w/ Ric Hanson
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FOR SALE: A 19-foot chest-type freezer. Works good. $90. Call 243-1610.
FOR SALE: 3 Iowa vs. Iowa State Football tickets. South Endzone seats in section AA. Call or text with best offer 712-520-2103. Sold
WANTED: Storm door, 32″ x 80″. Call 712-254-4170.
TO GIVE AWAY: several bicycles. Call 712-304-4262.
FOR SALE: Truck items, including tool boxes, grill guards, 84 door skins. CAll 712-304-4262.
FOR SALE: 16 foot swimming pool with ladder, filter and cover. $100. Call 712-304-4262.
FREE: 32″ x 80″ aluminum storm door. Also a bathroom stool. Call 249-7483.
FREE: electric treadmill. Call 243-2437.
Members of the City of Atlantic’s Planning and Zoning Commission gathered Tuesday evening at City Hall, and expressed their displeasure with the way Poet Bio-refining, LLC began construction of a ethanol transfer station near the downtown area. When finished, the station will allow semi tanker trucks full of ethanol to transfer their loads derived from a processing facility in Coon Rapids, into railroad cars.
Zoning Administrator John Lund said the City wasn’t notified about the company’s intentions until well after work had begun on the project. Word about the project came on or about August 22nd, and it was from a citizen, not from officials with Poet.
When City officials met with representatives from Poet last week, they were left with more questions than answers, and the answers themselves conflicted with what the Iowa DNR was told would be in-place at the site, located just north of the Atlantic Depot/Chamber of Commerce, on north Chestnut Street. Lund said City Attorney says the P&Z has no authority to do anything about the situation.
Lund said Dave Wierstein told Lund he can’t force Poet to obtain a building permit. Lund said it should have been a P&Z issue “from the get go.” He says if Poet had come to the City first, as a professional courtesy, the City might have been more supportive of the plan, but that didn’t happen.
Among the Commissioners expressing their dismay with the way Poet went about the project, was Roger Herring, who said Poet displayed a “Blatant disregard for the City of Atlantic,” in building a facility in “The very heart and center” of the information and downtown district. Herring said he’s not against Poet and what there business is, but the manner of how they went about constituted a blatant disregard for the City and its citizens, and it shouldn’t work that way.
John Lund says there will be a follow-up report during next week’s City Council meeting. Mayor Dave Jones, who along with Councilman Steve Livengood and Shawn Shouse, were in attendance at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Tuesday, said the City isn’t done exploring its options on how to best deal with the situation. The Commission Tuesday passed a Resolution for the record, expressing their frustration at the lack of communication Poet had with the City, that the matter was not brought before them in a timely manner, that an engineering study was not conducted about the location and possible risks, and that the Commission was not aware of the project before construction began.
In other business, the Commission tabled until its meeting in October, discussion pertaining to multiple families occupying Single-family properties. The issue was brought to the Commission’s attention after a citizen expressed her concerns about numerous, extended family members staying in a home in Atlantic, and how that affects property values, along with other, related concerns.
Jim Field speaks with Ken Sidey, Executive Director of the Warren Cultural Center, about the 100th Anniversary Exhibit of the DOT: How We’ve Traveled Over the Years.
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The podcast weather forecast for Atlantic and the KJAN listening area from Freese-Notis, and weather information specifically for Atlantic….
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Girls Team Standings:
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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – Vandalism and a fire at a Council Bluffs house are being investigated as a hate crime. Firefighters were sent to the home about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, and they put out flames that had engulfed a bedroom there. No injuries were reported.
Kevin Durham and Shelly Owens were gone and their children were at school when the fire occurred. The couple say the house had been vandalized and racial slurs had been spray-painted several times on the walls. Durham is black; Owens is white.
Council Bluffs police Sgt. David Dawson confirmed that the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
Iowa is involved in four of 33 Conservation Innovation Grants announced Tuesday by U-S Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Vilsack, the former Iowa governor, said during the announcement that the Natural Resources Conservation Service is already doing a good job in instituting conservation projects. Vilsack says “One of the critical components though for us maintain our edge in conservation is for us to continue to be innovative, and innovation will be key to managing the capacity to manage and adapt to climate changes,” Vilsack says. “It will be key for us to continue to learn and expand on our soil health campaign. It will be the foundation upon which our ecosystem market effort will be built. And it obviously is critically important to water quality.”
Vilsack highlighted one of the grants that involves Iowa. It’s for the multi-state Conservation Technology Information Center. “Which is really going to focus on providing information to expand on the benefits that cover crops can provide. The economic benefits to landowners, the environmental benefits that can accrue,s well as the crop production and ag management benefits that accrue from cover crop production,” Vilsack said.
Cover crops can be grasses or small grains that are planted between the primary crop production times to protect the soil. Researchers from Iowa will use the 482-thousand dollars given to the center along with those from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota and South Dakota. “This award will basically fund roughly a thousand acres that will help us hopefully dispel some of the myths that may be in the countryside that have discourage producers from focusing on cover crop production,” according to Vilsack.
A companion project at the University of Tennessee will take a longer-term look at the impact of cover crops. Iowa State University received a grant of 485-thousand-850 dollars to study different mixes of cover crops and how they can use up excess nitrogen in the soil. Iowa will also be involved in a Environmental Defense Fund project that won 992-thosuand-dollar grant to study how to decrease nutrients that run into the Mississippi River, the Western Lake Erie Basin and elsewhere.
The final Iowa project involves the Women, Food and Agriculture Network’s effort to increase soil health practices among women who own farmland. Vilsack said each of the projects will provide valuable research. “This is going to be important information that we’ll obtain from these innovative grant recipients. And will help to educate and assist us in the future in terms of conservation program,” Vilsack said.
The innovation grants were created in the 2008 Farm Bill, and Vilsack said it is important that Congress take action to pass a new Farm Bill to ensure these types of programs continue.
(Radio Iowa)