The City of Atlantic’s Parks and Recreation Department Board of Directors, Monday, approved the fees for Summer Recreation Programs, and a local Eagle Scout’s project to improve the Sunnyside Park Disc Golf Course. Parks and Rec Director Roger Herring asked for, and the Board approved, no change in rates charged for swimming at the City Pool. Herring says they will also be offering punch cards again this year, which, if you plan to be a frequent user of the Sunnyside Pool, will save you some money in the long run. The punch card allows you to buy 15 punches for $50. That’s a savings of $10 over the daily rate of admission.

Herring says sponsorship rates for the Men’s slow-pitch softball program will also be unchanged from last year. The cost of sponsorships went up last year from $150 per team to $300 to increase revenue and break even expense-wise. An incentive to the sponsors came in the form of a banner, and their sponsorships were tax deductible. Herring says while that resulted in a decrease in the number of teams from 10 to 8, it increased the cost savings to the Parks and Rec Dept. and reduced the amount of red ink in the books.

Atlantic Eagle Scout Nick Podhajsky speaks before the Atlantic Parks & Rec Board. (Ric Hanson/photo)

In other business, the Parks and Rec Board heard from Atlantic Eagle Scout Nick Podhajsky, who proposed a bridge replacement project near hole number 7, for the Sunnyside Park Disc Golf Course. The current bridge was built by course designer and facilitator Frank Saddlemire, and while functional and fits the natural environment, is also a potential liability to the City, because of its undersized main supports…small, and widely spaced decking branches, and single rails on each side.

Podhajsky proposed upgrading the bridge to incorporate: utility poles for the main supports; treated 2×6 lumber for the decking; and treated 4×4 posts to support three rails on each side. It would be very similar to the design used for the bridge near the Sunnyside Schoolhouse. Donations and supplies for the project would come from local groups, companies and individuals, with the labor for construction and installing the bridge to come from the Scout and other volunteers.

The Board gave approval for Podhajsky to proceed with the project, which could be completed by the end of June.

Winter isn’t officially over until Wednesday, but allergy season has already arrived in Iowa as the trees are starting to pollinate. Dr. Jill Poole, an allergist in Omaha/Council Bluffs, says allergy sufferers are beginning to feel the effects. Dr. Poole says, “This is the time of year when the trees start and so this is the exact time for them to get their allergy medications out of the cabinet and start their nose sprays and antihistamines to try to fend off the allergy symptoms before they get behind the eight ball.”

Spring arrives on Wednesday. While everyone’s body is affected a little differently, Poole says tree pollen hits many people in similar ways.
“Sneezing, nasal congestion, itchy nose, itchy, watery eyes are the main symptoms that can be experienced now,” she says. Known as seasonal allergic rhinitis, allergies are reactions of the body’s immune system to a normally harmless substance. Poole says you’ll know it if you have a tree pollen allergy. “If you’re having the classic symptoms of the itchy nose, the sneezing, the itchy, watery eyes that start in March and get real bad in April, that’s really indicative of allergies and you can start taking over-the-counter medications,” she says. “If those don’t hold you or work well for you, that’s the time to get allergy tested.”

Between 20 and 40-percent of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. Poole offers a few tips on how to lessen the uncomfortable effects of allergies. “Tree pollen is pretty hardy and once it gets in the home, it can be a longer-lasting pollen,” she says. “By closing the windows, that will keep the pollen from being in your bedroom where you’re sleeping and spending a lot of the time. After you’ve been outside, changing your clothes or washing your hands and face can be helpful.”

She also recommends over-the-counter nasal-sinus irrigations and over-the-counter antihistamines that are the non-sedating. Learn more about allergies at the website of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology: www.aaaai.org

(Radio Iowa)

Info from the Atlantic Animal Shelter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

w/ Dr. Keith Leonard

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

w/ Denny Heflin

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Vision Iowa Board Wednesday, awarded over one-point-two-five million dollars ($1.25 million) in grants to six projects across the state. Vision Iowa spokesperson Jessica O’Riley says the town of Hancock is receiving an award of $175,000. The grant will help with improvements at the popular Botna Bend Park. The project includes construction of a new restroom, plus enhancements to a water trail and campgrounds.

