(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s deputy secretary of agriculture says there are frustrating and confusing inequities in federal programs meant to support farmers trying to recover from natural disasters. Grant Menke testified yesterday (Wednesday) before the U-S Senate Small Business Committee.

“In addition to the overall complexity of these programs, one of the most significant issues Iowans have faced is the disparity in accessibility and eligibility between USDA and SBA disaster programs,” Menke says. Farming operations are not eligible for Small Business Administration loans and Menke says the historic flooding and a record number of tornadoes have created significant challenges for Iowa farmers.

“In many cases, these folks lost nearly everything,” Menke said, “not just farm buildings and equipment, but also their homes.” Menke says S-B-A disaster loans offer lower interest rates and a longer repayment period than the disaster loans farmers have access to through the U-S-D-A. “SBA disaster loans also offer deferral of the first payment and no interest accrual for the first 12 months – features that are not available with USDA disaster loans. These discrepancies place an undue burden on farmers and farm businesses who already operate on thin margins, especially during the softening ag economy.”

Menke says another frustration is the U-S-D-A’s disaster loans have an upper limit that’s less than the maximum loan amount available through the S-B-A.

(Radio Iowa) – A spokesman for the D-N-R says more than 12-hundred fish died after a water main break Monday that allowed chlorinated water into Iowa’s only urban trout stream in Cedar Rapids. D-N-R fisheries technician Chris Mack talked with K-C-R-G T-V about the fish kill at McLoud Run.

“It is a big deal. I mean, our hatchery spent money and time raising these fish, and we spend time hauling them and stocking them,” Mack says. D-N-R records show there have been seven other kill at McLoud Run since 2012. Mack says the last fish kill happened earlier this year, and the cause was also chlorinated water.

‘It’s fairly frequent occurrence being an urban situation,” Mack says. He says the D-N-R assess the value of the dead fish, then the city of Cedar Rapids has to pay the fine. In spring 2023 that was around 22-thousand dollars, and another fish kill in 2017 cost around 20-thousand dollars.

Mack was asked by K-C-R-G T-V, if mass fish kills have become the norm for this area, when do they get to the point where they don’t restock McCloud Run. He says it provides a unique opportunity for anglers. “It’s just these urban settings are closer to people and the majority of our anglers don’t want to travel that far,” he says.

Iowa’s other trout streams are in Northern Iowa. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports in the wake of these kills, the city of Cedar Rapids has purchased seven sensors that would alert city staff when a water main break occurs so that it can be stopped sooner.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R says a broken water main will likely to lead to dead fish in the only state trout stream near a major urban area. The D-N-R says the break allowed chlorinated water into McLoud Run in Cedar Rapids Wednesday. D-N-R staff reported seeing stressed fish in the stream after the water flowed in, and it is expected that dead fish may be observed over the next few days.

Chlorinated water from a main break leaked into McLoud Run trout stream in Cedar Rapids. (Photo courtesy of Iowa DNR)

Murky stream conditions hampered efforts to count any dead fish, but the D-N-R says they will be surveying the area when the water clears.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is nearly ready to start a project to get rid of an invasive species of fish in an 830 acre lake in northwest Iowa. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the D-N-R, says weather over the past two years delayed the effort to rid West Swan Lake in Emmet County of common carp.

“Both of those winters we tried to draw the lake down, get it to winter kill,” Hawkins says. “Last winter we tried to help a little bit with a chemical that helps renovate fisheries. We were not successful. We had the warmest winter on record last winter. We had a very short window for pulling that project off.” Common carp feed on the bottom of lakes, make the water murky and cause problems for other species of fish.

“We’re going to try this one last time this fall,” Hawkins says. “We’re going to do an open water treatment if we can get the water levels down far enough and kill off those carp.” West Swan Lake levels were elevated by this year’s flooding.  “We need the lake down about three, three-and-a-half feet,” Hawkins says. “It’s all just mathematics and how much of the chemical we have available and the logistics and the expense of doing that.”

