The 8:05-a.m. broadcast News, w/Ric Hanson.
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The 8:05-a.m. broadcast News, w/Ric Hanson.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.5MB)
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Jim Field visits with Sandy Booker about the CAM Middle School Greenhouse project. The annual sale is Friday, May 7 from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm and Saturday, May 8 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am.
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The 7:07-a.m. broadcast News, w/Ric Hanson.
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(Radio Iowa) – If your neighbor’s lawn is looking shaggy, don’t scold them as they may be taking part in No Mow May. It’s an effort to toss out the image of a “perfect” lawn and raise awareness about alternatives that are friendlier to the environment and to pollinators, especially bees, which are now emerging from hibernation. Ginny Mitchell, education program coordinator of the Insect Zoo at Iowa State University, says lawns are America’s biggest crop and they provide no food or resources. “The non-native grasses that we use as our lawns were brought over in the 1700s and they’re really outdated,” Mitchell says. “They don’t bring anything to our lives except work, right? How many people like mowing the lawn or applying fertilizers or doing anything to your lawn. It’s a lot of work.”
The No Mow May effort is just starting to catch on, Mitchell says, as about two-dozen homeowners in the Ames area have pledged to take part. Some plan to convert all or at least part of their lawns away from traditional grass. “We can plant alternatives that also help pollinators and insects and wildlife in general, birds,” Mitchell says. “We can plant things like violets which are low-growing and do not require lawns. We can do many different ground covers, creeping thyme which can withhold foot traffic, white Dutch clover, all sorts of other plants.”
Iowa has what’s believed to be the highest proportion of privately-held land in the U-S, which is why Mitchell says it’s important for homeowners to consider making the change. “Whether you’re converting your entire lawn, like I am, or just a small area, no matter what, it’s going to have a positive impact on the environment, reduce pesticides, reduce greenhouse gases from using a gas-powered lawn mower,” Mitchell says, “and frankly, you’ll have more time to stop and smell the roses.”
Even people who live in apartments can help, by starting with their balconies and planting cone flowers, goldenrod, coreopsis and other pollinator-friendly alternatives.If you live in the city, though, you should make sure you know how tall your grass can grow before local ordinances kick-in and require the lawn to be mowed.
Learn more at the ISU Insect Zoo’s website: https://www.ent.iastate.edu/insectzoo/
The Reverend George B. Hitchcock House near Lewis opened Monday, for guided tours. The tours are available Wednesdays through Sundays, with the first tour each day beginning at 1:15p.m. Additional tours will start at 2:15 p.m., 3:15 p.m., and 4:15 p.m. In order to comply with CDC guidelines, a mask will be required and social distancing will be observed. A mask will be provided with the cost of admission. The charge for a tour is $5 per person over the age of 14.
George B. Hitchcock House (2018 photo)
The Hitchcock House was built in 1856, and was used to assist in the safe passage of fugitive slaves through southwestern Iowa on their way east and north to Canada during the mid-19th century. The house now serves as an interpretive center of the life of an early pioneer, and the escaping slaves who traveled the Underground Railroad to freedom. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places, and was accepted as a site on the National Park Service Network to Freedom and designated a National Historic Landmark in February of 2006.
National Historic Landmark sites embody the actual sites where significant historic events occurred or where prominent Americans worked or lived, and represent ideas that shaped our nation. National Historic Landmark designations are an official recognition by the federal government of a historic properties’ significance. Less than 3,000 historic properties in the United States are designated as a National Historic Landmark.
(Radio Iowa) – Dry conditions allowed farmers to spend a lot of time on the tractor last week. The new U-S-D-A crop report shows nearly half of the state corn crop was planted in the last week — taking the percentage from 20 to 69 percent completed. The fast pace now puts the corn planting nine days ahead of the five-year average.
There were plenty of beans in planters as well. The percentage of soybeans planted moved from six to 43 percent in the last week. The bean planting is now 12 days ahead of normal.
