A public hearing on the collective bargaining bill under consideration in the Iowa House is likely to be one of the main political events of the week, but there’s much more going on around the state as well. Details are after the jump.

As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail to let me know of public events that should be included on this calendar.

Governor Terry Branstad announced more than 200 appointees to various state boards and commissions yesterday. He named Dolores Mertz, Brent Rastetter, Eugene Ver Steeg, and Mary Boote to four-year terms on the Environmental Protection Commission.

Mertz retired last year after more than two decades in the Iowa House. She was the most conservative House Democrat and chaired the Agriculture Committee for four years. She was a reliable vote against any attempt to limit pollution from factory farms and regularly assigned such bills to subcommittees that would bury them. Her sons own large hog farms and have been cited for several environmental violations. She also earns income from renting farmland to those operations. On the policy side, last year Mertz fast-tracked a bill that would have undermined new rules on spreading manure over frozen and snow-covered ground. She pushed (unsuccessfully) for a bill that would have given landowners until 2020 to comply with regulations passed in 1997 to prevent water contamination from agricultural drainage wells. Mertz has spoken of her “passion” to advocate for agriculture.

Brent Rastetter gave Branstad’s gubernatorial campaign at least $30,000. He is the owner and CEO of Quality Ag Construction, a company he and his brother Bruce Rastetter created in 1992. Quality Ag Construction’s market niche has been building hog confinement facilities. UPDATE: It’s also worth noting that Bruce Rastetter built a business empire in large-scale hog production and later ethanol. Groups representing agribusiness and biofuels producers are suing the Environmental Protection Commission and the Department of Natural Resources over water quality protection rules.

Ver Steeg was first named to the Environmental Protection Commission by Governor Chet Culver in 2008 for the position on the nine-member body that must be filled by “an active grain or livestock farmer.” Ver Steeg owns a hog farm and is a past president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

Boote is a “longtime Republican activist” who founded and runs an organization called Truth About Trade and Technology. The organization’s mission is to “support free trade and agricultural biotechnology.” It is primarily funded by “U.S. agribusinesses, farm organizations and individuals.” Boote has served as executive director of Truth About Trade and Technology for the past decade, so her income depends on the business organizations supporting the group.

Many in the environment-minded community criticized Culver in 2007, when he replaced four strong members of the Environmental Protection Commission with two people who had background in conservation and two who had close ties to agribusiness. Culver later named other supporters of protecting natural resources to the EPC, notably Shearon Elderkin and Carrie La Seur.

I don’t see any balance in Branstad’s appointees. That doesn’t bode well for the future work of the Environmental Protection Commission, charged with providing policy oversight over Iowa’s environmental protection efforts.

After the jump I’ve posted the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement’s statement on the new EPC appointees. Iowa CCI has sought to monitor compliance with new rules on spreading manure over farmland during the winter.  

Signs of Iowa’s poor water quality are not hard to come by. Our state has more than 400 “impaired waters.” The Des Moines Water Works has the largest nitrate removal system in the world, because “the Raccoon River has the highest average nitrate concentration of any of the 42 largest tributaries in the Mississippi River Basin.” Even so, the Water Works sometimes struggles to handle high levels of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) in the Raccoon River, forcing the water treatment facility to draw from a secondary source. Iowa watersheds are also a major contributor to the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and the nutrients from “Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from commercial fertilizers and animal manure from farmland were the biggest contributing sources” of the excess nutrients that cause the dead zone.  

Despite those facts, Governor Terry Branstad and many state legislators have claimed the Iowa Department of Natural Resources takes too tough a stand in enforcing pollution rules. Branstad’s draft budget cut funding for the DNR. The department was a frequent punching bag at Republican-led forums around Iowa last month, designed to spotlight supposedly burdensome regulations on businesses.  

Branstad has expressed hope for a “change in attitude” at the DNR. He sent a strong signal by appointing Roger Lande as the new DNR director. Lande is a former head of the Association for Business and Industry and a partner in a Muscatine law firm that has represented the Iowa Farm Bureau as well as corporations like Monsanto.

Announcing Lande’s appointment, Branstad said,

“I can think of no one better to be a steward of Iowa’s precious natural resources than Roger Lande,” said Gov.-elect Branstad. “Roger and his family have long been champions of conservation of Iowa’s rivers, woodlands, greenways, prairies and trails and I am confident that Roger will excel in his new role as head of Iowa Department of Natural Resources.”

Apparently Branstad has now thought of someone better than Lande to handle water quality programs and Clean Water Act compliance: Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. Yes, even though runoff from conventional agriculture is a leading cause of Iowa’s poor water quality, Branstad thinks the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) might be better-suited to handle water monitoring and protection than the DNR. Some Iowa House Republicans are pushing House Study Bill 180, which would transfer the same authority to IDALS. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough to stop this measure in the Iowa House or Senate, because Branstad has the power to transfer functions to Northey’s agency without enabling legislation.

After the jump I’ve posted background on this issue from Iowa Rivers Revival and the Iowa Environmental Council, as well as contact information for state legislators and the governor’s office. The Iowa Environmental Council posted a link to their action alert here.

Iowa already does too little to limit water pollution. If Northey is put in charge of protecting water quality, get ready for more impaired waters and major algae blooms. Northey marches in lockstep with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, one of three plaintiffs in a state lawsuit seeking to nullify the most significant water quality rules adopted in Iowa during the past decade.

In related news, the American Farm Bureau Federation has filed a federal lawsuit to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

The farm lobby has made it clear it sees the cleanup effort as a harbinger of more far-reaching EPA requirements across the country, including in the Mississippi River basin, where chemical runoff from industrial farms is swept to the Gulf of Mexico. […]

“This new EPA approach will not end with the Chesapeake Bay,” Bob Stallman, the Farm Bureau’s president, said in an address early this month. “EPA has already revealed its plan to follow suit in other watersheds across the nation, including the Mississippi watershed. That is why our legal effort is essential to preserving the power of the states – not EPA – to decide whether and how to regulate farming practices in America’s watersheds.”

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Next Friday is “funnel” day at the Iowa legislature; with a few exceptions, all bills that haven’t been approved by at least one committee by March 4 are dead for the 2011 session. The coming week is therefore a particularly important time to contact your legislators about issues important to you. I believe lawmakers find phone calls more difficult to ignore than letters and e-mails, but by all means make contact in writing if that’s how you prefer to communicate. While contacts from their own constituents are the most meaningful, lawmakers often pay attention to contacts they receive from Iowans outside their districts too.

Iowa House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer used to lobby for the Iowa Nurses Association before she was elected to the legislature in 2002. A few years ago she wrote up some helpful hints for persuading lawmakers, which I posted here.

Details on a few lobby days and many other events are after the jump. As always, please post a comment or send me an e-mail to let me know about something going on that should be on this calendar.  

House File 45 heads to Governor Terry Branstad’s desk today after the Iowa House approved the “deappropriations” bill by a 95 to zero vote. The bill was the top legislative priority for House Republican leaders, but the Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate eliminated many of its controversial provisions last week. The full text of House File 45 is here, and the complete bill history is here. The Senate Journal for February 17 contains roll calls for votes on House File 45 and various amendments (pdf file). The final Senate version of House File 45 passed with 48 yes votes. First-term Republican Senator Mark Chelgren voted against the bill, and Republican Senator Sandy Greiner was absent.

Thanks to the Senate amendment, state funding for preschool, family planning, passenger rail, smoking cessation programs, and the core curriculum live to fight another day in the Iowa legislature. So do the Power Fund, the Office of Energy Independence, and the Grow Iowa Values Fund, all economic development programs long targeted by statehouse Republicans.

In addition, the Senate removed language from House File 45 that would have reduced funding for state universities, area education agencies, land acquisitions by the Department of Natural Resources and the Resource Enhancement and Protection fund.

The Senate’s version of House File 45 also did not include language creating a “tax relief fund” that would have collected surplus revenues after state reserve funds were filled.

After the jump I’ve posted an overview compiled by the Iowa House Democratic research staff on “major items eliminated” by the Senate amendment to House File 45. I’ve also listed some other significant points of divergence between the Senate and House versions of this bill, as well as key points on which the Senate left House File 45’s language intact.

Finally, I’ve posted the House Democratic research staff’s explanation of language that would create searchable databases on the state budget and tax rates.  

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources holds more public meetings this week to discuss water quality standards. A few days later, Republican legislators continue their series of forums around the state to bash government rules and regulations that are supposedly too burdensome for businesses. Details on those and other events are after the jump.

As always, please leave a comment in this thread or contact me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com if you know of an event that should be mentioned here.

The Iowa Environmental Council, Sierra Club and the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center are intervening in a lawsuit seeking to throw out new water quality rules for Iowa. The State Environmental Protection Commission approved the “antidegradation” rules in December 2009, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources adopted the rules last year. Immediately following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the rules, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and Iowa Water Environment Association sued, claiming two EPC members should not have been able to vote on the rules, and that the rules violate an Iowa ban on environmental regulations that are stricter than federal standards. The Iowa Attorney General’s Office is representing the Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Commission in the lawsuit.

