The Adair County Board of Supervisors, Wednesday, continued down the road to establish a Solar Panel Ordinance, by tweaking wording in a DRAFT of the same ordinance they have been working on for a couple of weeks. County Attorney Melissa Larson read a motion by Supervisor Matt Wedemeyer, for the Ordinance that pertains to the occupied residence setback from a Solar Farm.

The motion passed 5-0. Larson said the amended section applies to only to commercial solar farm operation.

A second motion by Supervisor Jodie Hoadley for a 400 acre cap on the amount of property a commercial solar farm owner (Such as MidAmerican) can take over in Adair County, passed by a vote of 3-to 2, with Supervisors Shelley and Twombly voting against. John Twombly said the distance as currently proposed is sufficient.

The Ordinance will be edited and posted for publication when it’s ready, prior to a Public Hearing. It’ll be at least two more weeks before a hearing could be held.  In other news, the Adair County Supervisors approved a recommendation by County Engineer Nick Kauffman, for the hiring of Bobby Jeane, and the approved a “No Spray” agreement for the City of Fontanelle’s well site. Supervisor Shelley explained the agreement stipulates no chemicals are to be applied near wells six and seven, with the exception of de-icing chemicals, which would not be used on a gravel road anyway.

The Iowa Department of Public Health’s Coronavirus dashboard, as of 10-a.m., Wednesday, indicated that for the third day in a row, there were no additional deaths from COVID-19 to report. The pandemic total remains 5,857. Long-Term Care facility deaths account for 2,296 of the total number of deaths across the state. That is unchanged from Monday’s report.

There were 733 additional positive test results for COVID-19 returned from the labs, for a total of 387,202. There remain three Long-Term Care facility outbreaks, with 31 positive cases among residents and staff within those facilities.

Health officials say COVID-related hospitalizations stand at 218, and there are 57 COVID patients in an ICU. The IDPH says 46 people were admitted to a hospital across the state, compared to 31, Tuesday, and 14 patients remain on a ventilator, compared to 20 in the previous report.

RMCC Region 4 hospitals (those in western/southwest Iowa) show: There are 21hospitalized with COVID; 13 COVID patients are in an ICU; two people were admitted with symptoms of COVID, and there remain two COVID patients on a ventilator.

The 14-day positivity rate is 4.7%. The seven-day rate is also 4.7%.

In the KJAN listening area, here are the current number positive cases by County; The # of new cases since yesterday {+} – if any; and the total number of deaths in each county to date:

• Cass, 1,421 cases; {+2}; 54 deaths
• Adair, 961; {+1}; 32
• Adams, 335 {+0}; 4
• Audubon, 511 {+0}; 9
• Guthrie, 1,253 {+2}; 28
• Harrison County, 1,880; {+0}; 73
• Madison County, 1,668; {+9; 19
• Mills County, 1,744; {+2}; 20
• Montgomery, 1,080 {+4}; 37
• Pottawattamie County, 11,723; {+35}; 160
• Shelby County, 1,326 {+3}; 37
• Union County,  1,321; {+0}; 32

The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports 26-year old Nikki Lee Phipps, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at around 7:50-p.m. Tuesday in Council Bluffs, on a simple misdemeanor warrant for Contempt of Court on an original, Disorderly Conduct charge. 29-year-old Jacob Kyle Eric Caudill was arrested at the Pottawattamie County Jail, on a warrant for allowing animal(s) to run at large, and Failure to properly license an animal. He was turned over to staff at the Pott. County Jail.

Monday night, 44-year old Matthew Joseph Gardner, and 22-year old Grace Anne Hall. Both face charges that include: Possession of Drug Paraphernalia and Possession of a Controlled Substance/Methamphetamine – 1st offense. Hall was additionally charged with Willful failure to stop for law enforcement. The pair were arrested following an call about trespassing at Loves Travel Stop, in Shelby. Dispatched advised law enforcement that Gardner had been banned and barred from the business. When a deputy arrived, employees pointed to the vehicle Gardner was in, which was driving out of the parking lot at a high rate of speed.

After observing traffic violations, the deputy conducted a traffic stop on the car on Interstate 80. The vehicle did not stop for some time, according to the report, but eventually pulled over. Gardner was a passenger in the vehicle driven by Hall. The vehicle, and a dog inside it, were released to a friend of the owners. Both parties were also cited. And, Monday afternoon, a Pott. County Jail inmate, 41-year-old Bernie Dwayne Hathaway, Jr., of Council Bluffs, was presented with a warrant for Assault with Intent to Commit Sex Abuse. He was then returned to the custody of correction staff.

(Radio Iowa) – Welcome home ceremonies continue today (Wednesday) for Iowa National Guard soldiers. Ninety soldiers from the 113th Calvary Troop C based from the Le Mars return from a ten-month deployment. National Guard spokesperson Major Katheryn Headley talks about that mission.

