Northwest Iowa town is sending untreated wastewater into creek

A small Pocahontas County town has for years failed to remove contaminants from its wastewater before piping it to a nearby creek, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Varina, with a population of about 70, has no municipal sanitary sewer service — its residents use private septic systems. But its drinking water treatment facility produces wastewater that flows through about 6,000 feet of pipe and into Little Cedar Creek, DNR records show.

“It’s kind of bizarre,” said Jacob Simonsen, an environmental specialist for the DNR who investigated the situation. “It’s not like domestic wastewater — it’s backwash water.”

The town draws its water from two wells that are about 300 feet deep, treats it with chlorine, and filters it to remove iron. When the filters are cleaned by running water in reverse through them, the wastewater that results is not treated before it goes into the creek and eventually flows into the North Raccoon River.

Tests of that wastewater have routinely shown elevated concentrations of chlorine and ammonia nitrogen, but they have not caused any obvious environmental problems in the creek, such as dead fish, Simonsen said.

The chlorine concentrations have frequently been about seven times higher than the maximum allowed by state regulators, according to the city’s monthly tests. Further, the DNR found that the concentrations have likely been higher than what the city has reported because its test equipment is incapable of identifying the higher concentrations.

The city has no equipment to treat the wastewater, and it has made little progress to rectify the situation despite being prodded by the DNR to do so for at least six years.

Because of that, the DNR recently fined the city $500. Varina has also agreed to update the department every three months on its progress to treat the wastewater, and it will buy new test equipment.

The department has not yet set a deadline for the wastewater treatment to be operational. Varina city officials could not immediately be reached to comment for this article.

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