The Iowa Environmental Council, Sierra Club and Environmental Law and Policy Center sought to intervene to ensure that the antidegradation standards will not be relaxed. On February 3, a Polk County district judge approved the groups’ request, saying “the applicants for intervention are environmental groups that have been active in the administrative process and it would be more than beneficial to have their input as intervenors in this case.” After the jump I’ve posted an IEC press release containing more background information.

UPDATE: From an IEC action alert on February 8:

Once again, groups that represent wastewater dischargers are urging legislators to take action to eliminate or weaken Iowa rules that protect water quality.

The Iowa League of Cities and the Rural Water Association are asking lawmakers, who serve on the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee, to repeal Iowa’s anti-degradation rules. Anti-degradation rules are required by the federal Clean Water Act and are designed to stop further degradation of the rivers, streams and lakes.

Please contact the Legislators who serve on this committee to let them know how important these rules are to protect Iowa’s waters.

Click here for a list of committee members and here for background information and a link to send a letter to lawmakers.

A busy week at the Iowa legislature kicks off Monday evening with what’s sure to be a packed Iowa House hearing on a constitutional amendment to ban legal recognition for same-sex relationships. Groups supporting conservation of Iowa’s natural resources have several rallies and lobby days planned during the next two weeks. Those and other event details are after the jump. Please post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of an event that should be included on this calendar.

Yet another winter storm is heading for Iowa this week, but spring rains aren’t too far off. Gardeners and anyone who cares about conserving water and reducing runoff may be interested in a sale of rain barrels (all repurposed to keep waste out of landfills). Proceeds benefit the non-profit 1000 Friends of Iowa, specifically to “support the development of an educational exhibit which focuses on land use and water as it relates to run-off from non-porous surfaces as well as to bring attention to the many uses for collected rain water.” Those uses include watering gardens, washing cars and general housecleaning. Click here for more information about the rain barrels and here to order by February 11.

Highlights from this week’s calendar include the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement lobby day, the Iowa Bicycle Summit, the Women, Food and Agriculture Network’s annual conference, a “Hope for the Hungry” workshop in Des Moines, and the public meetings to discuss a new walkable neighborhood in central Iowa City as well as a possible bird protection area at Okoboji.

Event details are after the jump. Please post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of something worth including on this calendar.

The Iowa House approved a major “deappropriations” bill, House File 45, on January 19 by a party-line vote of 60 to 40. Republican leaders fast-tracked what they call the Taxpayers First Act, which passed the House Appropriations Committee on the third day of the 2011 session. The bill would cut dozens of programs while increasing spending in a few areas. In addition, $327.4 million from this year’s surplus revenue would go into a new “Tax Relief Fund,” instead of being used to help close the projected budget gap for fiscal year 2012. This bill summary (pdf) lists the budget cuts and supplemental appropriations in House File 45. Click here for the full bill text.

Although the majority of speakers at a January 18 public hearing opposed the bill, and organizations lobbying against the bill outnumber those that have signed on in support, the House Republicans passed the bill with few significant changes. Democrats offered many amendments as floor debate went late into the evening on January 19, trying to save funds for the statewide voluntary preschool program, passenger rail, smoking cessation programs, and sustainable communities, among other things. Representatives rejected almost all those amendments on party-line votes. This page shows what amendments were filed, and the House Journal for January 19 contains the roll call votes.

House File 45 now moves to the Iowa Senate, which has a 26-24 Democratic majority. Democratic senators are likely to back increased expenditures for mental health services and indigent defense while opposing many of the spending cuts. After the jump I take a closer look at some of the most controversial provisions in House File 45.

Tuesday is shaping up to be the big day in Iowa politics this week, with a special election to fill a state Senate seat and a public hearing on the first bill to clear a House committee during the 2011 session.

Details on those and other events are after the jump. Activists and politicians, send me your public schedule so I can add the information to these calendars.

The Iowa House Appropriations Committee passed House Study Bill 1 on January 12, by a party-line vote of 15 to 10. Republicans call the bill the “Taxpayers First Act” and claim it would save the state more than $500 million over three years, while refunding some money to taxpayers and allocating an extra $25 million for mental health services over the next 18 months. As Bleeding Heartland discussed here, the potential savings in the current budget year are far smaller. The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate is unlikely to approve some of the big-ticket spending cuts, such as complete elimination of the voluntary preschool program for four-year-olds. The full text of the bill as introduced is here (pdf file). The Legislative Services Agency analysis of how much various provisions would cost or save is here (pdf file).

Looking through the lobbyist declarations on HSB 1, so far only Iowans for Tax Relief, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the Washington-based 501(c)4 group American Principles in Action have declared support for it. The bill’s opponents include the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa Association of School Boards, the Iowa chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, major labor unions (AFSCME and the Iowa State Education Association), the State Bar Association, and many organizations that advocate for public health and environmental causes. Numerous lobbyists haven’t taken a position on the bill; influential organizations still undecided include the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the League of Cities, the State Association of Counties, the Iowa Medical Society, the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa Chamber Alliance, and the American Association of Retired Persons.

UPDATE: The “deappropriations” bill was renamed House File 45. Click here for a bill summary.

This week is a big one in Iowa politics, with the state legislature’s 2011 session starting Monday and Terry Branstad’s inauguration for a fifth term as governor on Friday. Several non-profits are organizing members and supporters to lobby legislators as well. Event details are after the jump.

One of my new year’s resolutions is to post event calendars regularly at Bleeding Heartland. Activists and politicians can help by sending your event notices to me: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. Please post a comment if you know of something I’ve left out.

Best wishes for the new year to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community. What’s on your mind this first weekend of 2011?

Improving personal health is a common new year’s resolution. I’ll be trying to eat less sugar and exercise more, partly to lose a few pounds and partly to reduce stress. Research suggests that exercising before breakfast is especially helpful, and you don’t have to do intense, long workouts every day to benefit.

Radio Iowa suggested a few ways people can prevent strokes, “the third leading cause of death in Iowa, killing more than 1,600 Iowans last year alone.” Here’s another idea for preventing strokes: reduce coal combustion. Physicians for Social Responsibility has found that 92 percent of Iowans “live within 30 miles of a coal plant.” Particulate matter and other pollutants generated by coal combustion have been proven to cause strokes, as well as heart disease and cancer, the two other leading causes of death in Iowa. Using renewable energy or natural gas to replace some of our coal-fired plants could measurably improve the health of Iowans.

According to State Climatologist Harry Hillaker, 44.66 inches of precipitation made 2010 the second-wettest year out of 138 years for which records are available. Here’s hoping for less rain in 2011, because Iowa isn’t implementing land-use practices that might allow the ground to absorb more rain. Governor-elect Terry Branstad has never been big on flood prevention and still has no plan for flood mitigation. The new Iowa Legislature is no more likely to enact wise floodplain management policies than the last one.

Those trying to reduce their carbon footprints in 2011 can find good ideas here, here and here. Staff charged with making institutions more energy efficient can get inspiration from Luther College in Decorah, one of only eight colleges nationwide “to earn an ‘A’ on The College Sustainability Report Card released Oct. 27 by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.”

Luther received an “A” in seven of the eight graded areas including: administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, and investment priorities. The college received a “B” in endowment transparency. […]

Luther was among the first colleges in the country to sign the Presidents Climate Commitment, which encouraged institutions to reduce their carbon footprint, operate more efficiently, and make sustainability part of every student’s learning experience. […]

Luther has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent since 2003 and is committed to a 50 percent reduction by 2012. Reducing greenhouse emissions is one of several goals in the college’s newest strategic plan, a section of which is dedicated to environmental sustainability.

Click here for the full report on how Luther achieved these outstanding results. The College Sustainability Report Card gave “B” grades to Grinnell College and Iowa State University, while the University of Iowa got a “C-“. Note to Luther staff: if you want more recognition next year, have someone return the Sierra Club’s “Cool Schools” survey.

This is an open thread.

Last year Bleeding Heartland discussed some promising changes in Dubuque, thanks to the vision of community leaders who launched the SustainableDubuque initiative in 2006. Now called the “Dubuque 2.0” sustainability initiative, the program has helped bring the city a long list of recognitions and awards.

Government and public entities: The U.S. Conference of Mayors named Dubuque the country’s “Most Livable Small City” for 2008. The Economic Development Administration (an agency within the federal Commerce Department) gave the an award for “excellence in historic preservation-led strategies” in 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development selected Dubuque for sustainability pilot programs, also in 2009. The Iowa League of Cities named Dubuque an All-Star Community this year.

Business groups and business-oriented media: Dubuque landed on Sperling’s Best Places top ten “Most Affordable Places to Live and Work” in 2009; was third best in the country for job growth, according to Careerbuilder.com in 2010; and was the seventh best city under 200,000 population in “Economic Growth Potential,” according to Business Facilities magazine in 2010. Dubuque also won an Excellence in Economic Development award this year from the International Economic Development Council, while Forbes.com named it both the “Best Small City to Raise a Family” and “Best Smaller Metro for Projected Job Growth” nationwide.

