(Des Moines, Iowa) –  A report from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources shows an ethanol-producing facility in northeast Iowa expelled excessive pollutants into the air for several years that can cause cancers and other health effects. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the DNR recently issued an administrative order with regard to the POET Bioprocessing plant near Shell Rock. The Order says “Actual harm to the environment and public health likely occurred” at the facility, which makes about 140 million gallons of ethanol each year, along with other products from the leftover materials of the fuel production. The excessive pollution was tied to one of those additional products: a protein ingredient for animal feed.

The facility’s previous operator, Flint Hills Resources, installed the equipment that is used to extract the protein and began operating it in July 2020, the DNR order said. However, part of the system lacked sufficient pollution controls, which was discovered by POET in August 2023. POET had purchased the facility about two years earlier, but did not sample the emissions. Mark Fields, a unit leader for the DNR’s Air Quality Bureau, said Flint Hills had underestimated the amount of pollutants in the ethanol-production leftovers that are used to produce the protein. Those pollutants were then expelled during the protein processing.

The POET facility near Shell Rock produces about 140 million gallons of ethanol each year and other products. (Photo courtesy of Google Earth)

Fields said the issue was discovered with a similar system in another state, and POET shut down the production line and notified the DNR. The company later routed those emissions into an existing pollution-control system at the plant and fixed the problem. But emissions tests after the production line was reactivated revealed the extent of the excessive pollution in the previous years: Its volatile organic compounds emissions were 27 times its permitted limit, and emissions of a hazardous, cancer-causing compound — acetaldehyde — were nearly nine times the limit.

POET agreed to pay a $10,000 administrative fine, the DNR order said. It also will pay nearly $43,000 in fees that it owed the state for its under-reporting of emissions in 2021 and 2022.

(Radio Iowa) – The wet spring could lead to a drop in the number of pheasants in Iowa. Iowa D-N-R wildlife research biologist Todd Bogenschutz says the switch in the weather pattern can really impact pheasant. “We went from major drought to major flooding in a pretty short time frame, and unfortunately it coincided with peak in nesting,” he says. Bogenschutz says several factors make wet springs tough on nesting pheasants. “We’re just not sure if the hens aren’t quite as attentive, maybe less of the eggs are fertile if they get chilled. You know and then we think in wet years you know, obviously predators,most to predation occurs by smell and when you have wetter conditions, scenting conditions are better, and so that could be part of it,” he says.

Bogenschutz says the wet spring can also cut back the food source for young birds. “Wetter cooler springs could impact the number of insects that are out there too, probably maybe suppresses it a little bit. So maybe the chicks don’t have as much forage base as they do and we tend to have our good years which tend to be warm and dry,” Bogenschutz says. He says hunters had their best harvest last year since 2007. The relatively mild winter helped more pheasants survive, so it’s hard to tell what their fall pheasant survey will show. “It was a really good fall last year. So I think people were thinking, holy cow, we could be phenomenal if everything lined up,” he says. “but you know that didn’t quite come to fruition. The roadside counts will be interesting, I expect we will maybe show some small increases in some areas, but I think especially up in northwest and north central where we got that heavy rain, that our counts are probably going to be lower.”

Bogenschutz says lower counts doesn’t mean hunters won’t find pheasants. “We’re still gonna have birds out there. You know, we had reports of broods early and actually fairly large, a little bit earlier than I normally get them. We definitely did have some early hatch because of I think the mild winter and how quickly it went away this year,” he says.

The annual roadside pheasant surveys are held in August and the results on pheasant numbers will be released in September.

(Radio Iowa) About a dozen Iowa firefighters are helping battle wildfires in other states — across the Rocky Mountains, on the West Coast, and in the Pacific Northwest. Ryan Harr, supervisor of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Fire Program, says they’ve dispatched Iowans to help extinguish dangerous flareups in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming — and one crew just returned from fighting wildfires in South Dakota. “A number of folks are on hand crews where they’re just working on the fire line, preparing new lines, helping burnout, those sorts of things,” Harr says. “We have several people who are attached to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fire engines, so they’re actively out doing the initial attack, catching those smoke reports when they come in, and out chasing the fires.”

Iowa is also dispatching E-M-Ts and logistical planners to points west. Most of their assignments are for two weeks and Harr says it can be both grueling and rewarding. “They will spend a lot of time just out on the line working 10-, 12-, 14-hour days. Other folks, like some of our EMTs, are supporting firefighters on the line. Other folks are just on patrol and those sorts of things,” Harr says. “So they’re long, hot days. They do train for it. There is a rigorous national standard of physical fitness that folks have to meet to be deployed on a national assignment.” While Iowa has gotten a reprieve from several years of drought with heavy rain in recent months, Harr says the western U-S has seen just the opposite.

A mixed Iowa DNR and US Fish & Wildlife Service crew works a hand line in Wyoming last week. (Photo from Iowa DNR)

After a year or two of generally wet conditions, he says much of the region is drying out rapidly this summer. “The national need for firefighters across the nation varies from year to year,” Harr says. “The last two seasons haven’t been too busy in the western, southwestern and southern United States. Previous to that, it was quite busy, so we do send firefighters every year, but the number ebbs and flows over time.” Harr says the D-N-R will continue to support its federal partners by providing firefighters and support staff throughout the summer and early fall. “The folks we’re deploying are gaining valuable skills, training in different states, in different areas, with different government agencies, and they bring those skills back home to Iowa, back to the Iowa DNR, back to their local counties, their local volunteer fire departments,” Harr says. “From prescribed burning to volunteer departments doing wildfire suppression and brush fires, we know they’re important skills for folks to go out and bring back to Iowa.”

Every year, Harr says the D-N-R certifies about ten of its own staff and another 35 Iowans from partner agencies, volunteer fire departments, and other organizations to be available for national fire incident assignments.