(Radio Iowa)- Iowa’s weather pattern is expected to make a big shift this week, from cold and rainy to hot and humid, raising familiar concerns about drought. Meteorologist Doug Kluck, climate services director for the Central Region of the National Weather Service, based in Kansas City, says some forecasts show improving conditions in the months ahead across the Missouri River basin.

“The forecasters in this case pared back drought substantially across almost the entire basin, really,” Kluck says. “I’ll cross my fingers and hope this comes true.” While Iowa’s high temperatures last week were mostly in the 40s, 50s and 60s, the week ahead promises highs climbing into the 70s and 80s to near 90. Looking ahead, Kluck says there are conflicting signals.

“Short term, temperatures are sort of a mixed bag,” Kluck says. “There’s going to be some warmth and that’s going to be realized in the eastern part of the basin. Precipitation slightly favors above normal, that’s good. Long term, not so good. Above normal temperatures and drier than normal conditions are what the current outlooks say.” Forecasters had expected the La Nina weather pattern to fade away in the past few months, but that hasn’t happened.

“We’re hanging on to La Nina this year through the summer,” Kluck says. “We don’t know if that’s going to hang into the fall or not yet, but La Nina is what we had the last few years and it tends to have a dry and warm aspect to it. So, La Nina is not necessarily our friend.” The U-S Drought Monitor map issued for Iowa late last week showed little change from the week before, with no drought at all in roughly 56 counties, 30 counties were abnormally dry, and 10 counties were considered in moderate drought. Parts of three northwest Iowa counties, Plymouth, Monona and Woodbury, were in severe drought.

(Radio Iowa) – The winner of the 2022 World Food Prize is a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. World Food Prize President, Barbara Stinson, made the announcement today (Thursday).  “I am so pleased to announce that the 2022 World Food Prize Laureate is Doctor Cynthia Rosenzweig (Rose-en-swag) of the United States,” Stinson says. The Food Prize was created by Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, and is based in Des Moines. Stinson says Rosenzweig has been involved in agriculture for several decades.

“An agronomist and a climatologist, she has been a leader in the field of food and climate since the early 1980s, when she carried out some of the first studies on how climate change would impact food production in North America,” Stinson says. “She quickly escalated this work and elevated to Global Studies incorporating economics, social research, using agricultural science and climate modeling to better understand and predict trends.” She says Rosenzweig’s work has provided the evidence used by thousands of decision-makers in more than 90 countries to both mitigate and adapt to climate change in local, national and global food systems.

Doctor Cynthia Rosenzweig

“Her work as lead and co-lead author on international assessments contributed to science our scientific foundation of the U-N Framework Convention for climate change,” she says. “Her research directly supports work in more than 20 countries to develop national adaptation plans and to determine their contributions.” Rosenzweig is a New York native and her late husband got started in agriculture while living in Italy. They returned to New York and started a farm where they grew sweet corn, Indian corn and cucumbers for pickling.

“As a farmer herself our laureate understands the importance of centering farmers in agricultural research as both the most important beneficiaries of the research and custodians of practical indigenous knowledge,” Stinson says. Rosenzweig is the 52nd person to receive the World Food Prize. She will receive the 250-thousand-dollar prize at a ceremony at the Iowa State Capitol on October 21st.

(Radio Iowa) – A project manager for the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline says the company has about 20 percent of the voluntary easements from landowners they would need to complete the pipeline route through Iowa. Kylie Kretz spoke at this week’s meeting of the Kossuth County Board of Supervisors.

“Right now, we’re going back and doing route changes. So as we’ve started acquire easements across the project, we’ve changed the route over 2000 based on landowner requests and every time we do that, they surveyor has to come back and survey again, so now we’re doing bits and pieces,” she said, “but the main portion has been completed.”

Summit’s pipeline would span nearly two-thousand miles over five states and ship carbon captured from 32 Midwest ethanol plants to underground storage in North Dakota. The route covers nearly 700 miles in Iowa. Several people who don’t want the pipeline on their property have complained to legislators that their private property rights would be violated if state officials grant the company authority to seize property from unwilling landowners.

Kretz says the company still hopes to strike deals with the 80 percent of landowners who haven’t yet agreed to easements. “So we’re virtually, you know, for the next eight months focused on working with the landowners and acquiring easements with them,” Kretz said. Kretz told the Kossuth County Board of Supervisors that Iowa ethanol plants may have to close if the pipeline isn’t built.

