DELAWARE, Iowa — In northeast Iowa, a wispy stand of bushes seems to be misplaced.
It’s surrounded by crop fields on the north facet of a four-lane freeway, an oasis of nature that’s unusual in rural Iowa, the place farming each inch of land is paramount.
Its proprietor hopes to chop and until it for cropland.
However he can’t do it with out risking his enterprise. For now.
Jim Conlan, an out-of-state investor in Iowa farmland, knew the federal authorities thought-about these 9 acres to be a wetland earlier than he purchased it as half of a bigger tract. If he clears and plows that land, he’ll lose eligibility for the federally backed crop insurance coverage and different advantages {that a} majority of row crop farmers rely upon, beneath a 1985 legislation referred to as “Swampbuster.”
Conlan went to court docket to problem the legislation, arguing it violates his constitutionally protected property rights. If he wins, tons of of hundreds of acres in Iowa and different states might be drained, plowed and put into manufacturing.
Conlan mentioned he sued after the U.S. Division of Agriculture declined to reclassify the wetland, which is commonly dry.
“They’re so inconceivable to take care of,” he mentioned, following a latest federal court docket listening to in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
He’s represented by the identical legislation agency that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in 2023 to overturn Clear Water Act protections for huge areas of wetlands as a result of they aren’t constantly linked to a stream. As they did with the Sackett case, Conlan’s legal professionals hope to topple one other pillar of the federal authorities’s wetland conservation coverage.
The case describes Swampbuster as unfair and coercive, arguing that it prevents farmers from draining or filling wetlands on their very own properties with out paying them for taking the land out of manufacturing.
“It appeared actually egregious to me that farmers — an trade that is so very important to America and to the world — could not use their very own property to do that and weren’t being compensated for it,” mentioned Loren Seehase, senior counsel on the Liberty Justice Heart, one in all two organizations representing Conlan’s firm, CTM Holdings. “So long as they … are getting [federal] advantages, they can not do something with that wetland.”
However advocates of the statute say it’s cheap — the legislation doesn’t prohibit farmers from draining wetlands on their property.
“This is not cash that is owed to those farmers. These are non-obligatory grants and insurance coverage applications that the federal government offers,” mentioned Dani Replogle, a employees legal professional at Meals & Water Watch. “So there are circumstances related to receiving authorities cash, similar to there are circumstances related to receiving Medicare and meals stamps.”
No matter occurs in court docket, individuals on this a part of the world know that one farmer’s choices about find out how to handle their land will have an effect on their neighbors.
A type of individuals, a starting farmer named Elle Gadient, has 160 acres downstream from Conlan’s property. Gadient’s cropland and pasture swaddle an outdated white farmhouse on the high of a hill.
She and her husband hope to lift younger dairy cattle there in future years.
Gadient is worried about what occurs if Swampbuster goes away. “That is actually a program for all farmers and impacts water high quality that impacts all of us,” she mentioned.
Defending ag wetlands
Wetlands in the USA have gained appreciation over time for his or her environmental advantages. They filter air pollution, take up floodwaters and supply habitat for wildlife. However hundreds of thousands of acres have been destroyed since European settlement.
When European settlers arrived within the Midwest within the 1700s, wetlands have been an obstacle to agriculture. So settlers drained most of them with ditches and, later, perforated underground tubes often called “tiling.”
Within the early 1900s, the federal government helped set up the drainage networks — primarily within the wetter northern components of Iowa — by means of the creation of drainage districts.
There at the moment are hundreds of those districts, that are overseen by counties and landowners to collectively keep the huge methods of drain tiling that lie a number of ft beneath the floor. There are tons of of hundreds of miles of tile in Iowa alone.
In Iowa and Illinois — the nation’s leaders for corn and soybean manufacturing — about 90% of these states’ pre-settlement wetlands have been transformed, primarily to extend their cropland.
Attitudes in the direction of wetland destruction shifted about 40 years in the past. As much as that time, USDA applications weren’t uniformly designed to guard wetlands — some have been actively harmful, equivalent to crop commodification and value helps, which inspired practices that led to extra soil erosion and polluted water.
Conservation teams just like the Sierra Membership and the Nationwide Audubon Society lobbied for adjustments to agricultural insurance policies within the 1985 farm invoice, or the Meals Safety Act.
The farm invoice is an enormous, omnibus measure that funds federal insurance policies for meals and agriculture. It’s renewed by lawmakers about each 5 years, and it contains SNAP advantages and crop insurance coverage subsidies for farmers, amongst different helps. Lots of of billions of {dollars} are allotted to cowl applications, loans and insurance coverage.
The 1985 invoice included the Swampbuster provision, in addition to Sodbuster, which was meant to stop soil erosion.
These provisions sure wetlands safety to USDA loans, funds and help applications, together with crop insurance coverage and value help. They’re key applications that greater than 34% of farm households within the U.S. obtain, serving to them break even in occasions of drought or low commodity costs. About 95% of each corn and soybeans in Iowa — practically 23 million acres — are insured, in accordance with the USDA.
And it labored. A 1998 examine discovered that about 12 million acres of U.S. wetlands had been protected beneath Swampbuster.
However it’s onerous to trace these threatened ecosystems. The Pure Sources Conservation Service (NRCS), which oversees Swampbuster guidelines, doesn’t keep a searchable database and can’t precisely say what number of acres there are, mentioned Sue Snyder Thomas, a former NRCS state compliance specialist.
She mentioned the wetlands usually vary in dimension from a half acre to 10 acres in Iowa.
The Iowa case
Conlan’s property doesn’t appear like a wetland.
It is not linked on to a stream. Its floor is commonly dry and overgrown with grass. There’s a stand of bushes on a part of it, and the remainder is pocked with stumps — the federal government permits landowners to reap bushes so long as the stumps and roots stay.
