(Radio Iowa) – January is human trafficking awareness month and more than 600 Iowa businesses and industry groups are now part of an initiative aimed at identifying and responding to human trafficking in the state. Iowa Businesses Against Trafficking was launched a year ago. Secretary of State Paul Pate says businesses that join the program are asked to help raise public awareness of trafficking or train workers to spot people who may be trafficking victims. “Some of them are aggressive about putting out 800-numbers in their businesses’ restrooms so people can get help if they need to,” Pate says. “They’re reaching out to their own employees and to their customers with information. So, it’s building an army to combat this situation.”

Pate says the number of reported trafficking incidents has risen in Iowa. The most recent data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline shows there were nearly 300 contacts from Iowa in 2021. Those tips led to dozens of cases reaching law enforcement. Child sex trafficking sometimes starts with connections made online through social media, according to Teresa Davidson of Chains Interrupted, an eastern Iowa nonprofit that works to prevent human trafficking. Davidson says parents and caregivers should talk to kids about online relationships, but she says state lawmakers could also push device and tech companies to do more. For instance, she says safe browser settings should be turned on automatically, instead of being an option buried in user settings.

“Children do not have the developmental capability to handle what will be thrown at them online,” Davidson says, “so as adults, as a community, as lawmakers, we need to help protect our children.” Davidson says Iowa lawmakers should also pass a Safe Harbor law so victims of sex trafficking are safe from criminal liability and put more funding into survivor services. Secretary of State Pate says anyone with information about possible human trafficking should call local police or the Iowa Victim Service Call Center at 1-800-770-1650.

On the web at ibat.iowa.gov

(reporting by Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)

(Creston, Iowa) – A man residing in Creston told Police late Wednesday morning, that someone damaged his vehicle. A person unknown threw a brick at his car window, while the vehicle was parked in the 200 block of N. Maple Street. The incident resulted in an estimated $100 in damage. No other information is available.

(Radio Iowa) – Despite several rounds of heavy snow in recent weeks, it will take significantly more precipitation to break Iowa’s long-running drought. State climatologist Justin Glisan says much of the state is far behind on moisture levels. “We’re going to need several months, if not more than a year, of above-average precipitation in those drier parts of the central region and western Iowa,” Glisan says. “You look at Sioux City, around there, 47% of normal precipitation for the year, going back three years, 25 inches below-average-plus in certain parts of the state.”

Large portions of Iowa are in moderate to severe drought, and multiple northwest Iowa counties are in the D-3 category of extreme drought, but parts of Woodbury and Monona counties are in the worst category, D-4, for exceptional drought. Glisan says the soil needs to recharge in order to rebound.

“You really have to get a lot of water into the soil profile to replenish those stocks, but also wetter soils will get more runoff into the stream, so you’ll see a rebound in those stream flows as well,” Glisan says. “So we’re going to need, in those D-3 and D-4 regions, a lot of precipitation to put a dent in those longer-term deficits.” Glisan says it takes a lot of snow to melt down to usable precipitation. He says it’s anywhere from eight to 12 inches of snow that equate to one inch of rainfall.

“So you’re not getting a lot of water out of that snowpack, number one,” Glisan says, “but if the drier soils are frozen deeper, it’s going to take a while for those profiles to thaw late winter/early spring, so even if you’re melting that snowpack, a lot of that’s not infiltrating, it’s running off.”

Much of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota has been in a significant drought for most of the last two years.

(Radio Iowa) – The growing of industrial hemp has not taken off as some envisioned when it returned to Iowa fields in 2020. Lane Kozel with the Iowa Department of Agriculture says the number of growers fell again this season. “Believe last year, we dropped to 45. And this year, we had 33, licensed growers. Of those 33, 26 growers actually planted a hemp crop. So we’re down to about 26 growers this year,” he says. “So it’s been cut in half every year since the program was started.” Kozel says one of the factors is the cost of the inputs and the amount of manual labor needed to properly cultivate and grow a crop .

“I don’t think there’s a market for it as well, I don’t think that’s been established is to help out or growers either,” Kozel says. The processing needed to extract the C-D-B or to create seeds, for grain or fiber has not taken off in Iowa. “Once it grows and there’s no place to go with it — that’s kind of leads to people not being interested either,” he says. Many other states also approved industrial hemp programs, and he says that created a lot of product. “You know, there’s been talked as long as it’s programs and going people have been, sitting on previous crops. C-B-D, that seemed to be the big boom, in previous years. And I think the market is saturated with that,” Kozel says. “And so until we can find some uses for some fiber and some grain, I think it’s going to stay where its at.” Kozel says there needs to be development of processing to use the hemp to make it worthwhile for growers to invest in.