(Radio Iowa) – The owners of Iowa wineries, distilleries and breweries would be able to get a state license to sell their products for consumption at a second location under a bill that’s headed to the governor. Under current law, state licenses for selling glasses of Iowa-made wine, beer or spirits are just for the property where the alcohol is produced.
Jane Bloomingdale
Representative Jane Bloomingdale of Northwood says a second location could send business to the first. “This is a good bill for Iowa. It allows our native manufacturers to have a presence on Main Street, which I think is very important in particular to our wineries,” Bloomingdale says. “It also allows them a little more visibility and hopefully they get more visitors out to their vineyard.”
Senator Carrie Koelker, of Dyersville, says this bill means an owner might be able to cut, copy and paste their tasting room and gift shop model to a second retail location. “This is a great tool for Iowa’s economic growth and tourism industry,” Koelker says. “Wineries, distilleries and breweries have become local staples and attract Iowans and are part of our economic engine.”
The bill passed the House in late March and it passed the Senate last Thursday.
(Radio Iowa) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rescinded three waivers that had excused Sinclair Oil refineries in Wyoming from the federal requirement to blend ethanol into gasoline. Iowa Renewable Fuels Association executive director Monte Shaw says the waivers were granted on the last day of the Trump Administration. “What was most shocking about them, not just the lateness of them and they aren’t justified to begin with, but these refineries are in the 10th circuit court,” Shaw says.
The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th circuit has jurisdiction over six states, including Wyoming. It’s the court that ruled early last year that small refineries only qualified for the exemption from blending ethanol into gasoline if they had applied for extensions of waivers originally granted in 2010. Shaw says the E-P-A’s decision fits with the law, but just as importantly it matches what candidate Joe Biden said on the campaign trail. “He said he wanted to reign in these refinery exemptions, that they weren’t justified, that we need to follow the law and implement it appropriately,” Shaw says, “so for his EPA then to turn around and say: ‘Hey, these literally last minute exemptions don’t make sense. We need to pull them back,’ it makes sense because that is what he said he would do.”
Shaw says the Biden Administration’s E-P-A administrator will be in Iowa today (Tuesday) and will tour an ethanol plant. “Unfortunately I guess for him the previous administration left a lot of unfinished business on his calendar and that will include finally enforcing the small refinery waiver program appropriately,” Shaw says. Other unresolved items include setting the federal ethanol production mandate for this year and announcing E-P-A labeling and equipment rules so retailers can sell E-15 — gas with 15 percent ethanol — year round.
(Radio Iowa) – Negotiations continue at the statehouse to try to end the stalemate between Senate and House Republicans over taxes. A proposed cut in property taxes along with an acceleration of income tax cuts are priorities for the Senate G-O-P, but Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver says there are a lot of other decisions to make, too. “The House has passed a lot of different bills. We’ve passed a lot of different bills and we need to just get on the same page and figure out what those joint priorities are, what we can pass to move the state forward, and end with a successful session,” Whitver says. Speaker Pat Grassley, the top Republican in the House, says there are state budget issues to resolve as well. “We’re having conversations with the Senate to try to figure out where the middle ground is on everything,” Grassley says, “whether it’s budget policy, tax policy…just policy in general that’s out there.”
Republicans hold a majority of seats in the House and Senate and therefore control the debate agenda. Democrats in the legislature continue to criticize Republicans for failing to use the state’s budget surplus to provide pandemic relief to small businesses and individuals. Jennifer Konfrst, the second-ranking Democrat in the Iowa House, says back in January, Republicans promised to address a lack of child care in Iowa. “In fact, all we’ve got is another task force that’s been announced to address child care,” Konfrst says. “Well that’s great, but the situation we have isn’t that we don’t understand where the problems are. The situation is we haven’t done anything to fix the problems.”
The Republican-led House has passed a series of tax credits designed to boost the number of child care slots in Iowa, but those have stalled in the Senate. The Senate’s Republican leader says those proposals could be added to a final compromise on tax policy.
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