No doubt you have heard how the latest clean water crisis now looms in rural America: the Des Moines Register has reported unsafe levels of bacteria and nitrates continue to pollute Iowa’s water, according to findings over the past 16 years. Clean water protections are jeopardized by recent escalated federal attempts to deregulate, slash budgets and restrict supervision and enforcement. Matt Russell, Executive Director of Iowa Interfaith Power & Light and fifth-generation owner of Coyote Run Farm in Lacona, spoke with KJAN News about the work being done to protect and preserve Iowa’s environment. He said there are four practice areas that are very effective: Conservation tillage, extend crop rotation – grow more than corn and soybeans, have something growing all year around, and integrating livestock by managing manure better…rotational grazing and more.

Russell grew up on a farm south of Anita. His parents, Bill and Connie Russell, and his brother and sister-in-law Todd and Cathy, still farm the same land. On his Lacona farm, they took 110 acres and turned it all into a managed grazing system. They used EQUIP, CRP and other conservation programs, partnering with the tax payers to help put practices on the farm that will help them sell their meat directly at a higher value. They built ponds, and changed to a rotational grazing system as well.

He said Interfaith Power and Light works with farmers in getting them engaged in their profession in terms of climate change and water clean-up. Those that are already using practices to be “High-level” stewards of the land in conservation, he says, take more risk and get less return than the farmers who take short cuts. The trick, according to Russell, is how to “shift the economics.” He says “We have an economic situation that does not reward those farmers who do the highest levels of conservation. Those who do the least level and sometimes poor conservation – they actually pay very little cost. The economics do not encourage better stewardship, and we don’t have a way of calling-out those farmers who are doing a poor job.”

Russell says “We know we have these increased nutrients and bacteria as well, and that’s not changing. That’s not getting better. We can’t just keep doing what we’re doing, expecting that something is going to change.” The Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS) is a solution to address nutrient pollution and reduce Iowa’s inputs by up to 45%. However, despite significant investments in the NRS – including a $242 million dollar water quality bill passed by the legislature in January 2018 – the implementation rates of water quality practices are actually slowing rather than ramping up.

The efforts of good land stewardship, Russell says, creates economic opportunities. “What we have to think about as Iowans, is that this water is all of ours. There are multiple problems with the water, but also gives a lot of opportunities for strategy to fix it and work together to do it. This is a great opportunity for that rural-urban divide that we hear about. How do we partner together instead of making this farmers against other folks in the State. How do we come together to all take responsibility to get solutions that are based in concrete efforts that works. We’ve got to move past talking about the problem to really engaging ‘How do we get the dollars, how do we get the practices, how do we get the partnerships to get to a place where everybody has access to clean drinking water, everyone can jump in a close-by body of water, and float and paddle, fish, and hunt water fowl.'”

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Football fans intending to drive to Jack Trice Stadium in Ames for Saturday’s game between Iowa State University and the University of Iowa face a bigger parking challenge than usual: Fines for illegal parking have been doubled. The city passed an ordinance earlier this year to raise the fine to $40 from $20 for illegal parking from 6 a.m. to midnight on game days.

Geoff Huff with the Ames Police Department says most lots near the stadium charge $20 to park, so people were paying the same in fines to park illegally and closer to the stadium than paying to park legally elsewhere.

Huff says police project around 150,000 people will be in and around the stadium Saturday, compared with an estimated 80,000 in the area for the game two years ago. He says the increase will come in part because ESPN’s College GameDay production and crew have come to town.

The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Police in Red Oak arrested a man just before 4-a.m. today (Friday), following a traffic stop. 38-year old Gary O. Smith, of Red Oak, was taken into custody for Driving while license revoked, and failure to have SR-22 (High risk) insurance. Smith was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $1,000 bond.

By The Associated Press – Total enrollment has dropped at Iowa’s public universities. The University of Iowa on Thursday reported enrollment of more than 31,200 students this fall, compared with nearly 31,700 last year. The University of Northern Iowa reported enrollment of nearly 10,500, down from more than 11,200 last fall.

