More area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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The Environmental Protection Commission voted Thursday to move ahead with proposed rules to establish air pollutant emission fees to cover the state’s cost of issuing construction and operating permits. The Department of Natural Resources Air Quality Bureau the air quality bureau is funded with fees based on the amount of pollution generated. The Iowa Legislature approved legislature, and officials say as emissions have gone down, so have the fees. The commission met via conference call and heard from one person who had concerns about the proposed fees. Mick Durham represented Grain Processors Corporation of Muscatine.

“This proposed rule does not reflect any of the recommendations made by the shareholders group, which I participated in and spent numerous hours negotiating a reasonable solution for the Air Quality Bureau’s funding challenges,” Durham says. “The stakeholder committee recommended flat fees for multiple permitting scenarios, limited title five fee increases, and additional funding by the legislature.” He says the rules ask for a 25 percent increase in what are called the Title Five fees for air quality and establishes another fee to renew permits.

“The whole purpose of this rule was to resolve the Title Five fee issue. It is neither fair nor sustainable. This rule does not accomplish that goal, but instead makes it worse,” Durham says. He also questioned the table of potential hours to review a permit. “The estimated hours to issue a construction permit provided by the Air Quality Bureau varies from eight to 200 hours. At a 115 dollars-an-hour, a permit could cost anywhere from one-thousand to 23-thousand dollars. This is too large a range for our budgeting purposes,” Durham says.

The chief of the Air Quality Bureau, Catharine Fitzsimmons, says they hour estimates were put together through the stakeholder groups. She says they found an estimated cost of a major source construction permit to be about 17-hundred dollars and a permit to prevent deterioration in a plant to be at around 27-hundred dollars.
Fitzsimmons says the time it takes to review and approve a permit depends on the number of potential source points for the pollution.

“Typically an average construction permit application took eight to 12 hours to complete — but we have many projects that take less time than that,” Fitzsimmons says. The Environmental Protection Commission approved moving ahead with the proposal and will take a final vote at its December meeting, with the hope the rules will go into place in January.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Creston, Thursday night, arrested a man wanted on a warrant for Failure to Serve his jail sentence. 43-year old Steven Jehn, of Creston, was arrested at around 10:30-p.m. and brought to the Union County Jail where he will serve the remainder of his sentence.

The pilot of an airplane that lost power was forced to try and land the craft in a corn field Thursday afternoon, in Montgomery County. The Sheriff’s Office reports the Communications Center received a call about an aircraft sitting in a field at 2559 I Avenue, at around 3-p.m.

The pilot of the 1975 Cessna was identified as Mike Josephson, of Red Oak. He wasn’t hurt during the incident, and the plane sustained only minor damage. Damage to the corn crop was  undetermined. The FAA will investigate the incident.

The area’s top news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, is the lead sponsor on a bill that would ease some of the restrictions on tele-medicine use to help veterans. “Tele-health is one of the V-A’s major transformational initiatives to achieve patient-centered affordable and convenient health care for our veterans. My legislation would build on these improvements for disabled or rural veterans by expanding the tele-health services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Ernst says.

She says the VETS Act would allowing qualified health professionals to operate across state lines and conduct tele-health services, including mental health care treatment for veterans.  “Under current law, the V-A may only waive the state license requirement for tele-health services if both the patient and physician are located in a federally-owned facility. Additionally, the V-A may only perform at-home tele-health care when the patient and the physician are located in the same state,” Ernst says.

She says it’s particularly important for veterans in rural areas. “My legislation works to overcome rural health care challenges and provide easier access to health services for our disabled veterans, so they may lead more independent lives in their own homes and their local communities,” Ernst says. Iowa is a rural state, but Ernst is not sure how many veterans might need the service here.

She says there are some 225-thousand veterans in Iowa, but she does not have exact numbers on how many might benefit from this change. The Veterans Administration health system has had a variety of issues and Ernst says there’s is still a lot to be done to solve them. “I would love to say that I’ve seen great improvement in the V-A, but I can’t say that right now,” according to Ernst. Ernst hopes this bill will pass and help with some of the issues with getting the proper care in a timely manner.

“I think we are blessed in the Midwest to have some great care — however across the nation if you look at the situation with the V-A’s– we are still experiencing delays in treatment for our veterans. So, we still have a number of issues that need to be resolved,” Ernst says. “I am committed to continuing that fight for our veterans.” Ernst says the bill has bipartisan support along with lead co-sponsor, Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

Ernst says tele-health reduced the number of days in a hospital for care by 54 percent and saves veterans on average two-thouSand dollars each year.

(Radio Iowa)

An investigator with the State Fire Marshal’s Office says one person died and another suffered from smoke inhalation during a house fire early this (Friday) morning, north of Anita. The call about the fire at 74566 Boone Road (about a mile south of Interstate 80 off of Highway 148) came in at around 12:43-a.m. Anita Fire Chief Josh Peach told KJAN News there was heavy smoke coming from the rural residence and flames showing from the second floor. The flames were attacked and quickly extinguished.

Photos from the scene of the fire

The house, owned by Brad Barber, was occupied by two elderly residents.  Peach says one of the victims, a male, was transported to the Cass County Memorial Hospital, after was having difficulty breathing due to smoke inhalation. The other person died at the scene, in the upper floor of the home. State Fire Investigator John Ticer says an initial investigation determined the fire was caused an electrical malfunction in wiring within the wall of the second floor of the residence. The cause was deemed accidental. Ticer will not release the names of the victims until later today.

Anita Fire was on the scene until around 5:45-a.m., conducting mop-up and other related activities.

An investigator with the State Fire Marshal’s Office was called to look into the cause of a house fire early this (Friday) morning, north of Anita. The call from a location about a mile south of Interstate 80 off of Highway 148 came in at around 12:43-a.m.  Anita Fire Chief Josh Peach told KJAN News when they arrived on the scene there was heavy smoke coming from the rural residence and flames showing from the second floor. The flames were attacked and quickly extinguished.

One person, an elderly male was transported to the Cass County Memorial Hospital by Anita Rescue for treatment of smoke inhalation. Peach would not confirm a female resident of the home died in the fire, pending notification of relatives, but Cass County Medical Examiner Dr. Elaine Berry was on the scene within about 90-minutes.

There’s been no official word on what may have caused the fire. Additional information is being withheld at this time, pending the results of the State Fire Marshal’s investigation. We should know more later this morning.

Police in Red Oak Thursday evening, arrested one person in connection with a theft that occurred Monday. 24-year old Michael Eugene Sickels, of Red Oak, was arrested just before 6-p.m. Thursday on a felony Possession of Stolen Property charge, for property valued at more than $1,000 but less than $10,000. Sickels was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $5,000 bond, with additional charges and arrests still possible.

Firefighters from Anita and Wiota were called to the scene of a residential fire early this (Friday) morning, about three-miles northeast of Anita. The call came in at around 12:43-a.m. When law enforcement arrived on the scene near 750th and Boone Road, they saw heavy black smoke but no immediate report of flames coming from the structure where an elderly male and female reside. The male resident was outside the home, but the female was believed to still be inside on the upper floor.

Additional information is currently not available.