w/ Denny Heflin

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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)

A meeting is set for Saturday afternoon in Shelby County to discuss poultry options. The Iowa Food Systems Council is hosting the meeting at the St. Boniface Parish Center in Westphalia from 1 to 5pm. The meeting is for anyone interested in learning more about poultry options. The council is working on a rural business enterprise grant to help producers grow their business with processing and sales along with options for producers and help growers access a broader sales base. The meeting in Westphalia is open to any poultry producer in Shelby County.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)

Info from the Atlantic Animal Shelter.

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w/ Dr. Keith Leonard

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From the Cass and Audubon County FSA and NRCS offices.  w/ Max Dirks

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