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A popular state park in western Iowa will reopen later this week, 20 months after record flooding forced its closure. Chris Anunson, park ranger at Wilson Island State Recreation Area, says the park was abandoned in April 2011 as the Missouri River spilled out its banks. “We were forced to move everything out of the park – all of our office equipment, everything we could,” Anunson said. “When the water was at its peak, it covered 99-percent of the park.
Wilson Island State Rec Area flooding July 2011; photo of shelter roof on riverfront picnic area – water depth about 9 feet deep. (Radio Iowa)
As a result, we were forced to demolish some of the buildings in the park.” Standing water remained in the park for three months. A massive layer of sand and sediment was left behind.
“We had anywhere between three inches to eight feet of sediment deposit,” Anunson said. Anunson, his wife and three children moved to a rented in home in nearby Missouri Valley for a year as their residence in the park was fixed. The home’s basement took in seven feet of floodwater. Although the Wilson Island State Recreation Area will reopen to visitors this Friday (December 14), the campground will remain closed until sometime in 2014. Prior to the flood, the Wilson Island campground was the sixth highest revenue producer among Iowa’s state park campgrounds. Anunson said frequent visitors to the park will definitely notice some changes.
“We’ve removed, as of this Fall, about 105 large cottonwood trees that were damaged by the flood. We are slated to remove another 70 trees this Winter and that doesn’t include all the small saplings that were under eight inches in size,” Anunson said. The State of Iowa provided two-million dollars ($2 million) and FEMA nearly one-million ($1 million) toward the food cleanup effort. The 544-acre state park, named for former Iowa Governor George Wilson, is located about 25 miles north of Omaha/Council Bluffs. Anunson estimates more than half of the park’s users come from Nebraska.
(Radio Iowa)
Officials with the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources say three informational meetings regarding the recently released Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, will be held the week of December 17th in Denison, Ames and Waterloo. DNR Director Churck Gipp says “These meetings are an important opportunity for the public and key stakeholders to ask questions and learn more about this plan. In western Iowa, a meeting on Nutrient Reduction Strategy will take place at the Boulders Conference Center in Denison (2507 Boulders Dr.), beginning at 6:30-p.m., Dec, 17th. Other meetings will be held Dec. 19th in Ames, and Dec. 21st in Waterloo.
Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey says the goal of reducing nutrients in Iowa’s waters is an effort that will require everyone working together. Northey says what makes the plan so “exciting,” is that “It’s the first time we have had all the key stakeholders moving in the same direction toward the common goal of reducing nutrients, both here in Iowa and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.”
Comments on the strategy will not be accepted during the three meetings, but Iowans are invited to review the full strategy and provide comment at www.nutrientstrategy.iastate.edu.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: You’re becoming “less and less relevant.” A month that Democrats won the election even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican. Now Vilsack — a former Democratic governor of Iowa — has told farm belt leaders that he’s frustrated with their internal squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.
In a speech this past week in Washington, he said rural America’s biggest assets — the food supply, recreational areas and energy, for example — can be overlooked by people elsewhere as the U.S. population shifts more to cities, their suburbs and exurbs.
Commercial manure applicators should plan to attend the Commercial Manure Applicator training program scheduled for Friday, Jan. 4th, 2013, from 9 a.m. to noon. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources will conduct the required three-hour training workshop at that time. There is no fee to attend the workshop, but commercial applicators must register by Dec. 28 by contacting the ISU Extension – Shelby County office at 712-755-3104.
Commercial manure applicators needing to re-certify and those wanting to certify for the first time should attend. The workshop will provide the required three hours of annual training and will cover applicator rules, manure application rates, manure nutrient movement in soils, emergency action planning, and the importance of good communication and contracts when agitating and pumping manure.
All currently certified commercial manure applicator licenses will expire on March 1, 2013. Commercial applicators can attend training throughout the year, but if they were previously certified, they should plan to attend training and submit the forms and fees to DNR prior to March 1, 2013, to avoid paying the late fees. Certification fees for commercial manure applicators have not changed for 2013. ISU Extension and Outreach will be charging a $10 fee to applicators choosing to view the certification materials on a non-scheduled reshow day at the county office. For this reason all applicators are encouraged to attend the workshops or to plan to view training materials on the scheduled reshow date at their local county extension office. This fee will not apply to workshops or scheduled reshow dates.
Contact the county extension office to determine which days are scheduled for the manure applicator certification programs. Due to scheduling conflicts, many county extension offices will no longer accept walk-in appointments to watch the training DVDs. If you will be attending the Jan. 4th commercial manure applicator program or watching the three-hour DVD is not convenient, commercial applicators may contact their local DNR field office to schedule an appointment to take the certification exam.
For more information about the commercial applicator program contact the ISU Extension – Shelby County office at 712-755-3104 or access a list of the training locations at: http://www.agronext.iastate.edu/immag/certification/macprogrampostcard.pdf
A man hunting deer in Madison County Wednesday south of Truro was injured while using an unconventional weapon. Iowa Department of Natural Resources spokesman, Kevin Baskins, says the accident involved a 69-year-old man from Cumming. “In this particular instance we had a gentleman who was on a stand and took a shot at a deer when the muzzleloader he was using exploded,” Baskins says. The man identified as Theodore Larson lost a thumb in the explosion.
“He was unable to find his thumb after the gun exploded,” Baskins says. He says Larson was unable to find his thumb and was eventually flown to a Des Moines hospital for treatment. Baskins says the muzzleloaders are often new reproduction guns that are still loaded in the old way. Baskins is not sure what type of gun Larson was using, but said they will try to find out why it exploded. “Our officers are experts at looking at these firearms and being able to examine what’s left of the gun to determine what may’ve happened to make it perform that way,” he says.
Baskins says the muzzleloader shotgun season overlaps with the regular shotgun season. He does not believe there have been that many problems with the oldstyle weapons. “I think it’s an unusual case. It’s not unheard of and that’s obviously one of the reasons why we want to further investigate and determine why that gun did perform the way it did,” according to Baskins.
Baskins says the accident happened around five in the evening and Larson was likely airlifted to the hospital because it was the quickest way at that time of day to get him in for treatment.
(Radio Iowa)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa officials say drought conditions have slightly improved in the state. The state Department of Natural Resources says in a Thursday report that Iowa received a little more than an inch of rainfall in November. That’s half of its normal rainfall during that month.
But the state’s area of exceptional drought and other categories of drought intensity have slightly dropped. Officials say they expect little or no additional groundwater recharge before spring because frost will enter the soil with the approaching winter.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Animal scientist Temple Grandin has criticized legislation that restricts or bans underground videos in feedlots and confinements. The Des Moines Register reports the animal rights authority told the Iowa Farm Bureau Wednesday that laws with such rules are “the dumbest thing.”
The newspaper reports that Gradin also praised beef trimmings, or so-called “pink slime” as a good product. She says its production should never have been suspended. The product is the subject of a lawsuit by Beef Products Incorporated in South Dakota against ABC News. Grandin also spoke against sow gestation crates, a method of enclosure used in pig farming. It’s a controversial issue between hog producers and animal rights activists.
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