DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Environmental groups pushing the federal government to take over enforcement of Clean Water Act regulations in Iowa say Gov. Terry Branstad has lobbied the EPA on behalf of farmers, ignoring the fact that water in Iowa’s rivers is worsening due to manure spills and farm runoff.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement says Tuesday it has obtained a letter from Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds through a Freedom of Information Act request. The letter shows Branstad and Reynolds wrote to top EPA officials in Washington in May, stepping over the EPA’s regional office in Kansas City, which is negotiating with Iowa DNR about stricter livestock enforcement.

Branstad and Reynolds express “strong concern” about proposed increased farm regulation. The EPA has been pushing Iowa for stricter enforcement for a year.

In area school board news from Monday’s evening’s meetings, the CAM Board approved an increase in the price students will pay for their school lunch. Superintendent Steve Pelzer said the costs will go up a dime for the coming school year. Pelzer says Pre-k through 5^th grade lunches will be $2.45, 6^th through 8^th grade students will pay $2.50, and 9^th through 12^th grade students lunches’ will cost $2.60.

The CAM Board also approved a three-percent increase in salary/benefits for Pelzer. Tami Jacobsen, Secretary/Treasurer for the Elk Horn-Kimballton Board, says they approved contracts Monday evening with Tony Santisteban and Kelly Juhl. Santisteban will be the junior high boy’s basketball coach and assistant high school boy’s basketball coach, while Juhl will be the assistant girl’s high school basketball coach.

The Griswold School Board had a case of what might be described as “sticker shock” Monday evening, with regard to the high school locker rooms and bathroom renovation projects. Griswold Superintendent Dana Kunze says they’re going to have to make some changes in their plans because of the huge costs involved.

He said Estes Construction Company came back with some “harder numbers” on the projects, than had previously been determined. Kunze said the board had a hard time wrapping their heads around the $1.7-million price tag. He said they simply don’t have the money right now to complete the projects with the costs being so high.

Kunze says they’ve got to take a look at scaling-back the projects and making them more affordable for the district, and prioritizing again. The restrooms have to be redesigned to make them ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant for both students and patrons. As for the school’s boiler system, that’s another area where the costs are inflated due to the work that’s necessary to incorporate a new system into the buildings structure.

He says the plan is to try and switch from partial steam and hot water heat, to all hot water heat. That would mean the boilers would be scrapped, but the plumbing that runs through the ceiling would also have to be replaced, and that requires tearing out the dropped ceilings. The result is that the costs start piling up pretty fast, according to Kunze.

Dana says the bottom line is that the designers and engineers associated with the projects will be asked to come up with ways to shave some of the dollars off the costs of those projects or provide a better plan to serve the needs of the district and its facilities. And he says they’ve been willing to accommodate the district the same way with other projects in the past, and saved a good chunk of money in the process.

w/ Ric Hanson

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RED OAK, Iowa (AP) – A Republican candidate for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat is launching her campaign with a six-city tour.  State Sen. Joni Ernst announced last week she would seek the GOP nomination for the Senate seat held for decades by Democrat Tom Harkin, who decided not to seek re-election.

The 43-year-old Ernst will start her initial campaign trip Wednesday morning at the Montgomery County Courthouse, in her hometown of Red Oak. She’ll continue with stops Wednesday and Thursday in Waukee, Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Davenport.

Other Republicans seeking the nomination include former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker, Sioux City talk show host Sam Clovis, attorney Paul Lunde and David Young, a former aide to Sen. Chuck Grassley. On the Democratic side U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley is his party’s only candidate.

Sheriff’s officials in Adams County report an Atlantic man was arrested Monday night on a drug charge. 22-year old Joshua D. Peters was charged with Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, following a traffic stop on Highway 148 at around 10:40-p.m., Monday. During the stop, the Adams County K-9 was deployed and alerted to the presence of narcotics in the vehicle.

Peters, who was a passenger in the vehicle, was found to be in possession of drug paraphernalia. He was brought to the Adams County Jail in Corning, and later posted a $300 bond.

Two people were injured Monday afternoon during a crash on the southwest side of Shenandoah. According to the Iowa State Patrol, the drivers of the vehicles, 61-year old Marthelia Janeen Harper, of Westboro, MO, and 50-year old Teresa Lynn Isenhower-Moyer, of Essex, were transported to the hospital. Harper, who was not wearing a seat belt, was flown by Mercy 1 helicopter to Creighton University Hospital in Omaha. Isenhower-Moyer was belted-in to her vehicle. She was taken by ambulance to the Shenandoah Hospital.

The crash happened at around 3-p.m.at the intersection of Highways 2 and 59. Officials say a 1996 Mazda MX-6 driven by Harper was traveling south on Highway 59, while a 2003 Nissan Maxima driven by Isenhower-Moyer was traveling north on Highway 59.  The Mazda turned left at the intersection to proceed east on Highway 2, when it was hit by the Nissan on the right front side.  The impact caused the Mazda to spin counter-clockwise before coming to rest on the northbound lane of Highway 59. The Nissan came to rest in the northeast ditch.

The Patrol says charges are pending completion of an investigation into the accident.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

A University of Northern Iowa political science professor has analyzed voter registration data and ranked the most-Republican and most-Democratic counties in Iowa. Christopher Larimer says his research shows why Mitt Romney’s campaign was so focused on eastern rather than western Iowa. “There was a lot mentioned this last presidential cycle about: ‘Why on earth would Mitt Romney visit the eastern part of the state, go to Dubuque or Clinton County…or why is Paul Ryan in Black Hawk County?'” Larimer says. “Well, the answer, obviously, is vote share. I mean, they are going to get 6,000 or 7,000 votes out of Sioux County or you know, 10,000-12,000 out of those northwest counties, but that’s not going to matter much. They need to start pulling those no-party voters who are living in the eastern, more populated parts of the state.”

Larimer looked at records since the year 2000 and found the most 10 more-Republican counties in Iowa are primarily in the western half of the state — in “very rural areas.” “They obviously go strongly toward the Republican ticket, but they make up a very small percentage of the total number of votes going to presidential candidates,” Larimer says. “The difference with Democrats — yes, these are strong Democratic counties, but they don’t differ as much from the other 89 counties as the top 10 Republican counties did, but their vote share is much higher. You’re talking about usually 31 percent of the vote share for the Democratic candidate coming from these top 10 Democratic counties.”

Larimer also identified the counties which had the highest percentage of independent or “no-party” voters and those were in eastern Iowa. “Eight of the top 10 no-party counties had a majority vote share, that is more than 50 percent, going for President Obama,” Larimer says. “That is very similar to the top 10 Democratic counties so, again, these no-party counties tended to be located where you have strong Democratic counties and they tend to vote like the top 10 Democratic counties.” The counties with the highest percentage of independent voters were Floyd, Bremer, Buchanan, Delaware, Benton, Iowa Cedar and Clinton Counties. Obama won a higher percentage of the vote in each of those counties in 2012 than he did in 2008.

(Radio Iowa)