Secretary Naig Joins Gov. Reynolds for Farm to Faucet Water Quality Bill Signing

Secretary Naig and Gov. Reynolds championed the legislation to provide additional investments in water treatment facilities and rural and urban water quality practices

DES MOINES, Iowa (June 1, 2026) - Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig today joined Gov. Kim Reynolds when she signed House File 2771, the Agriculture and Natural Resources budget, which includes new investments in water quality to support Farm to Faucet infrastructure improvements.

The Farm to Faucet legislation restructures the state's water excise tax distribution formula and makes strategic one-time investments that will provide nearly $320 million in water quality investments over the next 12 years. The Farm to Faucet water quality funding will be allocated to support the state's most effective programs and urgent needs.

"Thank you to Gov. Reynolds and legislators of both parties for supporting this balanced approach - working up and downstream - to improve water quality in Iowa without increasing the tax burden on hardworking Iowans. By re-directing existing dollars to fund projects and programs that are proven to work, we're able to modernize Iowa's water treatment infrastructure from the farm to the faucet," said Secretary Naig. "We have made tremendous progress working with farmers and landowners and hundreds of public and private partners to incorporate responsible farming practices, but there's no finish line when it comes to conservation. We're going to keep leveraging new research and technologies and identifying more partners to work alongside us to make meaningful changes on the land, which will lead to real, measurable changes in water quality."

House File 2771, which includes the updated water excise tax distribution formula, goes into effect on July 1, 2026.

Overview of the Farm to Faucet Water Quality Funding

• Provides the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) an estimated $52 million in new funding over 12 years to support practices like cover crops, edge-of-field buffers, wetlands, and grazing systems in the Greater Des Moines watershed, which encompasses 22 counties in northwest, north central and central Iowa. Targeting this region can make a significant impact both upstream and in the source waters that ultimately flow into the Central Iowa Water Works service area.
• Allocates an additional $500,000 per year to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to support the existing statewide water quality monitoring network, which can be used for real-time water quality monitoring sensors, bringing the total state investment in monitoring to $3.5 million per year.
• Utilizes the fund balance in an under-utilized program to support a one-time, $25 million investment in Central Iowa Water Works to expand infrastructure, increasing nitrate removal capacity over the next three years.
• Increases annual funding, plus an additional one-time $8 million investment, to the Iowa Finance Authority's (IFA) Wastewater and Drinking Water Treatment Financial Assistance Program which provides grant funding to communities to upgrade water treatment infrastructure. The legislation also increases the maximum grant award from $500,000 to $1 million.
  • Provides $10 million to create the Rural Iowa Infrastructure Bank, a revolving loan fund that will provide 1 percent interest loans to small and mid-size communities (populations less than 11,000) for water treatment infrastructure.

Implementing the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy

Farmers are using proven conservation practices outlined in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, like cover crops and wetlands, to prevent soil erosion, filter nitrates and improve water quality. It is part of their commitment to using responsible farming practices to benefit their communities and the environment. There's more work to do but Iowa farmers are accelerating the pace at which they're adopting conservation practices.

The State of Iowa invests nearly $100 million annually towards improving water quality, with an additional $500 million coming from the federal government each year.

In 2024, Iowa farmers planted nearly 4 million acres of cover crops, up from fewer than 400,000 just a decade ago. Farmers are building nitrate-reducing wetlands, which capture water as it leaves the field, reducing nitrate runoff by up to 90 percent. Over 150 wetlands have been constructed statewide, and the pace is accelerating; nearly three times as many wetlands have been built in the past four years compared to the previous two decades.

In addition, farmers have installed nearly 500 nitrate-filtering buffers along field edges, all of which capture and treat water before it reaches streams, and practices have been installed about five times faster in the past four years than in the previous decade.

Iowa State University leads measurement and reporting of the progress made against the goals outlined in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. Measurement is based on the Logic Model, which evaluates changes in funding, outreach, practice implementation and changes in water quality over time. The interactive dashboards are available to the public on the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy website.

High resolution photos from the bill signing may be accessed on the IDALS Flickr Account.