The soldiers will arrive by plane at the Sioux City Gateway Airport at approximately 12:20 p-m. with a small welcome home ceremony scheduled to start at 12:30 p-m. The buses carrying the National Guard soldiers are expected to leave the Sioux City airport by 1:00 p-m. heading north to Le Mars. Headley says due to the concern of the COVID-19 virus the homecoming ceremony at the Sioux City Armory is not open to the public.

She says the ceremony will be open to the media. Major Headley says there are ways the public can show support on the return route

Soldiers will be released to their families once the official welcome home ceremony is over.

(Radio Iowa) – A University of Iowa study finds health care workers are more likely to catch COVID-19 if the exposure occurred in their home rather than their workplace. The study used data from more than 17-hundred health care workers at the U-I Hospitals. Brooks Jackson, dean of the U-I College of Medicine, says workers tend to let down their guard when they leave work. “The workplace was the lowest,” Jackson says, “and that’s not surprising, given that we have hand sanitizer, and we’ve got masks.”

The data showed 26-percent of exposures at home turned into infections, compared to just 10-percent of exposures in the workplace. The study found 17-percent of exposures overall turned into COVID-19 infections. Jackson says it’s clear that -most- workplaces will be safer. “I think when you look at an eight-hour day in the workplace during this time period,” he says, “probably 95-percent of the time, people have been wearing masks.”

The U-I health care workers used in the study all self-reported exposures between September and November of last year.

(reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

The News at 8:17-a.m., from Ric Hanson.

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Emergency crews have recovered a vehicle submerged in Carter Lake. Inside, authorities found the body of a woman. She was identified by police as 22-year-old Nyahon Thuok. According to Omaha television station KETV, Omaha Police Lt. Allen Straub said his officers were patrolling the area when they learned there was a car submerged in the water. Straub said they noticed the car’s headlights and taillights were on. Officers called the Omaha Fire Department, who pulled the car out of the water. That’s when crews learned there was a woman inside the vehicle.

No other details are currently available.

A traffic stop Tuesday evening in Creston resulted in the arrest of a woman from Madison County. The Creston Police Department reports 38-year-old Jennifer McKeever, of Winterset, was arrested on two Union County warrants for Driving While Barred. She faces additional charges that include: Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense; Possession of Paraphernalia, and Driving while Barred. McKeever was being held for Union County in the Adams County Jail, on $5,600 bond.

And, a man residing in the 500 block of S. Cherry Street in Creston, reported Tuesday that sometime between 6-p.m. Monday and 11-a.m. Tuesday, someone stole 11 potted plants from his property. The loss was estimated at $300.

The 7:06-a.m. News from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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(Radio Iowa) – The environmental group American Rivers lists two waterways that either border Iowa or flow through the state on its annual list of the nation’s ten most endangered rivers. Olivia Dorothy, director of the group’s Upper Mississippi River Basin, says the 2019 flooding on the Lower Missouri River brought massive levee breaches. It’s concerning, she says, because the river is too constricted and there’s not enough room for water that comes downriver during floods. “We need to take strategic action to set back levees,” Dorothy says, “to give the river a little bit more room to flood so that we know the water is going to basically go into areas of the flood plain where people and critical infrastructure aren’t located.”

This is the second year in a row the Lower Missouri River has made the group’s most-endangered list. “We are again calling on Congress and the states along the Lower Missouri River to work together to set up a framework to prioritize areas where levees can be set back and where we can do critical habitat restoration which is much needed for a lot of species, including the pallid sturgeon,” she says. That fish is threatened, she says, in part due to a lack of access to quality habitat. The Raccoon River is on this year’s most-endangered list for the first time. Its three forks run for 226 miles across western and central Iowa.

Dorothy says the Raccoon is most threatened by pollution due to agricultural runoff, which she attributes to “industrial agriculture.” “In the Raccoon watershed, we have a lot of confined feeding operations, we have a lot of confined factory farms,” Dorothy says. “They spread manure in excess across the watershed on farms for fertilizer. A lot of times, that fertilizer is running off and getting into our drinking water.” It’s forced cities like Des Moines to install expensive nitrate removal equipment, while she says it’s continuing to threaten the drinking water in rural areas, especially for people who use wells. Dorothy says nitrogen is particularly toxic to children, infants and pregnant women.

“We are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in in Iowa and step up their enforcement actions,” she says, “and really start regulating these factory farms that we know are being installed in excess throughout the state of Iowa but especially in the Raccoon watershed.” The full report is online at AmericanRivers.org. Dorothy encourages Iowans to log on and learn more, and find links so they can contact federal agencies and officials to demand action to protect our rivers — and people.