Iowa is getting more than four-million dollars in federal grants to improverural water quality in the state’s northwest and southwest regions. EllenHuntoon (hun-toon’) is state director of the U-S-D-A Rural DevelopmentOffice and says the “Water 2000” grants are a big plus.Huntoon says the Southern Iowa Rural Water Association of Creston willprovide water to the southern Iowa cities of Carbon and Grant in addition tonearly 300 rural users in Adams and Montgomery counties.Huntoon says the other grant will help rural residents in two northwesternIowa counties — Dickinson and Emmet.Huntoon says without safe, reliable drinking water, no community can attractthe types of new businesses needed to provide good-paying jobs.