“The ethanol plants’ carbon intensity score currently sits too high for the 2030-2040 regulations. If they don’t do anything to drop their carbon intensity score today, their doors will have to close in 2030,” Kretz said. Summit filed paperwork with the Iowa Utilities Board in January, seeking a permit to build a hazardous liquid pipeline through Iowa. According to state law, the board must determine the pipeline’s proposed services will promote the public convenience and necessity in order to grant the permit.

COUNCIL BLUFFS—Wednesday morning a plugged sewer line at the Conagra Brands facility in Council Bluffs caused wastewater to overflow, eventually reaching Mosquito Creek.

An estimated 100 gallons of domestic sewage ran into a storm drain, then entered Mosquito Creek near the intersection of Harry Langdon Boulevard and Iowa Highway 92. The creek flows about two miles to the Missouri River.

Once the overflow was discovered, Conagra staff immediately stopped the flow. The DNR recommends keeping children and pets out of the affected part of the creek for the next 24 to 48 hours.

DNR will monitor clean-up efforts and consider appropriate enforcement action.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Board of Supervisors, Wednesday morning, discussed a possible UTV (Utility Terrain Vehicle) Ordinance. Board Chair Matt Wedemeyer said the Board had several other county ordinances to mull over and consider, including those from Cass, Guthrie, and Carroll Counties. Supervisor Steve Shelley said he needed a lot more time to study the issue and ordinances, including how it would affect rider safety and enforcement.

Matt Wedemeyer was also hesitant to jump on the Ordinance bandwagon.

County Engineer Nick Kauffman said he’s talked to several people since Monday, including officials in Cass and Carroll Counties.

He said the County might be charged a couple of hundred dollars by its insurance carrier to hold liability insurance if such an ordinance is enacted, but the agent was not aware of any issues in those counties where it was passed. The County he said will deal with any complaints if an ordinance isn’t passed.

The City of Greenfield has an Ordinance regulating the use of ATV’s in the City limits. That means the machines can’t be on Lake Greenfield property. Supervisor John Twombly was concerned about having separate use permits to control the machines, and Supervisor Jodie Hoadley was concerned about the scope of such an ordinance.

The Board voted unanimously “Not to pursue” a UTV Ordinance at this time. In other news, the Supervisors set May 18th at 9:30-a.m. as the date and time for a public hearing on the vacating of a section of 305^th Lane.

(Radio Iowa) – Cold, wet weather is keeping many Iowans from mowing their lawns, but some are swearing off the chore for the entire month as a way to help out tiny yet vital pollinators. Cedar Falls Mayor Rob Green is leading by example through taking part in No Mow May as bees emerge from dormancy and need flowering plants as crucial foraging habitats — even though he was scared of getting stung as a kid. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see just how critical they are to our food chain and for providing pollination for crops and being that linchpin of our food supply,” Green says. “So, as mayor, I’m really excited that I have this opportunity to educate other residents and hopefully get them excited about bees and butterflies and other pollinators.”

Cedar Falls residents are encouraged to limit or skip their lawn mowing during May, and the city council voted to not enforce the ordinance requiring eight-inch tall grass and weeds to be cut for the month. In his proclamation, Mayor Green calls No Mow May a “community science initiative.” “This gives us the opportunity to bring in schools and families and to help them build up a monitoring program in their own yards,” Green says, “and hopefully get kids excited about doing research. I would love to see kids out, counting the number of bees per square yard on a given day and reporting that out.”

Iowans who take pride in their landscaping may be slow to come around to the idea, and Green admits he was initially hesitant to get onboard. He says it took a mind shift. “I hate dandelions and so having been one who would have the yard herbicided and just make it as pristine as possible like a golf course,” Green says. “It’s just taken me some time to realize that that kind of approach to lawn care is damaging to the environment.”

City residents are encouraged to register their intent -not- to mow as well as the size of their yards. Some are posting signs to let neighbors know, they’re not being lazy, they’re helping promote pollinator-critical habitat.

(Radio Iowa) – The cool and wet weather has delayed planting in the state. The U-S-D-A crop report shows nine percent of corn has still been planted. That is 11 days behind last year and nine days behind the five-year average. Four percent of soybeans are in the ground — which is nine days behind last year and five days behind average. State climatologist Justin Glisan, says there’s no short-term indication the cool, wet weather is going to end. “If we look at the precipitation signal out six, ten, even to 14 days so getting out into the middle of the month — we are seeing that wet signal holding on. Now April May and June are the three wettest months of the year,” Glisan says. He says it could take some time before we dry out.