O’Riley says the largest award of $404,068 is going to the Des Moines Social Club.The organization is acquiring and renovating an old fire station in downtown Des Moines. The $3.3 million project involves the creation of a theater space, classrooms, an art gallery and more. An award of just over 250-thousand dollars ($250,000) will help finance a $1.3 million project in Marion — the construction of a large amphitheater in Lowe Park.

“The Lowe Park project is really impressive,” O’Riley said. “It has a humongous burr oak leaf that forms the canopy to the amphitheater, so it’s an outdoor performing stage. The drawings the board has seen are quite stunning.” The Vision Iowa Board also awarded grant to a library expansion in Waukon and various community projects in Van Horne. O’Riley said both projects have tremendous community support.

“For the town of Waukon, which has just about 4,000 people, they raised $656,000 in private fundraising,” O’Riley said. “In Van Horne, which has (a population of) under 700, they are near $500,000 raised locally.” A project that involves improvements to a riverfront park in Charles City was awarded a grant of just over $36,000.

(Radio Iowa)

With a second year of drought likely, the U-S Army Corps of Engineers will soon be starting work on sandbars in the very low Missouri River. Ruth Bentzinger, an environmental resource specialist with the Corps’ Omaha office, says they won’t be building any new sandbars this year as habitat for two types of endangered birds. “We’re looking at vegetation removal and control methods and not on all of the sandbars,” Bentzinger says. “We have a sandbar selection where we look at what sandbars have been created on the system and see which ones would be preferable, suitable in the way of habitat for the least tern and the piping plover.”

The Corps is assembling a plan that will dictate sandbar and habitat work on the river for 2013 through 2017. The sandbars are evaluated frequently. “Every year they’re going to change, some of them are going to accrete, some of them are going to erode,” Bentzinger says. “Some that we look at now as being suitable habitat may not be used by the birds. Every year, we’ll collect data to see where they’re nesting.”

After the floods of 2011 receded, many sandbars were left behind in the river channel. Bentzinger says they want to work on more than bird habitat. “We’re going to keep as much as we possibly can, but at the same time, we also have a cottonwood that is regenerating on some of the sandbars,” Bentzinger says. “Cottonwoods are needed, especially in the Upper Missouri River there. The more mature trees, as they start dying off, we’re not replacing them as fast as we’re losing them.”

The past two years have been challenging. Record flooding on the Missouri in 2011 caused hundreds of millions of dollars damage to homes, businesses, farmland and infrastructure in eastern Nebraska, western Iowa and northwest Missouri. Last year, river levels were at near-record lows due to the prolonged drought.

(Radio Iowa)

Some much need rain and snow melt is expected around Iowa this weekend. The latest water summary update, released by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, shows poor stream flow conditions and groundwater levels at or near historic lows across the state. Tim Hall, with the DNR, says the good news is Iowa received above normal precipitation in both January and February. “That’s tempered by the fact that January and February are pretty dry months, typically, to begin with,” Hall says. “So, above normal precipitation in a dry month isn’t the greatest thing in the world to shout about.” Sioux, Palo Alto, Osceola and Crawford counties are especially hard hit by low levels of shallow groundwater, according to Hall.

“We’re seeing places in northwest Iowa that were struggling to keep up with demand last summer and they’re going into this year with groundwater levels lower than they were a year ago,” Hall says. “So, they’re starting off in a weaker position.” Across much of northern Iowa, much of the rain and snow melt this weekend will runoff directly in streams, lakes or low lying areas because of concrete frost.

“That involves an ice layer frozen into the upper most part of the soil profile, which prevents rain or snow melt from getting very far down into the ground,” Hall explained. Showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop across Iowa tonight and into tomorrow (Saturday). A cold front is forecast to move into the state by Sunday and bring a chance of snow.

(Radio Iowa)