Hawkins says one side of the lake has dropped enough and they’re waiting for the water level on the other side to fall and match it. West Swan Lake is the last in a small chain of natural lakes and marshes that eventually flows into the west fork of the Des Moines River. Hawkins says regardless of the outcome of the carp eradication effort, West Swan Lake will be restocked in the spring with Northern Pike, Yellow Perch, Blue Gills and Largemouth Bass.

(Radio Iowa) – A study from Iowa State University shows that only five to ten percent of the 230-thousand private well owners in the state test their water annually. Iowa State Extension Water Quality Program Manager Catherine DeLong says one of the barriers to testing is a misunderstanding of what quality well water should be. “I think a lot of the time, private well owners think that if you have a private well, it’s a normal thing to have bacteria, but it really isn’t,” She says. “It means there’s something potentially structurally unsound with the well, that there’s a way for things from the surface to get into the well, so it is something to take seriously.”

Bacteria, nitrates, and arsenic are the most common contaminants, and have all been detected in Iowa wells. DeLong says testing regularly is important because the impact of the contaminants don’t immediately show up when people drink the water.  “With things like arsenic, with things like nitrate, we know that those health effects can really take years to have an effect. They’re odorless and tasteless, so if people have them in their water, they wouldn’t necessarily know unless they get it tested,” Delong says.

Nitrates and arsenic in drinking water have been linked to cancers, cardiovascular issues, and birth defects.

(Radio Iowa) – The Sierra Club’s Iowa Chapter has filed a lawsuit that seeks to overturn state approval of a permit for the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.

In late June the Iowa Utilities Commission issued a permit for construction of the initial route for the carbon pipeline, giving Summit eminent domain authority to seize property from landowners who have not voluntarily agreed to let the pipeline run through their property. The Sierra Club’s Jess Mazour said people who objected to the pipeline did not get a fair hearing before the Iowa Utilities Commission.

“Our evidence was not given the weight that it should have and there’s some serious due process violations,” Mazour said, “but we really have a strong case and we finally get to take our case to court and have an unbiased decision maker.” Wally Taylor, an attorney for the Sierra Club, said the commission incorrectly ruled Summit’s pipeline had a public benefit as a so-called common carrier that may be granted eminent domain authority.

“It’s like when Walmart has their own semis pick up products from various vendors, put in on the semi and take it to a Walmart store, once it gets in that Walmart truck, it’s Walmart’s property,” Taylor said. “That Walmart truck is not a common carrier.”

Jess Mazour has been the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter’s conservation program coordinator for the past four years.

Taylor said the lawsuit cites other “misstatements of fact and faulty legal conclusions.” Mazour said the commission’s decision was not unexpected after Governor Reynolds replaced the commission’s chairwoman and appointed another commission member in the spring of 2023. “From that minute on, the process was sped up,” Mazour said. “They moved deadlines sooner than what we had been told by the former board.”

The Sierra Club is arguing the Iowa Utilities Commission showed a pattern of favoritism to Summit and contempt for pipeline opponents during the public hearing about the project that stretched over 25 days last fall. “We were expected to go through security and we couldn’t bring in water to the hearing or food, but yet Summit could go in the back door and had their lunch catered in and had coffee,” Mazour said. “It’s just little things like that throughout the whole process that it’s very obvious this new board had their mind made up.”

Five Iowa counties, landowners who object to the pipeline and nearly 40 Republican legislators have filed separate appeals. Summit Carbon Solutions issued a statement earlier this week, saying the company is confident in the Iowa Utilities Commission’s thorough review process. Summit, ethanol producers and Iowa Corn Growers have argued the carbon pipeline will help grow markets for ethanol in the U.S. and abroad and benefit farmers.

After plans were pulled for a separate Navigator CO2 pipeline, Summit has begun the process of seeking another state permit to extend its pipeline to ethanol plants that initially signed on to join the proposed Navigator pipeline.