Iowa State University reported nearly 33,400 students this fall, down from nearly 35,000 last year. The number of students enrolled from other countries dropped this year at all three universities.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say an explosion destroyed a house in Des Moines and damaged others. The blast occurred around 3:15 a.m. Friday, a few blocks northeast of Birdland Park. Police say no injuries have been reported. Natural gas is suspected of being the source of the explosion. An investigation is underway.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:30 a.m. CDT

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Public defenders are seeking to stop representing an Iowa man charged with murder after revelations that their boss moonlights for a police department involved in the case. Lawyers with the special defense unit of the State Public Defender’s office said in a filing Wednesday that they now believe their representation of Jeffrey Stendrup is a conflict of interest. They have asked a judge for permission to withdraw from the case

ADEL, Iowa (AP) — Two men arrested on suspicion of breaking into an Iowa courthouse say they were hired to test the building’s alarm system. The Des Moines Register reports that the men were found in the Dallas County Courthouse early Wednesday after an alarm was tripped. The men told deputies they worked for the cybersecurity firm Coalfire and had been hired to test the courthouse alarm system, but court officials say they sought only to test the security of electronic records.

BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) — Police in southeastern Iowa have identified a man killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers. The Division of Criminal Investigation says 20-year-old Caleb Daniel Peterson, of Burlington, was the suspect killed in the exchange just before 1 a.m. Wednesday. No officers were injured. An autopsy has been ordered.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Drake men’s basketball player has been charged with an off-campus shooting that he says was accidental. Des Moines police say Tremell Murphy was charged Thursday with discharging a firearm inside city limits and making false reports to law enforcement. Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him. A university spokesman says Murphy has been removed from basketball activities. Murphy was a starting forward for the Bulldogs as a junior last year.

(Radio Iowa) — State regulators have approved two short-term health insurance plans for sale in Iowa. Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen says these are 364-day plans — and they are an option for healthy Iowans who cannot afford the premiums for individual policies being sold in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

“It’s a policy that will fit a niche in the market for people that have been priced out under the ACA plans,” Ommen says. The approved plans are sold by Golden Rule Insurance Company and United States Fire Insurance Company. “These two companies were the first two companies to submit those plans for our approval and we’ve reviewed them,” Ommen says, “and they do comply with Iowa law.”

In-hospital services will be covered, including surgeries and emergency room visits, as well as out-of-hospital care like going to the doctor — even if its via a video “tele-medicine” link. Customers will be able to renew policies for three years. The plans do have higher deductibles, however. “But for people that were priced out of the (Affordable Care Act) that have incomes over 400 percent of the federal poverty level, this coverage is affordable in terms of premium, where some of those ACA plans have simply skyrocketed out of reach for a lot of middle class Iowans,” Ommen says.

A family of four with an annual income of more than 99-thousand dollars do not qualify for the federal subsidies to buy health insurance. These short-term plans will be attractive to younger, healthy Iowans, but Ommen says Iowans with pre-existing conditions will not be able to buy these policies.

Ommen says until congress makes significant changes, the health insurance market will not function properly as younger, healthy adults will continue to balk at buying a health insurance policy at a price that’s equal to one offered to a 60 year old.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Drake men’s basketball player has been charged with an off-campus shooting that he says was accidental. Des Moines police say Tremell Murphy was charged Thursday with discharging a firearm inside city limits and making false reports to law enforcement.

A university spokesman says Murphy has been removed from basketball activities. Murphy was a starting forward for the Bulldogs as a junior last year.

Police say the shooting occurred the night of Aug. 31 during a party at a home near campus. Officers found a 19-year-old man bleeding from his head and noticed a bullet hole in a nearby wall, leading them to believe the shot had come from Murphy’s adjacent room. Police say Murphy first insisted the man had fallen but later acknowledged he’d accidentally fired the .22-caliber bullet.