WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — The Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors added its voice to those calling for a moratorium on new livestock feeding operations.
The board voted unanimously Tuesday for a resolution that asks Gov. Kim Reynolds and state legislators to bar construction of new concentrated animal feeding operations until Iowa’s water quality improves. The resolution wants no permits issued by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources until the state’s number of impaired waterways has dropped to fewer than 100 from about 750.

“I think it’s really a crisis situation,” said Supervisor Chris Schwartz. “If we’re going to get ahead of it we need to put the brakes on now until we’ve got better things in place.”
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported that supervisors in 25 more of the state’s 99 counties have passed similar measures. “It’s not the family farms that we all know and love,” Schwartz said. “It’s these big, kind of corporate operations putting thousands and thousands of animals in small spaces.”

Groups such as the Sierra Club and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement have said the operations are detrimental to human health and that failed manure management plans harm the state’s streams, rivers and lakes. Environmental groups have said the spills and animal manure used as fertilizer drain down creeks and other tributaries into the Missouri and Mississippi rivers have contributed to the growth of a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, a zone where oxygen levels are so low that marine life can no longer survive.

State Sen. Eric Giddens, who works as program manager for the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Energy and Environmental Education, on Tuesday spoke in favor of the moratorium and read from a January 2018 Iowa Policy Project report that said Iowa has four times more of the big feeding operations than it had in 2001. Groups such as the Sierra Club and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement say the operations are detrimental to human health and that failed manure management plans harm the state’s streams, rivers and lakes.

(9-a.m. News, 5/22) — The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports three arrests took place over the past week, with two people arrested on separate charges, Saturday: 21-year old Kolby Austin Fulk, of Harlan, was arrested for Driving While Barred. Fulk was taken to the Cass County Jail and released the following day on his own recognizance. And, 35-year old Ashley Christensen, of Council Bluffs, was arrested on charges of Operating While Under the Influence/2nd Offense; Public Intoxication; Interference with Official Acts; and Disorderly Conduct. Christensen was taken to the Cass County Jail and released the following day on her own recognizance.

Last Thursday, Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 35-year old Ryan Kent Richards, of Griswold, on a Nuisance charge. Richards was taken to the Cass County Jail and released the later that day on his own recognizance.

(9-a.m., Radio Iowa) — What may be Iowa’s first tornado of 2019 claimed a life early this (Wednesday) morning in the southwest corner of the state. Meteorologist Chad Hahn, with the National Weather Service, says there is storm damage in Adair and Cass counties and at least one house was destroyed south of the city of Adair. Reports say several other homes were impacted.  “We’re still evaluating that,” Hahn says. “We have a storm team that’s out in the area evaluating and assessing the damage. The one homestead that we know was hit was close to the interstate, which was closed down for a time in the early morning hours.”

Adair County authorities say 74-year-old Linda Brownlee was killed in the storm and her husband, 78-year-old Harold Brownlee, was seriously hurt and is hospitalized in Des Moines. Hahn says the team surveying the wreckage will be working to determine whether the destruction was caused by a tornado or straight-line winds. “The biggest signs that we look for is the damage pattern within the debris,” Hahn says. “We can evaluate whether there is a rotational component to that and that’s what they’re examining out there right now.”

If it was a tornado, Hahn says it’s very unusual to have a twister strike at that hour, sometime between 12:30 and 1:30 A-M. He says only about five-percent of tornadoes hit during the nighttime. The risk of more severe weather today is low, but Hahn says the chances are a bit higher Thursday, especially in southeast Iowa. “As we look into Friday, we can expect portions of the southeastern part of the state to be in that area where conditions will be favorable for severe weather,” Hahn says. “It’s late May. We know the conditions around here are becoming more susceptible to severe weather and we need to stay on guard.”

While May, June and July are typically the worst months of the year for tornadoes in Iowa, this would be the first confirmed tornado this year. Last year, there were 69 tornadoes statewide with the most notable hitting Bondurant, Marshalltown and Pella on July 19th. Over the past decade, Iowa has seen as few as 16 tornadoes during all of 2012 and as many as 88 tornadoes in 2014.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge has reversed the Missouri Department of Public Safety’s revocation of the peace officer license of a highway patrolman who was driving a boat when a handcuffed Iowa man fell out and drowned. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green on Monday sent proceedings against trooper Anthony Piercy back to the public safety department for further action.

Piercy was driving 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson, of Clive, Iowa, for a breath test at the Lake of the Ozarks in 2014 when Ellingson fell off the boat and slipped out of an improperly secured life vest. Green ruled that public safety Director Drew Juden didn’t provide findings of fact and conclusions of law when revoking Piercy’s license.

Piercy was sentenced to 10 days in county jail for misdemeanor negligent operation of a vessel. He can’t return to the patrol without his peace officer license.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Members of the CAM and Nodaway Valley School District’s Boards of Education will hold a closed Special session beginning 7-p.m. Thursday, in the Nodaway Valley High School Media Center. Superintendent Dr. Casey Berlau said during the meeting, the Boards will review the information from 19 applicants, with hopes of narrowing the candidates for the first round of interviews to five-or seven-candidates.

The ultimate goal is to select an individual to succeed Berlau, who is leaving the District at the end of June, to become Superintendent for the Carroll Community School District.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa City man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman during a violent home invasion has been given 75 years in prison. A judge imposed the sentences last week on 26-year-old Sullivan Smith-Berry. He’d been convicted in March of burglary, three counts of robbery and one of sexual abuse. He and 30-year-old Earl Riley Jr. are accused of breaking into an Iowa City apartment on Nov. 3, 2017, and beating two men. Police say Smith-Berry dragged a sister of one of the men into a bedroom and assaulted her.

Riley has pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is scheduled to begin trial on July 16.

Two people were arrested on separate Driving While Revoked and Driving While Suspended charges Tuesday, in Creston. Authorities say 23-year old Kaylee Nelson, of Creston, was arrested for Driving While Revoked. She was later released on a $2,000 bond. And, 20-year old Noah Wardlow, of Corning, was arrested in Creston for Driving While Suspended. He was being held in the Union County Jail on a $300 bond.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

(Radio Iowa) — Abortion rights supporters rallied at the Iowa Capitol Tuesday, part of nationwide protests against new abortion restrictions in other states. Erin Davison-Rippey is state director for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. “This is an attack on each and every single one of us,” Davison-Rippey said. ” It is an attack on anyone who might or can get pregnant and to anyone who stands alongside us.”

Alabama’s new law makes it a crime to perform an abortion, with a sentence of up to 99 years. Sarena Ramirez of Des Moines says “all women” are threatened by what’s happening. “In other countries, they have these laws, and women die because they can’t do what is right for their health care,” Ramirez said.

Legislators in states like Alabama hope their new laws spark a challenge of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal. Some hoped Iowa’s 2018 law could be a test case. It banned abortions as early as six weeks in a pregnancy, after a fetal heartbeat could be detected, but it was struck down by a district court judge in January.

Governor Reynolds decided recent IOWA Supreme Court rulings upholding abortion rights made a successful appeal impossible.