“We could get into pretty wet conditions given that precipitation for the month of May, is right around five inches in for central and north-central Iowa almost five and a half inches,” according to Glisan. “So this has implications on getting planted. We have farmers out there that are itching to get out the planters get into the field and get planted.” Planting last year moved ahead quickly in part because it was a lot drier, and the dry conditions got worse as the year moved on. Glisan says the wet days now do have an upside. “But this is also a silver lining in terms of locking in subsoil moisture for when we do get in to June, July, and August if we do get into a warm and dry signal as the seasonal outlooks are pointing to right now,” he explains. “We’ll have some moisture to work off of. If we don’t see regular showers and thunderstorms.” He says there’s still a strong La Nina signal that could lead to warmer drier conditions.

“When La Nina holds on into the winter or into the springtime and then through early summer we do see warmer conditions for the season but in the short term we do see near normal to slightly above average temperatures possible getting into the second week of May,” Glisan says. Western Iowa has been the driest area of the state and the crop report showed farmers in the western one-third of Iowa had almost four days suitable for fieldwork and made more planting progress than any other area of the state.

(Radio Iowa) – Cold, windy spring days have left Iowa’s morel mushroom harvest delayed. By this date, mushrooms hunters are typically thick in forested areas collecting the delicacies that only appear for a short time every spring. Matt Moles is park manager for the Iowa DNR’s Waubonsie State Park in Fremont County. He says his office has been receiving numerous calls from people asking if morels have been popping up yet in the park. “Don’t get disheartened yet with the weather patterns,” Moles says. “I’ve picked mushrooms anywhere between the very tail-end of March through two or three weeks into May in this part of the state. What we need right now is a little bit more ground moisture and probably a few more warmer days.”

While a few hunters have started reporting success in parts of southern Iowa and southeast Nebraska, Moles says a good rain followed by some warm days could lead to a jump-start in the season. “Usually what I notice in a year like the one we’re having now in a Spring that shapes like the climate we’re having now, is that the mushroom growth is really kind of fast and furious,” Moles says. “They pop-up, they produce their spores and then they get picked or they go away. I would not look for a prolonged season this year. Once you start getting reports of people picking them, you probably should get out there fast and do your thing.”

A Morel mushroom (ISU Extension photo)

Morel mushrooms need soil temperatures between 50 and 54 degrees to thrive. Moles says there are plenty of good hunting spots in southwest Iowa. “There’s a lot of pseudo-science with mushroom hunting, which kind of makes it fun,” Moles says. “It really is a good idea to target dead or dying elm trees, ash trees or cottonwood trees. We’re really fortunate here in the southwest part of the state that we have a lot of public land to choose from. I think Fremont County might have — per size of the counties — more public land than most other counties do in the state. There are a lot of great wildlife management areas and park areas for us to pick from.”

Other tips from the Iowa DNR include searching the base of slopes and areas with mossy ground or creek beds where moisture is present.

(Radio Iowa) – Three members of a northeast Iowa family who got double federal loans on their farmland and then declared bankruptcy have been sentenced. Fifty-three-year-old Aimee Rosenbaum of Lawler pleaded guilty to the conversion of property pledged to a farm credit agency and bankruptcy fraud. She was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to pay more than 170-thousand dollars in restitution along with some 12-thousand dollars in fines and attorney fees.

Her 58-year-old husband Donald Rosenbaum of Cresco, was given two years probation and a one-thousand dollar fine for pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud. Their son 27-year-old Marshal Rosenbaum from Fredericksburg was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of home confinement — and ordered to pay restitution — after pleading guilty to the conversion of property pledged to a farm credit agency.

DENISON— The Iowa Department of Natural Resources reports a small amount of process wastewater reached the Boyer River in Denison, Sunday afternoon. Alarms rang about 2:45 p.m. at Smithfield Foods when a wastewater processor malfunctioned. Staff immediately closed a nearby storm drain. But an estimated 50 to 100 gallons had already flowed through the storm drain and into the Boyer River.

Smithfield staff continue cleanup efforts. DNR does not recommend recreation in the area until cleanup is complete. DNR will monitor cleanup and consider appropriate enforcement action.