(Radio Iowa) – There’s still some questions about who will pay damages and for the clean-up after the fire earlier this month at Marengo’s C6-Zero facility. Marengo Police Chief Ben Gray says the company’s insurance policy for the facility wouldn’t be sufficient to take care of a moderate clean up-let alone a large cleanup of this type. “And I will say I was kind of surprised you know for instance that the total amount of money available from the insurance company for the emergency response only $50,000. This is a million-dollar building plus that only has $50,000 worth of emergency response money — that seems under the value that it should be,” Gray says.

Emergency responders alone estimate they have $60,000 in damaged equipment. Friday is the deadline for C6-Zero to submit a plan for the cleanup of the site and runoff to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Iowa County Emergency Management coordinator Josh Humphrey says normally the company or building owner’s insurance would be on the hook for costs related to an industrial fire. He’s working to make fire departments to try and help them replace equipment. “Everybody is operational. I shouldn’t say they aren’t operational right now, but their abilities are less than they were a month ago. Nobody comes to a fire and expects to have damaged equipment and then nobody take care of it,” Humphrey says. “Somehow it has to be replaced. This type of an event where you have tons of equipment damaged, it’s not a good situation.”

Humphrey says fire departments are reporting damaged firefighter suits, firehoses, tanks and boots. Because it was a large scale industrial fire, he says more than two-thousand gallons of flame suppressing foam was used valued at $70 per gallon.

(reporting by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand has two main policy recommendations for the 2023 legislature. Sand is again asking lawmakers to raise the penalty for those convicted of significant crimes involving tax dollars. “Making large scale theft of public funds a mandatory prison sentence,” Sand says. Sand is also asking the legislature to change some wording in Iowa law that distinguishes between state agencies that get and spend federal money and those that don’t. “This one’s complicated, but the bottom line is the way the Iowa Code is written right now costs us federal dollars every year,” Sand says.

Under current state law, Sand says the state is paying what amounts to a federal government fine for audits of how federal tax dollars are spent by state government. “We’re talking about over $100,000 every year that we’re basically lighting on fire because the law hasn’t been amended,” Sand says.

Between July 1st of 2019 and June 30th of 2020, the State of Iowa spent or distributed more than $12 billion in federal funds. Staff is in the state auditor’s office always reviews how state agencies spend or distribute that money, along with the audits of how state tax dollars, fees and fines are spent.

(Radio Iowa) – It’s one of Iowa’s worst flu seasons in a decade, and a University of Iowa researcher whose two-year-old son died from influenza in early 2020 has helped develop an online game to teach children about about the flu and the importance of vaccines. UI biology professor Maurine Neiman is co-creator of the game, “Flu’s Clues,” where players try to determine which countries around the world are seeing flu outbreaks. “You travel virtually to these different places with potential outbreaks,” Neiman says, “and you get to interview local scientists or doctors to find out what they’re observing, what they’re seeing, and figure out for yourself, based on information that you’ve learned in the game, is what you’re seeing consistent with influenza.”

Once outbreaks are identified, players return to their virtual lab to work on creating a serum for the vaccine. “The overall objective is to help teach really anyone but the overt focus of the game is on kids about what influenza is and what it isn’t, why it’s something to take seriously,” Neiman says, “and how to protect yourself and your family and your community from the flu and, in particular, by vaccinating.”

Prof. Maurine Neiman (UI photo)

Neiman and the Iowa City Science Boosters Club teamed up with the Virginia-based non-profit organization Families Fighting Flu to create the game. “This is really exciting for us because a virtual setting, while it has its constraints, it also has its opportunities,” Neiman says. “In particular, you can reach many more people potentially across the country and even around the world.”

The game also contains important lessons about viruses in general, such as how to identify symptoms, determine differences between the flu and other viruses, and learn how vaccines are made.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department reports an arrest took place at around 9:41-p.m., Thursday. 49-year-old Donavan Lucius Sands, of Red Oak, was taken into custody in the 400 block of E. Washington Street, for Violation of a Protective Order. Sands was transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where he was being held without bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Construction of the front end of a new Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Ames is scheduled conclude in 2023. Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen says 80 percent of the lab’s operations were not included in phase one of the project, however.  “Phase Two is needed to provide an additional 70,000 square feet for laboratory testing, research and support functions,” she says. “Phase two is essential so all laboratory functions can be housed under one roof. This will improve efficiency and support biosafety by eliminating the need to shuttle samples from one building to another.”

Wintersteen is asking the governor and the state legislature to provide 62-and-a-half MILLION dollars over the next four years to complete the project. “The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory provides absolutely vital support to Iowa’s $32.5 billion animal agriculture industry,” Wintersteen says. The existing facility was built in 1976. About 30 faculty and staff processed about 35-thousand tests a year. There are now 160 faculty and staff crowded into the existing building and this year they will process more than one-point-seven million tests — the largest caseload in the U.S.

“It is the only full service and fully accredited lab of its kind in Iowa,” Wintersteen says. “It holds Tier 1 status in the National Animal Health Laboratory Network for the major role it plays in the major role it plays in foreign animal and emerging diseases.” For example, the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab was the first to diagnose and pinpoint the origin of an intestinal disease that’s deadly in young pigs.

The lab is part of Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine — one of only 33 veterinary colleges in the country and the very first public veterinary college established in the U.S.