Non-profit organizations: Dubuque came in third place at the International Awards for Livable Communities in 2010 in the category of cities with populations between 20,000 and 75,000. The city won the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the leadership category for its recently adopted Unified Development Code, which “promotes best practices in sustainable development and will serve as a model for other cities in Iowa.” (Side note: Dubuque also contains more private Best Development Award winning-projects than any other Iowa city. Most recently, the “beauty and authenticity” of the Hotel Julien historic rehabilitation earned it the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the renovated and commercial/civic category.)

Too many Iowa politicians portray eco-friendly policies as bad for business or economic growth. Dubuque is proving that sustainability makes a community more attractive to potential job-creators:

According to Mike Blouin, president of the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation, the cachet that comes with operating a business in a sustainable region is becoming increasingly important.

“A growing segment of companies — manufacturers and service providers — want to be a part of this trend,” he said. “They want to be a part of communities that are into sustainability, and they believe it will be easier to attract the kind of workforce they want there. Or companies may manufacture items used in these sustainable communities. Whatever it might be, they want sustainability to be a part of their message.”

He added, “You can be pro-economic development and be sustainable. They’re not mutually exclusive. A smarter city is not the initial thing companies look at, because they still have to make money. The community has to make sense overall, but if it does, sustainability could very well be a deal-maker. If there are a half-dozen cities in front of a company, it may look at smarter sustainability and see that it fits the company’s philosophy. Final decisions are made by those kinds of factors.”

In 2009, the IBM corporation renovated the historic Roshek building in partnership with the city of Dubuque and selected the city for sustainability pilot programs. After the jump I’ve posted more details on some projects implemented this year. These benefit the city by finding ways to reduce costs and use of resources, and benefit IBM by promoting technologies it hopes to sell to other cities.

Advocates celebrated passage of a constitutional amendment creating a Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund for Iowa, but there’s no guarantee new money will ever be allocated to protecting soil and water. Governor-elect Terry Branstad and incoming Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen said yesterday a sales tax increase is off the table:

“This election was to a large extent driven by growth in government,’ said Paulsen, a Republican from Hiawatha. “Too much spending. Too much debt. The public did not elect Republicans so we could come down and raise taxes.”

“I don’t see House Republicans passing a sales tax increase for the forseeable future,” Paulsen said. “I don’t even think that will be under consideration.”

Said Branstad, of Boone: “I don’t support any tax increases. I made that clear during the election,” Branstad said. ” If it’s contingent on a sales tax increase, we’ve said there won’t be a sales tax increase. I’m supportive of conservation funding, but not raising taxes.”

Sean McMahon of Iowa’s Water & Land Legacy, the coalition that pushed for the new fund, on Tuesday said his organization is considering its next move. It may leave it up to individual Iowans and various environmental and recreation groups to push for the tax.  The group spent several years pushing the issue to a vote, and some of the preparation went back a decade.

Asking environmental groups and the “hook and bullet” crowd (Izaak Walton League, Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited) to push for a sales tax increase would be a disastrous waste of time. The votes won’t be there in the legislature, and Branstad won’t want to break his promise on tax hikes as quickly as he did in 1983. Anyway, people like me didn’t get involved with the environmental movement to advocate for regressive taxes.

Groups that worked to pass this amendment should focus on lobbying for direct appropriations to the new fund. Voters approved the amendment by a wide margin. Making waterways safer for recreation and improving habitat for wildlife can be viewed as economic development tools for small towns and rural areas. Finding private donors who agree to match all or part of the state’s contribution to the fund might persuade legislators to get the conservation efforts going on a small scale. Successes would build a constituency for increasing the funding in future years.

That strategy may not work, but it’s better than pinning all hopes on a sales tax hike that won’t happen. Bleeding Heartland readers, please share your thoughts or suggestions for getting money allocated to the natural resources fund.

Time for a new thread on the statewide election results. I haven’t dug into the county-level returns in the governor’s race yet, but Chet Culver didn’t even carry Polk County, which he won with a 21,000 vote margin in 2006. Culver did carry Johnson County, but by a much smaller margin than in 2006. What happened in your area, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: Culver carried only eight counties: Black Hawk (Waterloo/Cedar Falls area), Linn (Cedar Rapids), Johnson (Iowa City), Dubuque, Des Moines (Burlington area), Lee (Ft. Madison/Keokuk), Story (Ames), and Jefferson (Fairfield). Culver almost carried Floyd County, where Republicans easily won House district 14. I guess Charles City loves I-JOBS! LATE UPDATE: The unofficial results indicate that Culver did carry Floyd County (barely), by fewer than 100 votes.

Branstad carried Wapello County (Ottumwa) for the first time. In his 1994 landslide victory, Bonnie Campbell carried only four counties: Story, Johnson, Des Moines and Wapello.

The down-ticket Democrats had a lot of ground to make up with Chuck Grassley winning the U.S. Senate race 64 percent to 33 percent and Terry Branstad winning 53 percent to 43 percent. Secretary of State Michael Mauro outperformed Culver, which he wasn’t able to do in 2006, but still fell short against Matt Schultz. It’s a shame to see such a competent public official lose in a wave election. Iowa will continue to benefit from his work to make voting more accessible and secure, with paper ballots. I expect the new legislature to act on Schultz’s top priority, photo ID requirements, and I wonder if they will also revoke same-day voter registration.

Iowa Republicans didn’t miss many targets, but I think they overlooked an opportunity by not investing in the state treasurer’s race. Michael Fitzgerald won his eighth term by an unusually narrow (for him) margin: just under 53 percent to 47 percent. A few hundred thousand dollars thrown toward Dave Jamison’s campaign could have won that race. Jamison didn’t have the resources to improve his name identification or make his case against Fitzgerald. Last year some conservative blogger, it may have been Krusty, said Christian Fong should have challenged Fitzgerald instead of running for governor as a 32-year-old. With his background in finance, his connections to major Republican fundraisers, and his roots in both eastern and western Iowa, Fong might have outperformed Jamison.

Tom Miller winning more than 55 percent of the vote was such a relief. The Republicans threw everything they had at him, and he ran a non-existent campaign until the final month, but he still defeated Brenna Findley convincingly. Miller even carried Woodbury County, where Republicans romped. Now he can get back to work on state attorneys’ coordinated investigation of foreclosure practices:

Mr. Miller’s status as a point man in the multistate investigation has been seen by many observers as a sign that the states will push for a sweeping settlement requiring lenders to implement mortgage modifications allowing homeowners to stay in their houses.

Mr. Miller, who has monitored mortgage-industry practices for years, had already begun discussions with some lenders, including Bank of America. In one meeting last week at Mr. Miller’s office, he and officials from other states told Bank of America executives and outside lawyers that state attorneys general would like additional aid to be offered to borrowers, such as further principal reductions on certain delinquent loans where people owe much more than what their homes are worth, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Doubt Findley would have been interested in seeking concessions from corporations to people underwater on their mortgages.

Environmentalists lost a few supporters in the Iowa Senate last night, but today many advocates are cheering the passage of the Iowa Water and Land Legacy trust fund amendment. I wouldn’t count on that fund being filled anytime soon, and I don’t support a regressive sales tax increase. However, it’s good to know that if Branstad follows through on plans to shift from income taxes to consumption taxes, he won’t be able to avoid allocating more money to soil and water conservation. The big margin of victory for this amendment (62.7 percent yes, 37.3 percent no) was also a blow to the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation’s prestige. Farm Bureau never opposed this amendment the two times state legislators passed it nearly unanimously, and a Farm Bureau representative was on the group that helped shape the amendment wording. For some reason, Farm Bureau decided late in the game to made a play to stop this amendment. In doing so, they disappointed some sympathetic legislators and enraged conservatives who backed a constitutional convention. The Farm Bureau’s messaging urged a no vote on the constitutional convention question as well as the soil and water trust fund.

Please share your thoughts about any of last night’s election results in your town, county or beyond. Iowa City voters upheld the 21-only bar ordinance, by the way.

Feel free to comment on races from outside Iowa that caught your eye. A few U.S. Senate seats haven’t been called, but the chamber seems likely to have 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. Republicans will pick up between 60 and 70 House seats, meaning they will hold 240 to 250 seats in the new chamber (218 are needed for a majority). Republicans are on track to hold about 30 governorships, although several states have yet to be decided. Republicans swept Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, assuring that they can replicate their successful gerrymanders of those states. Florida approved ballot measures that were designed to limit gerrymandering, but opponents may challenge those rules in court. Florida will still have a Republican governor and legislature, but if the ballot measures stand Democrats may make gains at the state level and in Congressional districts.

Democrats did better in some states (Connecticut, California, West Virginia) than in most others, but a common thread was Republican gains among independents, working-class whites and suburban voters. For instance, Joe Sestak fell just short in the Pennsylvania Senate race, losing to Pat Toomey 51 percent to 49 percent. He did as well in Philadelphia as Bob Casey did four years ago, but couldn’t match Casey’s performance in other parts of the state.

