(Radio Iowa) – A new study suggests Iowa workers are underpaid by at least 900 million dollars a year. Common Good Iowa, the group issuing the report, calls that wage theft. Sean Finn, the report’s author, says an estimated 250-thousand Iowans are impacted. “That means that on average one in seven workers in Iowa are shorted $300 a week,” Finn says. Finn says some workers are not paid the overtime they’re owed or their employers fails to follow minimum wage laws. Other full-time workers are mis-classified as a independent contractor, which Finn says lets the employer avoid paying taxes and benefits.

“Theft in Iowa whether it’s larceny, robbery, burglary — all of those crimes, costs around $90 million a year according to the FBI,” Finn says. “We estimate wage theft being at least $900 million a year, so this problem is ten times greater than other theft and, at the same time, very little is being done to stop it.” Finn’s report is titled “A Heist in Plain Sight” and he argues businesses that are violating wage laws are hurting responsible employers who are following the rules.

“Businesses are using wage theft to cut costs and illegally cut corners,” Finn says. “They can artificially lower their costs and offer lower bids on projects or just run with lower operating costs, maybe keep their prices lower.”The Iowa Workforce Development agency is using part of a federal grant to investigate businesses that may be mis-classifying employees as independent contractors.

Last year the agency collected a quarter of a million dollars to settle 341 claims over unpaid or underpaid wages.

(Radio Iowa) – Low levels on the Mississippi River are leading to problems with commodity movements as barge traffic slows to a crawl. Flows from the Missouri River won’t be much help either, according to John Remus, chief of the U-S Army Corps of Engineers’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Office in Omaha. “The Missouri River mainstream reservoir system does not operate to support navigation on the Mississippi River,” Remus says. “We are not authorized to do that, so we do not make any release decisions from our system for the sole purpose of benefits on the Mississippi River, whether that’s navigation or flood control.”

Remus says the Corps has minimal options for flow control on the Mississippi River. “The Mississippi Valley Division districts have some capacity to provide some flow support, but not a lot,” Remus says, “and then the Ohio River system can supply some water for downstream of Cairo, Illinois, but in that stretch from St. Louis to Cairo, that’s really basically the Mississippi Valley Division.” Remus says the Missouri River does, at times, provide a good portion of the flow in the Mississippi above St Louis.

“It can vary anywhere from 10% to 80% depending on the time of year and how dry or how wet it is in the Mississippi River Basin,” Remus says. “It’s going to be a tough winter for them, just from a flow situation.” The 2022 calendar year runoff forecast for the upper basin is only 76% of average. The total system storage was 48.5 million acre feet, which is 7.6 million acre feet below the base of the flood control zone.

(Radio Iowa) – Tomorrow (Tuesday) marks 50 years since passage of the federal Clean Water Act, a landmark environmental law which created the first national standards for water quality. It stemmed from public outcry over widespread pollution from cities and industry. University of Iowa law professor Shannon Roesler says there have been legal battles over the scope of the law ever since. Earlier this month, the U-S Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging protections for wetlands.

“And that will affect permitting programs that regulate land development, by and large,” Roesler says, “so this is a major question.” Roesler says Iowa’s current water quality problems are tied to the original structure of the Clean Water Act. When it was passed in 1972, some cities and industrial plants were releasing raw sewage and untreated waste into lakes and rivers. Professor David Cwiertny, at the U-I’s Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, says that kind of pollution is now largely under control. Instead, one of the main challenges for Iowa water is agricultural runoff, which was left out of the Clean Water Act.

“That’s the problem today is, it’s a law that has worked, but it was a law that was limited in scope to begin with,” Cwiertny says, “and as a result, most of our pollution struggles today are all things that are falling outside that scope.” Fertilizer runoff from farm fields is exempt under the law, and has become a major contributor to nutrient pollution in Iowa lakes and rivers. Cwiertny says legal battles over the reach of the Clean Water Act started as soon as it was passed.

(Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)

Officials with the Creston Police Department say no injuries were reported following a collision this morning, at the intersection of Highway 34 and S. Sumner Street. Authorities say a 2005 Chevy Impala driven by 82-year-old Elsie Shepherd, of Prescott, was making a left turn onto Highway 34, when her car was hit by a 2014 Ford Fusion driven by 56-year-old Steven Pettit, of Prescott. Both drivers claimed to have had the green light.

Damage from the collision amounted to $3,500. No citations were issued.

Officials with the Glenwood (Iowa) Police Department report three arrests. On Sunday, 25-year-old Kayla Yale, of Glenwood, was arrested for OWI/2nd offense ($2,000 cash or surety bond). And, there were two arrests last Friday, in Glenwood:

• 34-year-old Jessie Harman, of Glenwood, was arrested on a Mills County warrant for Probation Violation ($5,000 c/s bond)
• 30-year-old William Lewis, of Glenwood,was arrested for Driving Under Suspension ($300 c/s bond).

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Sheriff’s Office released a very short report today (Monday). Sheriff’ Jeff Vandewater’s report showed one arrest took place last week: 38-year-old Luke Daniel Hommes, of Adair, was arrested in Adair Thursday night, on an Adair County warrant for Obstruction of Emergency Communications. Hommes was released from the Adair County Jail about 90-minutes later, on a $300 bond.