWW budgeting.

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[1] Url: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/06/20/central-iowa-water-works-confirms-water-remains-safe-to-drink/

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