The Republican campaign for president will start winding up any day now, so get ready for more Iowa visitors. On that note, one person who has been touted as a presidential prospect, Mike Pence, may be laying the groundwork to run for governor of Indiana instead.

On November 2, in a year with a high turn-out at the polls and Iowans divided on many issues, voters sent an overwhelming message of commitment to the protection of Iowa’s natural resources. Almost two-thirds of Iowa voters approved an amendment to the Iowa constitution to create a Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. 

The trust fund will begin to accrue an estimated $150 million a year the next time Iowa legislators approve a sales tax increase. A regular audit will be conducted to ensure monies are used only for specific conservation and recreation work as outlined in a bill passed earlier this year.

Coalition members of the campaign called Iowa Water and Land Legacy are celebrating today.

“This is a win for all Iowans,” said Marian Riggs Gelb, executive director for the Iowa Environmental Council.

“We can attribute this overwhelming victory to the power of coalition—of people working together to accomplish much more than anyone could alone,” said Gelb.

One hundred and thirty organizations, representing over 300,000 Iowans have worked together since 2005 to first, examine how best to create state funding for natural resources in a way that protected designated funds from being raided for other uses. Later the coalition worked to educate Iowans on how the money would be spent, to protect the intent of the fund by passing legislation that spells out the allocation of the funds, and to get out the vote.

“Much work is still ahead of us, but today is a day for celebrating. Voters can tell their grandchildren that they did act to stop water pollution, protect our precious agricultural soils, prevent floods, and preserve wildlife habitat.”

Election news is keeping me busy, but several reports related to energy policy in Iowa caught my eye during the last week.

Links and excerpts are after the jump.  

United States Senator Tom Harkin and Office of Energy Independence Director Roya Stanley to headline event at Des Moines Public Library this Thursday, October 21

A group of local clean energy advocates and electricity industry stakeholders announced today they will host a forum titled Expanding and Modernizing the Electrical Grid: Essential Infrastructure for the Midwest’s Clean Energy Future this Thursday, October 21 in Des Moines.

The forum will feature leading national and regional experts on renewable energy and electricity transmission who will address key energy issues, such as how to build and pay for the transmission infrastructure necessary to unleash renewable power in the Midwest. These transmission updates are integral to creating new jobs in the wind energy industry.

Participants will include representatives from a broad range of organizations such as electric utilities, environmental groups, businesses, agriculture groups and labor unions.  

Experts will discuss current events central to the national energy debate, including cost allocation proposals from regional transmission organizations, energy legislation pending before the U.S. Congress, and new federal regulation that could literally rewrite the rules for rebuilding and modernizing the electric grid. 

The event is hosted by: the Energy Future Coalition, the Iowa Environmental Council, ITC, Wind on the Wires, the American Wind Energy Association, Fresh Energy, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

WHAT: Expanding and Modernizing the Electrical Grid: Essential Infrastructure for the Midwest’s Clean Energy Future
     
WHO: U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Roya Stanley, Director, Iowa Office of Energy Independence, Representatives from: Environmental Law and Policy Center, American Wind Energy Association, Utility Workers Union of America, ITC Midwest, LLC, the Iowa Farmers Union, and others.

WHEN: Thursday, October 21st from 9 AM – 3:30 PM

WHERE:  Des Moines Public Library, 1000 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa
RSVP:      Attendees are asked to RSVP to Jeff Stein, jeff@dgardiner.com

** The event is free of charge. Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally approved the new “antidegradation” rules adopted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to protect high quality Iowa waters. The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and two industry groups immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the state Environmental Protection Commission’s vote to adopt the antidegradation rules. The EPC and the DNR are named as defendants.

A Farm Bureau press release charged that two members of the EPC should not have been able to vote on the rule. Carrie LaSeur, president of the non-profit organization Plains Justice, “was already living and voting in Montana when she cast her vote on the Iowa antidegradation rule,” the lawsuit contends. “That is a clear violation of the residency laws governing the EPC, which require members to be registered Iowa voters.” The lawsuit further claims EPC member Susan Heathcote had a conflict of interest because she works for the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-profit that advocated adoption of antidegradation standards. Environmental attorney James Pray posted a link to the petition on his blog and summarized a third angle to the lawsuit:

The third count alleges that Iowa’s antidegradation rules are more restrictive than the federal law. Iowa Code section 455B.105(3) requires the EPC to state in the Notice of Intended Action or preamble that a rule will be more restrictive than what is required under federal law. The Iowa antidegradation rule invents a Tier 2 1/2 designation in between the federal Tier 2 and Tier 3 designation. No mention was made in the preamble or Notice of Intended Action that this change was in the offing.

The Iowa Farm Bureau has 154,000 members. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, and the Iowa Water Environment Association are industry groups with 100 and 600 members, respectively. All three groups have some members who will be required to obtain or renew NPDES permits that comply with antidegredation requirements.

The EPC has nine commissioners and needs at least five yes votes to adopt a rule. The antidegradation rule passed on December 15, 2009 by a vote of six to two with one abstention (pdf). In other words, it would have passed without LaSeur voting, or without Heathcote, but not without both of them.

I am not an attorney and don’t know Iowa case law relating to residency and LaSeur’s eligilibity to serve on a state commission.

Heathcote declined my request for comment today, not having had a chance to read the legal petition. She had served on the EPC for more than two years before the antidegradation rule passed, but this is the first lawsuit challenging her ability to vote on commission matters related to environmental regulation.

The EPA noted yesterday that the federal Clean Water Act requires Iowa “to develop and adopt a statewide antidegradation policy and to identify procedures for implementing the policy.” I thought Iowa’s many years of non-compliance were over once opponents failed to stop the water quality rules in the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee in February. The Farm Bureau’s lawsuit means at least a delay and perhaps the demise of rules designed to “maintain and protect high quality waters and existing water quality in other waters from unnecessary pollution.”  

Monday was role reversal day in the Iowa governor’s race, with the National Rifle Association endorsing Democratic incumbent Chet Culver as a union group backed Republican challenger Terry Branstad.

The candidates’ rival job creation proposals also made news during the past week. Branstad’s plan looks like a cover for letting business interests gut almost any regulation they dislike.

More on those stories, along with Culver’s latest television commercial, are after the jump.

UPDATE: The Culver campaign announced the Teamsters Union endorsement on September 28. Details are below.

Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture, announced a “comprehensive energy policy for agriculture” that would increase the use of renewable energy in the agriculture sector, with a focus on systems that “put profits in farmers’ pockets.” Corporate agriculture interests have often demonized environmentally friendly energy policies as bad for farmers, but Thicke points out that farmers are currently vulnerable to volatile energy costs. I’ve posted his full statement on the energy policy after the jump, but I want to highlight a few parts:

As a state, we currently have no plans for how to power agriculture beyond fossil fuels, leaving us vulnerable to the effects of escalating and widely fluctuating energy prices. In 2008, oil prices rose to $147 per barrel, but within seven months fell to less than $34. This wild fluctuation whipsawed agriculture. Fertilizer and fuel prices tripled; corn prices spiked and fell sharply; ethanol plants went bankrupt.

Oil economists tell us that repeated cycles of price spikes followed by precipitous price falls are the future for energy costs as long as we are dependent on fossil fuels.ii  Even the U.S. military warns that oil prices will rise greatly, and we should expect oil shortages in the near future.iii

Our current biofuel production is not targeted to secure the energy future for agriculture. We use about a third of our corn crop to produce ethanol, but use it for cars driving on highways, not to power agriculture. Iowa farmers are selling corn as an energy crop at cheap commodity prices while paying high retail prices for the fuel needed to power their farms.  Biofuels today make only a dent in total U.S. fuel needs,iv but could go a long way toward making agriculture energy self-sufficient.

Thicke also advocates stronger policies to encourage wind energy production, not only looking at the total megawatts generated, but at wind energy systems that would create wealth for farmers and rural communities:

Today, 20 percent of the electricity generated in Iowa comes from wind power. That is good. However, the next generation of distributed wind systems holds promise to put more of the wealth created into the pockets of farmers and increase the amount of wind energy that can be distributed through the existing electrical grid.

When farmers lease out land to put corporate-owned wind turbines on their farms, they still pay retail rates for the electricity they use to power their farms. In other words – like with biofuels – farmers sell cheap and buy high.

The next generation of wind power should be mid-sized wind turbines on farms all across Iowa, so the wind that blows over the farm will power the farm, and the wealth created will be retained on the farm. This kind of distributed wind power has several advantages:

  1. The wealth created by the wind turbines is retained by the landowner and stays in the local community,

  2. The electricity generated is used locally, avoiding the need to build new transmission lines, and

  3. Distributed wind turbines will more fully utilize wind fronts as they move across the state, compared to when most wind farms are located in a few places in the state.

Policies the Legislature could enact to hasten the development of mid-sized wind turbines on farm across Iowa include mandatory net metering for all Iowa electrical utilities and feed-in tariff (FIT) policies. FIT policies have been used successfully in Europe to encourage the rapid expansion of solar-powered systems.

