Water quality is often the subject of intense debate in Iowa, and the Iowa Great Lakes area will host the 2026 Iowa Water Conference next week.
Organizers say the goals include making connections, learning and seeking solutions.
Iowa Water Center director Rick Cruse says the conference theme is: “Life Depends on Water. Water Depends on You.”
“We try to focus the conference on the role that people’s lives play within the watershed,” Cruse says, “on how it impacts water quantity and largely, water quality.”
The 20th annual gathering will be set in Arnolds Park along Lake Okoboji on September 16th and 17th. Cruse says there will be a wide range of water-based topics for breakout sessions and panel discussions.
“One is the integrated watershed and agricultural solutions. We’re working out what we can do within the watershed as a team, as a community, to make water better,” Cruse says. “One, addressing water quality and public health. Also, water quantity, flood and drought resilience.”
Other workshop topics will include water recreation and tourism, as well as fisheries, wildlife, and aquatic ecosystem health.
Cruse says there will even be a couple of pre-conference tours of the Iowa Great Lakes.
“One is going to be an on-water tour. That is actually going to be a tour in which the participant stakeholders are in canoes or in kayaks, so they’ll be paddling around the lake,” he says, “and the other tour is a bus tour.”
Cruse says this is the first time the conference is being held in the Iowa Great Lakes.
(By Ed Funston, KILR, Estherville)