MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A recent study by Wisconsin researchers suggests that the failure of any of the 25 aging locks on the upper Mississippi River could result in nearly half a million truckloads of freight on highways between Minnesota and Missouri.

The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that a shutdown of the river at Hannibal, Missouri, would require trucks to move over 12 million tons of grain during a nine-month shipping season, costing millions of dollars and damaging roads.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that most of the shipments would travel through southern Minnesota and Iowa, while a smaller amount would move through Wisconsin and Illinois, causing nearly $29 million in pavement damage.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates the backlogged maintenance costs for locks and dams of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers totals to over $1 billion.

Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers reports: “The City of Clarinda will prohibit all on Street parking as soon as two inches of snow accumulates Friday night/Saturday morning.”

Iowa Congressman David Young spoke on the House floor this week about the need to improve phone service in rural communities. “Families and businesses in rural America should have the same communication access as those living in urban areas,” Young said. The Republican is a cosponsor of the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act.

“Telephone companies often rely on intermediate providers to connect calls from larger networks to local service providers and all too often, especially in rural areas, those calls are poor quality, looped, dropped, not even connected, or disconnected,” Young said. The legislation was approved in the U.S. Thursday and now goes to the President for his signature. Other co-sponsors of the bill referred to the issue of dropped calls in rural America as an epidemic.

“Our bill will help address this problem by requiring providers to register with the Federal Communications Commission in order to meet quality standards and ensure reliable phone service in rural areas,” Young said. “It also prohibits providers from using intermediary routing services not registered with the FCC.”

(Radio Iowa)

The Le Mars Fire Department is trying to bring a fire at the Plymouth County Landfill northeast of Le Mars under control. Firefighters were called to the landfill at around midnight and Fire Chief Dave Schipper says they’ve been trying to bring the burning area under control.

“We attempted with an excavator that they have on site her to get to that fire and used our fire equipment to protect the excavator to try and pull the burning pieces out to get them spread out on the ground,” Schipper explains. Schipper says they determined it was too hard to try and get at the fire on the side where it was burning and need to come in from the other side with some more equipment. Schipper says it is important to keep the fire from spreading.

“This landfill is a quarter mile wide and it could burn all the way underneath across the whole landfill,” Schipper explains. He says the main focus was to protect the Plymouth County Landfill equipment as landfill staff assisted with the efforts to combat the fire. Schipper says firefighters were not only battling the fire, but the snow and cold weather as well. Schipper has an idea of how the fire may have started.

He thinks the fire started spontaneously as the fire is in an area of the landfill that has been untouched for at least two years. Schipper says they are awaiting word from the Plymouth County Landfill Board of Directors to determine their next move. He says there are also some environmental concerns that need to be considered.

(Radio Iowa)

Atlantic, IA – The next session of Healthy U is scheduled for noon on Thursday, February 15, at Cass County Health System. Paul Kerschinske, ARNP, will talk about both the role of a hospitalist and heart health since February is American Heart Month.

Paul Kerschinske, ARN

Paul received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Creighton and then worked in Intensive Care while pursuing his Master of Science in Nursing and becoming an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. Being a Nurse Practitioner has allowed Paul to combine his passion for fitness, science and service to patients into a challenging and rewarding career.

Healthy U is a free educational lunch series at Cass County Health System held monthly in Conference Room 2. The public is invited and welcome to attend, but reservations are required as lunch is provided for all attendees. Call 712-243-7479 to reserve your seat.

CLINTON, Iowa (AP) — The remains of a trumpeter swan are being analyzed in hopes of solving the mystery of what killed 32 of the rare birds in western Clinton County.

The Quad-City Times reports a hunter found remains of the birds on Jan. 30 in a privately owned wetland area. Most of the birds had been scavenged but at least one full carcass remained and it along with partial remains were sent to the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Iowa State University.

Mark Roberts, of Clinton County Conservation, called the discovery “shocking.”

Trumpeter swans, North America’s largest waterfowl species, were once on the brink of extinction but thanks to a decades-long effort now have an estimated population of more than 63,000 adult birds.