I urge the Iowa Legislature to adopt a FIT policy targeted to small and mid-sized wind turbines that are owned by Iowa farmers and landowners. The FIT policy would require electrical companies to pay a high rate of return per kWh for the initial years of the lifetime of targeted wind systems. That will allow farmers and landowners to pay for the wind systems during those initial years. After the specified initial time period, the rate of pay will drop to wholesale rates. That will allow the power company to buy cheap, green energy for the remainder of the lifetime of the turbine, and allow the farm wind turbine to continue to generate electricity to power the farm and to serve as a profit center for the farm.

Feed-in tariffs have been successful in many other places, and there’s no reason not to use them in Iowa. Getting the policy through the Iowa legislature would be an uphill climb no matter which party was in control, however.

Thicke rolled out his energy policy this morning in Des Moines. He has public events scheduled later today in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, September 23 in Dubuque, Davenport and Iowa City, and September 24 in Council Bluffs and Sioux City. I hope the media will cover his ideas, because they have potential to make farming more profitable while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s too bad that neither the current Secretary of Agriculture, Republican Bill Northey, nor his predecessor, Democrat Patty Judge, took the initiative on reducing our agriculture sector’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke is calling for regulations “modeled after a program that has been used successfully in Maine for more than 22 years to return integrity to Iowa-produced eggs.” Thicke introduced the proposal during his September 11 debate with Republican incumbent Bill Northey. Excerpt from his opening statement:

The State of Maine’s egg safety program complements the new [Food and Drug Administration] egg rule and shores up weaknesses in the federal rule. Specifically, the Maine program has three features that go beyond the requirements of the new FDA egg rule: 1) An effective program for vaccination of laying hens; 2) Monthly inspection of laying facilities for sanitation, and testing for Salmonella within the building; and 3) Egg testing when Salmonella is found in the building.

I’ve posted the full text of Thicke’s opening statement after the jump. Gabe Licht covered the debate for the Spencer Daily Reporter, and Lynda Waddington was there for Iowa Independent. Northey defended his record on egg safety, denying his department had the authority to inspect the feed mill suspected in the salmonella outbreak:

Thicke reiterated the secretary of agriculture should inspect feed mills, noting the [Jack] DeCoster feed mill filled 12,500 semi loads annually.

“First of all, there is a distinct word in there,” Northey fired back. “… Commercial feed mills that sell feed. The reason that we do that is to actually protect the consumer of those that are buying feed from others. Our regulations are actually not for food safety, but are for protection of consumers… We have been told … this mill does not sell feed — that birds at the other facility are owned by DeCoster as well… Just as we don’t go to a farmer mixing his own feed, we do not go to those mills that are producing feed for private facilities or on their own facilities.”

“The secretary of agriculture has the authority to make rules to cover loopholes and this is a DeCoster loophole playing a shell game and we should not play that game with him,” Thicke said.

The incumbent had pointed words for his rival.

“Unless you know something we need to know more about the situation …, it would be important to … wait for the information and be able to find out whether they were actually in violation of that or not,” Northey said. “… We don’t just make decisions on large facilities different than others because our rule says we are to inspect commercial facilities selling feed to others, not facilities of a certain size.”

Thicke has said Iowa Department of Agriculture rule-making could have closed the loopholes that allowed DeCoster’s feed mill to avoid state inspections.

The secretary of agriculture candidates also clashed over agricultural zoning:

Although both candidates were clear that there is enough room in Iowa for all types of sizes of agriculture, and that they would support all aspects of the industry, a major difference between them was exposed while answering a question regarding local control of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) placement.

“Absolutely,” said Thicke, who argued that allowing local government to decide the site of CAFOs would not add additional regulations for owners, who already must follow county building policies, but would allow local residents control over their environment.

Northey disagreed and stated that agribusinesses “need one set of rules,” otherwise there would be “a real challenge” in getting any new developments approved.

Thicke, who formerly served on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, sympathized with country residents who had to live near “toxic fumes,” while Northey sympathized with producers “who have been demonized.”

Speaking of local control, last week Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now wrote about the connection between DeCoster’s operations and Iowa’s 1995 law protecting CAFOs from zoning at the county level:

After initially rising from poverty in Maine with a small chicken operation, DeCoster’s run-ins with New England legal authorities led him to flee to Iowa, where he ventured into building hog confinements and factory farm egg facilities just in time to coincide with that state’s loosening of the environmental regulations in 1995, with the passing of House File 519, which stripped all local authority from regulating factory farms.

The passage of this piece of legislation single-handedly pushed more independent hog farmers out of farming in Iowa, the nation’s number one hog and egg producer, than any other law in the state’s history. Since 1994, the year prior to the passage of H.F. 519, Iowa has lost nearly 72% of the state’s hog farmers, as the number has dropped from 29,000 to 8,300 today. As part of the industry trend, hogs moved off pasture into massive warehouse-style confinements, hundreds of which Jack DeCoster built across much of central Iowa, laying the foundation for a “protein” producing empire that included pork, eggs and a steady stream of state and federal violations.

That would be a great issue to use against Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad, in an alternate world where the Culver-Judge administration and the Democratic-controlled Iowa legislature had done something to advance local control during the past four years.

Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey will debate his Democratic challenger Francis Thicke on September 11, the Thicke campaign announced today. The Spencer Daily Reporter is sponsoring the debate, which will take place from 11 am to 12:30 pm at the Clay County Fairgrounds, during this weekend’s county fair. The Thicke campaign’s press release states that the Spencer public access cable channel will broadcast the debate, but I hope Iowa Public Television and other media organizations will bring the exchange to a wider audience. Thicke argues,

Iowa voters deserve a full discussion of the issues that are important in this campaign – protecting water and air quality; local food production; local control over – and reducing the impacts of – concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); more diversity on the landscape, including more use of cover and perennial crops; and truly sustainable, renewable, farmer-owned energy systems for agriculture.

Thicke is seeking five debates with Northey, one in each of Iowa’s Congressional districts, but details about other possible meetings have not been finalized. The candidates clashed last week over the Iowa secretary of agriculture’s responsibility to inspect feed mills like the one where a recent salmonella outbreak seems to have originated.

Northey has won the endorsement of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, while Thicke has the Iowa Farmers Union’s endorsement. Last month Thicke published the questionnaire he completed for the Farm Bureau Federation and called on Northey to do the same, so that “so that Iowa voters can determine for themselves where each candidate stands on critical farm issues.”

In related news, today the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club sent an open letter to Attorney General Tom Miller requesting a “thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the egg recall for shell eggs produced by Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms Inc for violations of state law. This investigation should also include Quality Egg LLC Feed Mill, the supplier of the feed to both egg producers.” I’ve posted the full text of the letter after the jump. It includes a detailed list of facts supporting the Sierra Club’s view that the egg producers showed “reckless disregard for the health and well-being of the public.” To prevent similar violations in the future, the Sierra Club is also asking the Attorney General’s Office to consider possible “internal policy changes, legislative needs, and administrative rule changes.”

Miller recently returned a $10,000 campaign donation that Peter DeCoster made in 2005. DeCoster’s father owns the company at the center of the egg recall.

The Sierra Club published its fourth annual “Cool Schools” report, which seeks to identify the greenest college campuses in the country. Researchers sent detailed questionnaires about sustainability programs to 900 colleges and universities, of which 162 responded. None of Iowa’s state universities returned the Sierra Club’s survey, and only two of the state’s private colleges participated. The full rankings show Grinnell in 104th place and Wartburg College in Waverly at the bottom in 162nd place. Keep in mind, though, that about 82 percent of schools contacted didn’t return the survey. Wartburg finished last among colleges with administrators who care enough about sustainability to respond to a national environmental organization.

The Sierra Club considered ten criteria:

Although energy supply carried the most significance, nine other categories were considered in measuring a school’s commitment to sustainability: efficiency, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, administration, financial investments, and a catchall section titled “other initiatives.”

Making energy supply the most important factor put Iowa colleges at a disadvantage, because so much of the electricity generated in this state comes from coal. Perhaps Grinnell, Wartburg, or other Iowa colleges could incorporate more wind, solar or biomass power. I noticed that the number one school on Sierra’s list, Vermont’s Green Mountain College, has a facility to generate power using “biogas” (methane derived from cow manure).

Wartburg’s best score came in the “efficiency” category. I downloaded the college’s completed questionnaire from this page and was impressed to read that 99 percent of campus lighting fixtures are energy-efficient, while 75 percent of campus appliances are energy-star rated. Wartburg has room to improve in all the categories, but especially in “purchasing” and “investment,” where the college scored zero points.

In contrast, Grinnell scored a perfect 10 for investment; according to the completed questionnaire, “the college’s investment policy includes a social responsibility provision that encompasses environmental/sustainability factors.” The college also did very well in the waste management, administration, food and transportation categories. Grinnell received its lowest score for purchasing policies.

