(Radio Iowa) – The public works director in Spencer says it appears the fire at the city-owned landfill near Graettinger has been extinguished. Fire departments were first dispatched to the scene a month ago. Spencer Public Works Director Mark White says fire crews were called out two other times when smoke was seen rising from the landfill. “The first one was on the 7th of July and the second one was on the 14th of July,” he says. “…It is a little different to fight a landfill fire. A lot of material has to be dug out, extinguished and we were fortunate during all of the events to have a contractor on site with an excavator.”

White says Spencer city staff has spent quite a bit of time at the site, digging material out of the burn zone and hauling in clay that’s been spread on top. “It’s all been in the same spot, so most likely it’s something deep within that’s been smouldering for quite some time,” White says.

A report about landfill fires prepared for the State of Missouri indicates more than eight-thousand fires are reported at landfills in the United States each year and the vast majority are contained before the landfill is compromised.

(Radio Iowa) – Leaders in Iowa City and surrounding Johnson County are taking more steps to try and slow the spread of coronavirus. The County Board of Health has approved an ordinance mandating the use of face coverings in public, which the county attorney says -will- be enforceable. Kim Bergen-Jackson, administrator of Oaknoll Retirement Residence in Iowa City, says the order will help save the lives of her residents. “This is not a political problem for me. It is not a hoax or a joke,” Bergen-Jackson says. “We’re not gambling with your life, but the lives of my friends, my 70-, 80-, 90- and 100-year-old friends, who want to be here to live another year older.”

The ordinance now goes to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for final approval. State officials say local governments don’t have the authority to issue such mandates. Meanwhile, nearly 300 faculty members and graduate student instructors at the University of Iowa signed a petition calling for a priority to be placed on online classes this fall. The U-I is moving many large classes online, but says face-to-face instruction will still be prioritized for classes with fewer than 50 students. Megan Knight is an associate professor in the U-I Department of Rhetoric. “A lot of my colleagues feel sort of caught between a rock and a hard place,” Knight says. “They’re really frightened about job insecurity and they’re frightened of the risk of face-to-face classroom teaching during a global pandemic.”

Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter says she’s concerned because the university says it will not require students to be tested for COVID-19 before returning this fall. “That’s thousands and thousands of people coming into our city that’s not even being tested or won’t have to quarantine,” Porter says. “We don’t know what they have when they get here.”

Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa are also holding some in-person classes this fall.
(By Kate Payne and Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Public health officials in Dubuque County are dealing with a rise in COVID-19 cases, as local governments, hospitals, emergency managers, and others work to respond to the pandemic. The White House task force calls the city and county a “red zone.” Mary Rose Corrigan, the city of Dubuque’s public health specialist, says one challenge is confusion about when people who’ve had COVID-19 can go back to work. A few companies tried, erroneously, to require a negative COVID test.  “Research has shown us that people continue to test positive, even though they’re not symptomatic or contagious,” Corrigan says. “We’re trying to get the word out to worksites and others that those isolation guidelines are what they need to follow.”

More than 15-hundred cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Dubuque County, along with 29 deaths. Many people in the Dubuque area travel between Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin for work. Corrigan says others who take overnight trips should make decisions based on each situation.  “If a person from Illinois comes over to Dubuque and goes for a walk in the woods at a state park, there’s not much risk there,” Corrigan says. “If they come over to Dubuque and they go to a bar and spend the night at two restaurants and four different bars that are crowded, that’s a different risk.”

Corrigan says assess the risk and make contingency plans ahead of time, then follow your plan if the situation changes. One long-term care center in the county has had an outbreak and the Public Health Incident Management Team is working with all area nursing homes, which can now order their own testing, but it’s hard on residents as they can’t have visitors. Corrigan says the team is also providing education and information to school districts which are now deciding how to hold classes.