(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowa farmers are already firing up their combines to start harvesting crops. Angie Rieck Hinz, a field agronomist for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, says it’s a bit early, but “There are a few farmers who are taking out some corn and even some beans in a few places here in central Iowa.”

While Iowa came completely out of a four-year drought this spring with steady rains, it’s been much drier lately and about two-thirds of the state is now considered “abnormally dry” on the drought monitor map. Rieck Hinz says that can be an advantage at this time of year.

“The heat, coupled with those dry conditions, is going to push that maturity on those crops a little bit faster,” she says. “We still need to wait for crops to dry down in some cases, but it’s been relatively dry for the last month compared to how we started off the growing season.”

Combine harvesting corn. (ISU Extension photo)

There’s a very dry patch in north-central Iowa, from roughly the Webster City area to Iowa Falls, where Rieck Hinz says they’re more than three inches below average on rainfall for the past 40 days or so. “Dry weather is always great conditions for harvest,” she says. “We can get big machinery in and out of those fields. We don’t have to worry about soil compaction. We’re not fighting mud. Let’s hope it stays that way. So the weather can both hurt us and help us at the same time when we get to harvest.”

Forecasters say there’s a chance for some rain over the weekend in parts of the state, and again in the middle of next week.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson says farmers should be wary of agricultural drones manufactured in China and sold in the U-S by a company called D-J-I. “Every farmer needs to be eyes wide open about the technology they are currently using on their farms,” Hinson says. There are nearly 10-thousand registered agricultural spray drones in the U.S. today and Hinson says many of those were made by D-J-I, which has ties to the Chinese military.

“They have sophisticated sensing technology designed to help monitor the health of crops and direct the spray to the appropriate area,” Hinson says, “but that also means that these drones are actively collecting granular level detail on our ag industry that can be weaponized by the CCP.” Hinson says that means the C-C-P — the Chinese Communist Party — could have leverage over the U-S food supply, making this a national security issue.

D-J-I says it has no ties to the Chinese military and any ban on its products would deprive U-S farmers of the benefits D-J-I spray drones offer. D-J-I is the world’s largest drone manufacturer and 80 percent of the consumer drones sold in the U-S were made by D-J-I. This week, the House passed a bill that would ban all *future* D-J-I drone models from operating in the United States.

“Communist China is the most significant threat to the United States’ security, economy and global leadership,” Hinson says. “For decades the U-S has taken, frankly, a delicate approach to our relationship with communist China, and hoping that if we bring them into the rules based international order that they would act accordingly.”

Hinson says appeasing China hasn’t worked and it’s time to change tactics. Hinson, a Republican from Marion, is a member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

(Iowa News Service) – Alternative energy advocates say Iowa is making significant progress on reaching its green power goals by 2035. The state has become a national leader in wind production. The Iowa Environmental Council took the unusual step of hosting a “Condition of the State” webinar to announce the areas where Iowa is making progress on reaching its alternative energy goals.

Steve Guyer, energy policy counsel for the commission, said solar and wind top the list. “Overall, in 2019, we actually started generating more wind in the state than we actually got from our coal plants in the state,” Guyer pointed out. “That actually is continuing, where the coal plant generation is going down and wind is going up.”

Iowa is among the nation’s leading producers of wind energy, despite pushback from some farm groups. Guyer added beyond the economic benefits of alternative energy, there are air and water quality implications too, both of which he said have improved with the increase in green power.

Guyer noted reducing emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants has a dramatic effect on crop production in Iowa. He cited a 10-year study showing the effects of closing specific coal-powered facilities.  “Some of those plants were actually Iowa-based plants,” Guyer emphasized. “They saw a marked increase in production after the closure of those plants. The theory is that the sun basically is being blocked, and so, if it had the sunlight that wasn’t being blocked, it would produce more. So yes, coal plants definitely are impacting corn production.”

Iowa is getting help from the federal Inflation Reduction Act to invest in alternative energy sources. However, the report said none of the utilities in Iowa are taking what it calls “adequate steps to achieve a carbon-free energy sector by 2035.”