Grinnell and Wartburg administrators deserve credit for taking sustainability seriously on campus. I hope that next year, more Iowa colleges let the Sierra Club evaluate their green practices. That means you, Luther College (Wartburg’s rival in everything, including conservation). I wonder how the University of Iowa would measure up against Big Ten rivals Michigan (number 46 on the Sierra Club rankings), Illinois (number 66), Penn State (number 80) and Northwestern (number 115). Could Iowa State beat Big 12 schools Missouri (number 118) or Kansas (number 127)? Maybe the Center for Energy and Environmental Education in Cedar Falls could help the University of Northern Iowa score highest among Iowa’s regents universities.  

The Environmental Integrity Project released a detailed report today on coal ash contamination in 21 states, including Iowa:

Days before the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) kicks off a series of regional hearings across the United States on whether and how to regulate toxic coal ash waste from coal-fired power plants, a major new study identifies 39 additional coal-ash dump sites in 21 states that are contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals.  The report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice and the Sierra Club documents the fact that state governments are not adequately monitoring the coal combustion waste (CCW) disposal sites and that the USEPA needs to enact strong new regulations to protect the public.   The  report shows that, at every one of the coal ash dump sites equipped with groundwater monitoring wells, concentrations of heavy metals such as arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water, with concentrations at Hatfield’s Ferry site in Pennsylvania reaching as high as 341 times the federal standard for arsenic.

You can read the full report here (pdf file). It covers three coal ash disposal sites in Iowa: George Neal Station North (pages 26-31), George Neal Station South (pages 32-26), and Lansing Station Ash Ponds and Landfill (pages 37-40). Neal North and South are both in northwest Iowa’s Woodbury County. Lansing is in Allamakee County, in the far northeast corner of the state. The report notes that “there are at least five public water wells within a five-mile radius” of all three Iowa sites. There are “25 or more private drinking water wells at or within two miles” of the Lansing site, which also threatens surface waters in the Mississippi River.

I posted a lengthy excerpt from the press release accompanying today’s report (pdf file) after the jump.

The Iowa Independent blog has reported extensively on proposed coal ash regulations, as well as health problems caused when toxic substances leach from coal ash into groundwater.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has said he would whole-heartedly support new coal-fired power plants in Iowa, and many Iowa politicians in both parties expressed regret last year when plans for new coal-fired power plants in Waterloo and Marshalltown were shelved. They should read this report and explain why a few dozen permanent jobs are worth creating more coal ash that will poison Iowans’ drinking water for decades. Coal combustion in power plants is also “one of the nation’s largest sources of air pollutants that damage cardiovascular and respiratory health and threaten healthy child development.”

The Scott County Board of Supervisors will vote August 19 on a proposed major expansion of a Grandview Farms Inc., a confined animal feeding operation owned by Thomas Dittmer. The supervisors' public hearing on the matter drew large numbers of supporters and opponents earlier this month. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has authority to issue permits, but the county's recommendation may influence the DNR's decision on the expansion. If approved, the CAFO could nearly double its annual production of hogs from 80,000 to 150,000.  

Scott County officials who reported to the supervisors gave the CAFO expansion proposal 480 on the "master matrix" evaluation system, where 880 is the maximum number of points and 440 is needed to pass. However, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement disputes that score on several grounds:  

Factory farm operator Tom Dittmer discharged manure into a tile line that runs into a tributary of Hickory Creek, a state waterway, according to preliminary test results obtained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) during a site survey conducted last Friday [August 6].  

Iowa Legislative Code 459.311(1); 567 and Iowa Administrative Code 65.2(3) both state, "A confinement feeding operation shall not discharge manure directly into water of the state or into a tile line that discharges into a water of the state."  

"We have a documented discharge from the confinement to a tile line," Dennis Ostwinkle, Supervisor of the Iowa DNR's Field Office in Washington, said in an email correspondence with Iowa CCI Tuesday.  

The DNR field investigation was prompted in part by complaints filed by the Quad City Waterkeepers, Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water, and Iowa CCI.  According to Ostwinkle, the field tests were submitted to the University of Iowa Hygenics Lab for further testing. If the preliminary field tests are confirmed, the violation could force a deduction of an additional 25 points from Dittmer's Master Matrix score. Scott County Iowa CCI members have already identified 160 points that should be deducted from the Master Matrix score.

While water pollution is a primary concern of those who oppose CAFO expansions, large hog lots can also compromise air quality. As Paul Deaton discussed at Blog for Iowa, CAFOs near industrial areas pose a particular risk:  

According to the 2010 State of the Environment report from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, "In Iowa, most fine particle pollution forms in the atmosphere when ammonia (from animal feeding operations, fertilizer application and other natural sources) combines with sulfuric or nitric acid (from power plants, automobiles and other combustion sources) to create tiny particles."  

Expanding the amount of ammonia emitted in Scott County, which the additional capacity of Dittmer's hog lot would do, combined with the heavy industry already there would create additional fine particulate matter. It is a formula for trouble as it pertains to human health.  

It works like this: ammonia from livestock operations is emitted into the atmosphere where it combines with sulfuric or nitric acid emitted from burning coal and creates fine particulate matter which gets into the lungs of people and causes significant health problems in the form of increased incidence of asthma, cardio-respiratory problems and increase morbidity and mortality.

Let's not talk about the fact that Davenport and neighboring Muscatine and Rock Island Counties were identified by the United States Environmental Agency as being in non-attainment for fine particulate matter. During the phase in of testing for fine particulate matter, Scott and Muscatine Counties were identified as being in non-attainment according to newly promulgated standards.

Congressman Bruce Braley, who represents Scott County, is a friend of Dittmer and "submitted a letter in support of the expansion,&quot. State Senator Joe Seng of Davenport has not taken a position for or against the proposal.  

Seng said he was “sort of sitting on the fence” about the project. But as chairman of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Budget subcommittee, he believes funding needs to be restored for odor quality research.

Wrong answer, Senator Seng. The “odor-study bill” approved by Iowa legislators in 2008 was a waste of time and money, because Iowa taxpayers already paid to study this issue, and research conducted in other states has identified “cost effective ways to mitigate odor” from hog lots.

If you live in Scott County and are concerned about the potential increase in air and water pollution, please consider contacting the five members of the Board of Supervisors before Thursday, August 19. Phone calls or old-fashioned letters are harder to ignore than e-mails.

LATE UPDATE: The Scott County board of supervisors approved the planned CAFO. Molly Regan, a former former Soil and Water Commissioner for the county, has more on this story at Blog for Iowa.

If the “energy package” about to emerge in the Senate looks anything like what Kate Sheppard is hearing, Senate Democrats should be ashamed. I threw in the towel on the climate bill a long time ago, because it was clear no serious attempt to address global warming could gain 60 votes in the Senate. Still, I thought some decent provisions might survive in a scaled-back energy bill.

Not so, according to Sheppard, who’s among the best reporters covering climate legislation. Sources from “several Senate offices” told her what’s likely to be in the new bill, and what will be conspicuously absent:

Obviously, there’s no carbon cap, that much we already knew. But there’s also no other major energy efficiency standards, and, perhaps most importantly, no renewable electricity standard -not even the weak one included in the energy bill last year. […]

Senate aides hoping to put a positive spin on the package note that it at least does not include any of the really bad measures that progressive senators were worried about, including major incentives for coal and nuclear power and the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Are we supposed to be impressed that the largest Democratic Senate majority in decades won’t press ahead with “really bad measures” for the environment?

For all of President Barack Obama’s talk about our clean energy future, we won’t even get a renewable electricity standard to boost wind and solar production. We won’t get new energy efficiency standards, even though reducing demand for electricity tends to be faster and cheaper than building new facilities to generate electricity.

The American Wind Energy Association put out an action alert urging people to contact their senators demanding a renewable electricity standard in the energy bill. If you are so inclined, you can contact your senators through this page. I will contact the offices of Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, although doing so probably won’t accomplish anything.

This disgrace gives me yet another reason not to donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the future. I don’t plan to waste my money or volunteer time on Organizing for America either. Obama failed to use his bully pulpit to produce a good climate bill and made stupid concessions to polluting industries along the way. He’s so afraid of losing a legislative battle that he didn’t even fight the good fight. But when he signs this worthless energy bill, he’ll probably declare victory in a very inspiring speech.

UPDATE: How pathetic–a White House official provides a blind quote to Politico blaming environmental groups for the Senate’s failure to pass a broad climate bill:

“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” the official told POLITICO. “They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”

Poor Mr. President. He could have delivered on one of his major campaign promises if the environmentalists hadn’t let him down.

SECOND UPDATE: I couldn’t agree more with Transportation 4 America: “With the Senate backing down on a real climate bill, it’s more important than ever that next transport bill helps make climate progress.”

The next reporting period for Iowa candidates ends on Wednesday night, so now’s a good time to contribute to Democratic campaigns if you are able and willing. The easiest way to donate is through ActBlue. Iowa’s federal and statewide candidates are here, Iowa House candidates are here, and Iowa Senate candidates are here. Donations made before the end of July 14 will count for the current reporting period.

Event details for political and environmental gatherings this week are after the jump.

Iowa county fair season is in full swing, and the Association of Iowa Fairs posts the schedule here. You may even run into some local candidates and elected officials.

