Iowa Partnership for Clean Water ads a smear campaign against Des Moines Water Works head

Editorial reprinted with permission from Des Moines Register, Dec. 10, 2015

It’s time for the Iowa Partnership for Clean Water to consider a name change that more accurately reflects its true mission. For example: The Iowa Partnership for the Malicious Persecution of Public Servants.

The partnership was formed last spring after the Des Moines Water Works sued Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties, alleging their drainage districts are largely responsible for Raccoon River pollution that’s costing central Iowa residents millions in clean-up costs.

The partnership is a nonprofit organization with the stated goal of broadening public understanding of agriculture. In reality, the partnership is the designated attack dog of the Iowa Farm Bureau, which is the partnership’s general counsel, registered agent, place of business and financial backer.

So far, the partnership has spent more than half a million dollars on a public relations effort that initially, at least, tried to sway public opinion on the issues of agriculture and water quality.

Now, however, the partnership is engaged something entirely different: a poisonous campaign to publicly smear the man who runs the Water Works: Bill Stowe.

In television ads now running throughout central Iowa, Stowe is seen in carefully doctored footage — grainy, shadowy, slow-motion images converted to black and white for no other reason than to stir anxiety — while ominous-sounding music plays in the background. The narrator gravely intones: “He’s wasting hundreds of thousands on an outrageous lawsuit targeting farmers. Now Stowe is using legal tricks to keep public documents from those trying to find actual solutions. While Stowe hides, farmers and communities continue to collaborate on water solutions that work. Learn more at ‘WhatIsBillHiding.com.”

Go to WhatIsBillHiding.com and you’re simply re-directed to the partnership’s website, which, it must be emphasized, includes no information at all on what Bill is or isn’t hiding. No matter. The partnership’s goal is not to inform the public, but to portray the head of the Water Works as Public Enemy No. 1. The ad does everything but place a 4-year-old Bill Stowe on the grassy knoll.

The “What Is Bill Hiding?” spot is scheduled to run in the Des Moines area through the holidays, according to FCC filings, at a cost of more than $161,470. That will bring the total amount spent on partnership television ads, statewide, to more than $560,000.

That’s about 14 times the estimated cost of records the partnership wants the Water Works to turn over in response to a document request. The $40,000 fee — which is for a trove of records dating back to 1974 — is less than what the partnership will spend with just one Iowa TV station this month.

Stowe, it should be remembered, is not an elected official, but a hired public servant. Understandably, he is not taking the ad in stride.

“I’m appalled,” he says. “In a world of dangerous escalation of violence against persons, this is ‘a call to arms’ that endangers me, my family and friends. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

If you’re looking for someone to blame for the partnership’s unseemly attack, look to the partnership’s illustrious board of directors: Des Moines City Councilwoman Christine Hensley; Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett; former lieutenant governor Patty Judge; and Plymouth County Supervisor Don Kass. All four have served in elective office, and all four know just how divisive and destructive this type of advertising really is.

When asked about the ad, Hensley says: “My only comment is that it is factual. Facts are facts and tell the story. Many of the headlines (shown in the ad) are from the Register.”

Yes, they are. But the juxtaposition of those particular headlines with the partnership’s grim, scripted narration creates the false impression that Stowe is a public menace. It's character assassination masquerading as public education. The fiction of "public education" is necessary partly because the state and Internal Revenue Service don’t grant nonprofit status to organizations dedicated to solely to misinforming the public and destroying people’s reputations.

At least the ad makes clear the partnership’s true agenda. After all, you can’t bankroll this sort of attack while simultaneously claiming that you want only to foster cooperation, “bring together active voices” and forge “collaborative efforts” to improve water quality. That dog won’t hunt, as the saying goes.

Of course, the people who run the partnership aren’t likely to back off, let alone apologize for their actions. That means the public can probably count on more attacks from the partnership that do nothing to enlighten, educate or inform. The best anyone can do is ignore them.

Reprinted with permission from Des Moines Register, Dec. 10, 2015. For additional articles about the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit, CLICK HERE.

Go to top