“When we first started the program, I mean, everyone’s got, you know, great ideas with hemp concrete and housing, building material and clothing and what have you, but there’s just none of that going on right now, to my knowledge,” according to Kozel. “I’m sure there’s some small businesses in the country that are making him closing blue jeans out of hemp and things like that. But far as an Iowa, there’s nothing.”

The industrial hemp is required to pass a test that shows it has a T-H-C level below three-point-nine percent. The crop has to be destroyed if it can’t meet that standard. Kozel says everyone passed the test this year.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Red Oak Police report that at around 12:55-a.m. today (Thursday), 30-year-old Michael David Sinnott, of Red Oak, was arrested in the 600 block of Carter Drive. He was taken into custody for Domestic Abuse Assault by Impeding Air Flow. Sinnott was being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail. And, at around 6:32-p.m. Wednesday, Red Oak Police arrested 41-year-old Troy S. Williams, of Red Oak, on a warrant for Failure to Appear. Williams was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

(Adams County, Iowa) – A woman from Corning was arrested on drug charges December 30th, following a traffic stop on Highway 148 at Joshua Tree Road. Upon a probable cause search being conducted on the vehicle, 18-year-old Molly Bagby was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana – 1st offense, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. She posted a $1,300 cash bond, and was released from the Adams County Jail.

(Radio Iowa) – The top Republican in the Iowa House says the 2023 legislature is unlikely to fill a state fund created to finance water quality and outdoor recreation projects. In 2010, Iowa voters passed a constitutional amendment creating the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund where money from a FUTURE sales tax increase would be deposited. Last year, Senate Republicans proposed a maneuver to fill that fund, by converting all local option sales taxes to a statewide one percent sales tax.

House Speaker Pat Grassley says about 50 cities and counties, though, do not have a local option sales tax, so it would be an increase in those areas.  “Now I know there are people that want to offset it and different conversations,” Grassley says, “but at the end of the day, it could cost somebody something.” In early 2020, Governor Kim Reynolds proposed a one cent sales tax increase as part of a plan that put money in the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Fund AND reduce state taxes overall, however the proposal drew some G-O-P opposition and was tabled once the pandemic hit.

The 2023 legislative session begins Monday.

[updated] (Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic breezed through part of their agenda Wednesday night, until City Administrator John Lund’s report. Lund was of the opinion, following a legislative briefing, that “Rural Iowa is really, kind of like under siege right now.”

He said there are no concrete proposals that he’s aware of, but…

He say working on the valuations with the Business Property Tax  Credits, “We saw a colossal loss in our taxable valuation.”

Lund said since he became City Administrator, Atlantic has only raised the levy once.

The only reason the City went down from the 27-cents was because the 2021 assessments “Were massive, and the City saw a lot of property taxes from that. It was really difficult to justify keeping that capped. So we lowered that down to five-cents.” He was planning on having it phased back in over the years, but at this point, he said, “We’re gonna need those resources sooner than we think, [because] between the inflation and the rhetoric at the Statehouse” and a possible levy freeze, rural communities will have to find ways to tighten their fiscal belts.

Atlantic Mayor Grace Garrett said a property tax reduction may sound good to anyone who owns property…

She encouraged other Mayors from around southwest Iowa to go to the Iowa State House and make sure the legislators are comparing “apples to apples,” when it comes to cutting property taxes, especially when there is such a large population on the eastern side of the State, and a lesser, more rural population on the western side of the State.

In other business, the two candidates for the Parks and Rec Director are slated to be interviewed in-person. One of the candidates – John Wyatt Adderton, from Savannah, Georgia, will be here on Friday. He’s a Park Ranger, and his spouse is an airline pilot. Michelle Spunaugle – the other candidate – also has experience as a Park Ranger. She lives in Villisca and will be interviewed separately,

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will stock rainbow trout in five urban lakes and ponds this month for anglers who enjoy winter fishing. Mike Steuck, the D-N-R’s regional fisheries supervisor for northeast Iowa, says trout get stressed in warmer water and can even die if the temperature is too high. “They don’t like temperatures higher than 70,” Steuck says. “So they’ll quit feeding. They act a little funny and they try and seek out colder water sources.”

Steuck says water temperatures are much cooler now, in the 30s, so it’s an ideal time for the D-N-R to stock the trout — and for Iowans to seek them out by casting a line. “We want people to catch them right away,” he says, “and take them home and see how good fish are to eat and see how much fun fishing is.”

Steuck says the DNR will stock one-to-two-thousand trout in lakes in Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Mason City and a few other locations. He says people catch the fish generally within a month after they’re stocked.

(reporting by Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowan who was thought to be the oldest living person in the United States died Tuesday. The Lampe & Powers Funeral Home says Bessie Hendricks of Lake City died Tuesday at the Shady Oaks Care Center in Lake City. Hendricks celebrated her 115th birthday on November 7th, and lived 57 more days.

A funeral for Hendricks is scheduled for this Saturday in Lake City. She was reportedly the 10th oldest person in the world.