The Sierra Club’s Iowa Chapter has nature hikes and other group outings scheduled around the state this summer. Click here to view the calendars for your area.

The Johnson County-based group Backyard Abundance provides advice and educational events for people who want to grow food in urban environments or want to transform their yards into a low-maintenance, eco-friendly landscape.  I’m a big fan of letting native Iowa plants take over your yard.

Democrats are out canvassing most weekends from here through the November election. Iowa Democratic candidates, please send me notices of your upcoming public events, fundraisers or volunteer opportunities if you would like me to include them on these calendars.

Details for some political and environmental events are after the jump. Please post a comment or e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com if you have something to add.

Seeing the announcement about Polk County Supervisor Tom Hockensmith’s picnic next weekend reminded me of the latest political rumor going around Des Moines: former third district Congressional candidate Dave Funk is expected to challenge Hockensmith in the next supervisor’s race. I’ve seen no public confirmation of the rumor, though.

As if we needed any more evidence demonstrating that anthropogenic climate change is real, that it is occurring right now, and that it poses a major threat to the planet's environment, we now have it — in spades. Let;s begin with the assessment by a Penn State University investigation, which completely exonerated climate scientist Michael Mann from any wrongdoing in the ridiculous, trumped-up, never-any-truth-to-it, pseudo-“scandal” known as “climate-gate.” In reaction to this report, former House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) — full disclosure, Boehlert's on the NRDC Action Fund board — issued a statement which read:

This exoneration should close the book on the absurd episode in which climate scientists were unjustly attacked when in fact they have been providing a great public service. The attacks on scientists were a manufactured distraction, and today's report is a welcome return to common sense. While scientists can now focus on their work, policy makers need to address the very real problem of climate change.

Well said, Congressman, and keep up the great work, Professor Mann!

Next, just to pound the final nails into the coffins of the climate change deniers, a major, independent review by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency was released on July 5. The report's main conclusions were crystal clear:

• “no errors that would undermine the main conclusions in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on possible future regional impacts of climate change”
• “the summary conclusions are considered well founded, none have been found to contain any significant errors”
• “ample observational evidence of regional climate change impacts, which have been projected to pose substantial risks to most parts of the world, under increasing temperatures”

In fairness, the Dutch report leveled several criticisms of the IPCC report: 1) even the few, minor errors shouldn't have been allowed to slip by; 2) the report's summary statement should have been written to provide a higher amount of transparency regarding its sources and methods; and 3) the report tended to focus solely on the adverse consequences of climate change, not on potentially positive impacts. These are non-trivial issues that need to be addressed. Having said that, as Joe Romm points out, “the overwhelming majority of research since the IPCC has found that the IPCC has consistently underestimated many key current and future impacts, particularly sea level rise (and carbon-cycle feedbacks).”

In the end, the bottom line from these reports is clear: the science behind human-induced climate change has emerged from this entire, ridiculous, episode overwhelmingly intact — if not strengthened. The only real question now is, what are we going to do about it?

Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke is touring the state to talk about his just-published book, “A New Vision for Food and Agriculture.” He’s scheduled to speak in Oskaloosa on June 29, Marion on June 30, Storm Lake on July 1, Dubuque on July 6 and Mason City on July 13. All events are at 6:30 pm; click here for location details.

Thicke provides a brief outline of his vision on his campaign website:

   * Encourage the installation of farmer-owned, mid-size wind turbines on farms all across Iowa, to power farms, and help to power the rest of Iowa. I will lead in advocating feed-in tariffs, which are agreements with power companies that will allow farmers to sell their excess power, finance their turbines, and make a profit from their power generation.

   * Make Iowa farms more energy self-sufficient and put more biofuel profits in farmers’ pockets by refocusing Iowa’s biofuel investment on new technologies that will allow farmers to produce biofuels on the farm to power farm equipment, and sell the excess for consumer use.

   * Create more jobs and economic development by supporting local food production. We can grow more of what we eat in Iowa. Locally-grown food can be fresher, safer and healthier for consumers, and will provide jobs to produce it. I will reestablish the Iowa Food Policy Council to provide guidance on how to connect farmers to state institutional food purchases and greater access to consumer demand for fresh, locally-grown produce.

   * Expose predatory practices by corporate monopolies. We need Teddy Roosevelt-style trust busting to restore competition to agricultural markets. I will work with Iowa’s Attorney General and the Justice Department to ensure fair treatment for farmers.

   * Reestablish local control over CAFOs, and regulate them to keep dangerous pollutants out of our air and water, and protect the health, quality of life, and property values of our citizens.

   * Promote wider use of perennial and cover crops to keep Iowa’s rich soils and fertilizer nutrients from washing into our rivers.

Not only is Thicke highly qualified to implement this vision, he walks the walk, as you can see from a brief video tour of his dairy farm.

Near the beginning of that clip, Thicke observes, “Energy is a big issue in agriculture. We are highly dependent upon cheap oil if you look at agriculture almost anywhere in this country. And that’s one of the big issues in my campaign: how we can make agriculture more energy self-sufficient, make our landscape more resilient, and make our agriculture more efficient as well.” It’s sad that our current secretary of agriculture has shown no leadership on making this state’s farm economy more self-sufficient. Using renewable energy to power Iowa farm operations isn’t pie in the sky stuff: it’s technologically feasible and is a “common-sense way” to cut input costs.

I highly recommend going to hear Thicke speak in person, but you can listen online in some of the videos available on Thicke’s YouTube channel. The campaign is on Facebook here and on the web at Thickeforagriculture.com. If you want to volunteer for or help his campaign in any way, e-mail Thicketeam AT gmail.com. Here’s his ActBlue page for those who can make a financial contribution.

The big event in central Iowa the last weekend in June is the Des Moines Arts Festival downtown, which runs Friday through Sunday. The festival is fantastic for art lovers, but I prefer the “other art show,” which takes place Saturday and Sunday in the Varied Industries Building at the State Fairgrounds. That show is more like a craft fair and has lots of affordable art, jewelry, woodworking and clothing. I like buying blank note cards created by Iowa painters and photographers. Both art shows have craft activities for kids.

Follow me after the jump for the rest of the calendar for the coming week. As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of an event I’ve left out. Iowa Democrats, please let me know about your planned public events, including fundraisers, canvassing, news conferences, and open houses. Send an e-mail with event details to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.  

As if the oil companies from Texas – and their allies in the corridors of power – hadn’t done enough harm to our country already (for more, see the late, great Gulf of Mexico), now they are at it once again.  This time, it’s Valero and Tesoro, pouring money into a campaign this election season to undo California’s landmark, clean energy and climate law, AB 32.  On Tuesday, the oil companies’ proposition was certified for the November ballot. The fight, as they say, is on!

Why should you care?  Let us count the ways.

Who else is watching the World Cup? I am surprised by how much my kids are enjoying the games, even though they don’t play soccer and it’s such a low-scoring sport. Des Moines business owner Tanya Keith and her husband have gone to every World Cup since 1994, and Tanya is blogging here about her family’s trip in South Africa. What I want to know is, how are her two young kids coping with the vuvuzela noise at the games? It sounds deafening even on tv.

I wasn’t around last weekend to write up the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention in Des Moines. Radio Iowa’s blog covered most of the highlights here. Sue Dvorsky of Iowa City is the new IDP chair, replacing Michael Kiernan, who needs to have surgery on a tumor near his salivary gland. Iowa Democrats nominated Jon Murphy as our candidate against State Auditor David Vaudt. Read more about Murphy at Radio Iowa or at Iowa Independent. I am so glad we’re not giving Vaudt a pass.  

Convention delegates also voted to change party rules so that the gubernatorial nominee can choose the lieutenant governor candidate. The move was intended to undermine Barb Kalbach’s efforts to replace Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge on the Democratic ticket, and will make it impossible for an activist to do something similar in the future.

John Deeth has been pretty harsh on Kalbach, suggesting it’s a waste of time for her to run against Judge when her own Republican state representative and senator don’t have Democratic opponents. I see things differently. Kalbach said in announcing her candidacy, “I am taking this opportunity to represent the progressive, grassroots base of the Democratic Party who feels the issues that they have put forward have been ignored at the state level.” Kalbach wouldn’t have run if the Culver administration and Democratic legislative leaders had done anything to limit factory farm pollution during the past four years. She wouldn’t have run if the governor had done anything to advance the cause of local control (agricultural zoning), which he claimed to support during the 2006 campaign. Kalbach wouldn’t be able to draw attention to those failures as a candidate for the Iowa House or Senate in a conservative district. By the way, Culver would have an army of grassroots volunteers now if he had listened less to Patty Judge. He would also have a great campaign issue to use against Terry Branstad, on whose watch factory farm pollution became a much bigger problem in our state.