However you’ll be able to’t choose a swamp by its floor water.
NRCS is the choose. Federal regulators consider the soil and vegetation for indicators that it is usually waterlogged in the course of the rising season. Additionally they assessment aerial photos.
In 2010, the NRCS decided that a part of the property was a wetland for the needs of the Swampbuster rule.
Twelve years later, Conlan purchased 72 acres close to the city of Delaware for $700,000, in accordance with county data. A bit greater than half of these acres have been farmed on the time.
Conlan has since eliminated bushes from a part of the land to develop extra corn and soybeans, and he want to clear the wetland. He requested the NRCS to reevaluate the wetland designation however mentioned he was refused.
Federal guidelines enable landowners to ask for reevaluations if nature alters the land or if there’s proof the company erred.
Wetland designations have been challenged repeatedly in federal court docket with various levels of success, however Conlan’s lawsuit may be the primary to query whether or not the wetland safety program itself is lawful beneath the Fifth Modification’s clause that claims personal property can’t be taken for public use with out simply compensation.
The lawsuit claims that when USDA designates a chunk of farmland as a wetland, it successfully takes that space out of manufacturing, barring farmers from draining, filling or cultivating it in the event that they want to stay eligible for USDA advantages.
Whereas making use of for USDA advantages is just not obligatory, the lawsuit claims that farmers’ historic reliance on crop insurance coverage and different federal subsidies — coupled with pressures on the nation’s agriculture trade — have made these applications important to their livelihoods and operations.
And if Conlan violates Swampbuster, he loses the potential for these advantages for all of his Iowa farmland, which totals greater than 1,000 acres. Conlan rents the land to farmers and confers the advantages to them.
“They’re mainly relinquishing [that] constitutional proper with a purpose to obtain federal advantages,” mentioned Seehase, the legal professional for Conlan’s firm. “There are methods to preserve and protect our surroundings that also hold these constitutional protections in place.”
CTM Holdings’ lawsuit has sparked motion from sustainable agriculture teams in Iowa and neighboring states, which filed a movement to intervene within the case in October 2024. The coalition argues that eliminating or weakening Swampbuster would open the door to additional depletion of wetlands, exposing its members to higher flood danger and different environmental hazards and imperiling their properties, crops and total security.
A slam dunk?
The teams difficult the Swampbuster legislation don’t suppose it can lead to widespread wetlands loss.
“It is an enormous logical misstep to suppose that each farmer would then until their land and switch it into farmlands,” Seehase mentioned. “Not each farmer goes to try this.”
Others are much less optimistic. Corn and soybean costs are down and prices to develop the crops are up.
“When margins are tight, farmers discover each further acre they will plant corn to plant the corn,” mentioned Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, a bunch of progressive farmers that has intervened to dam the lawsuit.
He added: “It could, for positive, speed up the depletion of our wetlands.”
In 2005, a federal appeals court docket dominated that the Swampbuster statute is just not so “coercive” as to power farmers to conform, nor does USDA act as a “gatekeeper” to farmers creating wetlands on their properties in the event that they so select.
The wetlands may be reworked right into a non-farm use with out shedding farm subsidies, beneath the federal guidelines. And following the Sackett court docket ruling, Swampbuster is the principle federal authorized disincentive for farmers who wish to drain wetlands that aren’t constantly linked to navigable waters.
At a March 31 listening to on Conlan’s case in Iowa’s northern district, Chief U.S. District Choose C.J. Williams famous that potential: “You could possibly construct a skyscraper on it if you wish to,” Williams mentioned.
Williams is contemplating competing motions within the case to determine the lawsuit earlier than it’s set to go to trial in June.
An assistant U.S. legal professional representing the USDA argued the case must be tossed out as a result of the company was keen to take a second take a look at whether or not Conlan’s property is a wetland, although the company admitted botching that message. Conlan is doubtful.
Even when the choose agrees it was a miscommunication, he may nonetheless determine to weigh the arguments about its constitutionality. No matter he decides will probably be appealed.
It’s unclear what may occur if the lawsuit succeeds. The federal authorities might implement a brand new plan that pays farmers for setting apart flood-prone land that they may in any other case develop crops on.
That also may pit farmer towards farmer.
“All my upstream neighbors’ land might be drained, and that water’s received to go someplace,” mentioned Lehman, who farms in central Iowa. “It’s going to come back and make my land much less usable.”
That’s disconcerting to Gadient, the younger farmer who’s downstream from the land on the middle of the Iowa lawsuit.
She and her husband have sought to strengthen their farm neighborhood, inviting their neighbors for normal breakfasts at their dwelling on the hill.
They hope to graze livestock on their farm however for now have chickens and barn cats that laze about.
The lads within the space sometimes go to an area McDonald’s for espresso within the mornings. The wives go to a women-owned gasoline station close by. Gadient hopes {that a} Swampbuster defeat gained’t fray these connections and others like them.
“We love the neighborhood,” she mentioned. “We actually care about our neighbors.”
This story is a part of the collection Down the Drain from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an unbiased reporting collaborative primarily based on the College of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with main funding from the Walton Household Basis.
This <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/04/15/one-iowa-landowner-fights-to-farm-a-designated-wetland-others-could-face-consequences-downstream/”>article</a> first appeared on <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://investigatemidwest.org”>Examine Midwest</a> and is republished right here beneath a <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Artistic Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Worldwide License</a>.<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://investigatemidwest.org/?republication-pixel=true&put up=753032&ga4=G-R9VE8P61LG” type=”width:1px;top:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: operate() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/04/15/one-iowa-landowner-fights-to-farm-a-designated-wetland-others-could-face-consequences-downstream/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/investigatemidwest.org/p.js”></script>