Moving to Iowa’s U.S. Senate race, while I was away a group called Americans United for Change started running this television commercial against Senator Chuck Grassley. The ad mentions campaign contributions Grassley has received from oil interests and draws a line between the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and Grassley’s vote for a “resolution of disapproval” that would have limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a poor ad, because as Grassley’s office noted, that particular vote had little to do with big oil or offshore drilling (click here for more background). In voting for the Murkowski amendment, Grassley was carrying water for big coal, utilities that rely on fossil fuels, corporate agriculture interests and major industrial polluters.

Grassley has done plenty throughout his career to represent corporate interests rather than the public interest. There’s no excuse for such a sloppy attack ad.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder interviewed Grassley’s opponent Roxanne Conlin yesterday, and the Cedar Rapids Gazette tried to make a big deal out of her misspeaking on when Grassley won his first election. Rasmussen’s latest Iowa poll of 500 likely voters on June 14 found Grassley ahead of Conlin by 54 percent to 37 percent. The previous Rasmussen survey, taken in late April, had Grassley leading Conlin 53-40. I would like to see other polling of this race. The Washington Post published a feature on Scott Rasmussen this week, including some criticism of his methods.

This thread is for anything on your mind this weekend. Also feel free to post any links to good reads. I am working my way through this article by a self-described Tea Party consultant.

Congress has to make a clear choice now that Sen. Lisa Murkowski's resolution to gut the Clean Air Act will come up for a vote this week. (See http://j.mp/bbuC8L to learn more.)  Please take the time to let senators Harkin and Grassley know that you want them to vote 'no' on this measure.  Go to http://is.gd/cHzsh for a sample email you can send.

The Clean Air Act is one of the most successful, cost-effective, and popular pieces of environmental legislation ever passed by the United States Congress. Since it was signed into law 40 years ago, it has protected us from numerous airborne pollutants found to threaten public health and welfare. Right now, big, dirty polluters are working to re-write the Clean Air Act to protect their record profits and block action on climate change.

Why the Clean Air Act is important

* The Clean Air Act is the best tool we have for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change at the national level.
* The Clean Air Act requires regulation of all airborne pollutants found to threaten public health based on the latest scientific research. Rolling back any Clean Air Act requirements is equivalent to rejecting the latest science.
* The Clean Air Act drives technological innovation by requiring the oldest, dirtiest industries to reduce their pollution, giving them a powerful reason to update and keep up with new, cleaner technologies.

If there was ever a time to contact Congress, today is the day. Go to the Iowa Environmental Council Action Alert Center to send a message to senators Grassley and Harkin. Go to http://is.gd/cHzsh.

Oil from BP’s blown-out Deepwater Horizon well continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico and will do so until August at the earliest. In response, the Obama administration extended a moratorium on deepwater drilling for six months last week. However, the president also “quietly allowed a three-week-old ban on drilling in shallow water to expire” last week (hat tip Open Left). As a result,

Federal regulators approved Wednesday the first new Gulf of Mexico oil well since President Barack Obama lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water, even while deepwater projects remain frozen after the massive BP spill.

The Minerals Management Service granted a new drilling permit sought by Bandon Oil and Gas for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 feet below the ocean’s surface. It’s south of Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge and Game Preserve, far to the west of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the BP spill.

Chris Bowers put it mildly when he described the Obama administration’s action here as “difficult to fathom.” The president gave a speech on the economy today and talked about investing in alternative energy, but like all my parenting books say, actions speak louder than words. The greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, and BP doesn’t know how to stop it, but it’s business as usual at the Minerals Management Service. Nor is today’s permit approval an isolated case:

In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.

The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Words fail me, so you’ll have to share your thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: In 1979 it took nine months to stop oil gushing from a shallow well in the Gulf of Mexico.

For 25 years, American Rivers has released annual reports on “America’s Most Endangered Rivers.” Only one waterway in the Midwest made the group’s top ten list for 2010: Iowa’s Cedar River, which came in at number 5. American Rivers comments:

The Cedar River harbors globally rare plant communities, provides critical habitat for fish and wildlife, and is a popular destination for paddlers and anglers. However, outdated flood management and poor watershed planning are impacting public health and safety by causing pollution and increasing the risk of flood damage. The Army Corps of Engineers must prioritize lower cost, non-structural flood management solutions on the Cedar River. These natural solutions will help reduce flood damage, improve water quality, restore fish and wildlife habitat, and provide recreational opportunities and economic benefits while saving taxpayer dollars.

Go here to download a factsheet with more information about the Cedar River and why it’s “endangered.”

Perry Beeman posted the full press release from American Rivers at the Des Moines Register’s blog. Excerpt:

“We have an opportunity to learn from the devastating floods of 1993 and 2008 and rebuild smarter and stronger. We need to incorporate non-structural, natural solutions that provide flood protection, improve water quality, enhance fish and wildlife habitat, and provide recreational opportunities and economic benefits to local communities,” said Sean McMahon, state director of The Nature Conservancy in Iowa.

“It is time for Iowans to insist that state and federal flood protection policies work to reduce flood damage by moving people and structures out of harms way, allowing the flood plain to perform its natural function to absorb and slow the river’s flow during future floods,” said Susan Heathcote with Iowa Environmental Council.

“The newly-organized Cedar River Watershed Coalition has recognized the need to take a holistic approach to watershed management by reaching across city and county jurisdictions to take a whole watershed approach to flood mitigation and river restoration.  This innovative group of concerned individuals and communities is committed to working together to reduce the impacts of flooding in the watershed and to improve water quality in the Cedar River,” said Rosalyn Lehman with Iowa Rivers Revival.

By 2008, the Cedar River had had two 500-year floods within 15 years. Rain falls on a radically changed landscape: plowed fields have replaced tall grass prairies; streams and creeks have been straightened; 90 percent of wetlands have been destroyed; floodplains have been filled and developed; and flows have doubled in just the last half century. Even without factoring in possible effects of climate change, which would exacerbate the problems, the landscape changes will bring more frequent and severe floods. The communities along the Cedar River deserve better, 21st century flood protection solutions to ensure public safety and river health.

The Cedar River, a tributary to the Mississippi River, provides drinking water to more than 120,000 residents, and roughly 530,000 people live and work in the Cedar River watershed. The primary land use in the watershed is agriculture and the river is a popular place for boating and fishing. The river is home to globally rare plant communities and fish and wildlife, including two species of endangered mussels.

In response to the devastating floods of 2008, the Iowa legislature passed a bill in 2009 requiring the Water Resources Coordinating Council to draft recommendations on “a watershed management approach to reduce the adverse impact of future flooding on this state’s residents, businesses, communities, and soil and water quality.” The WRCC submitted those recommendations in November 2009.

Unfortunately, Iowa legislators proved unwilling during the 2010 session to take even baby steps on floodplain management. A bill much weaker than the WRCC recommendations passed the Iowa Senate but never made it out of subcommittee in the Iowa House. The League of Cities, among others, lobbied against the measure. But don’t worry, if any of those cities experience a catastrophic flood, their lobbyists will urge legislators to send plenty of state taxpayer money their way.

I would like to see more cities adopt Davenport’s model for co-existing with a river:

In a nation that spends billions annually on structural flood protection (and billions more when the levees fail) Davenport is the national model for a more cost effective and environmentally responsible approach. We are the largest city in the nation on a major river without a system of levees and pumps for “flood control”. We’ve never had them.  And we don’t want them. Instead of viewing the grand Mississippi as just another storm sewer, we treat it appropriately, with a broad floodplain in (99%) City ownership, now the focal point of our “River Vision” plan. The River Vision plan, developed in conjunction with our southern shore partner, Rock Island, Illinois, is the only bi-state riverfront brownfield redevelopment plan of its kind in the nation. Developed with the extraordinary public input of more than a thousand citizens, the plan is guiding the riverfront revitalization of the historic core of the Quad Cities, and has garnered the nation’s “Most Livable Small City” award from the US Conference of Mayors.  In the historic 2008 Iowa floods, Davenport outperformed every city in the state. We even continued to play baseball at our riverfront ballpark as it became an island in the river. In 2009, our unique approach to floodplain management merited review by the National Academy of Science.  A nine minute video of Davenport’s resilience through the 2008 floods is accessible online.

The University of Iowa’s Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, in cooperation with other groups, has organized a series of seminars on “The Anatomy of Iowa Floods: Preparing for the Future.” The first of the free seminar series took place in Des Moines in March. After the jump I’ve posted the schedule and agenda for future seminars in Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Waverly this month, and in Mason City and Ames in July.

If you care about protecting Iowa waterways, please consider joining any or all of the following groups: Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Rivers Revival, Nature Conservancy in Iowa, and the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

Donna Buell of Spirit Lake has just been elected to the Sierra Club’s national board, becoming the first Iowan ever to serve in that capacity. She grew up on a farm in Holstein, Iowa and lived out of state for a number of years.

Moving back to her home state 15 years ago, she got involved with the Okoboji Protective Association, Friends of Lakeside Laboratory and Dickinson County Clean Water Alliance.

Buell said she’s something of an anomaly in environmental advocacy groups, with her background in finance and law. When groups such as the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club learned she could provide free business expertise, she was quickly brought into leadership roles, she said with a chuckle. […]

Buell still has ownership in three Holstein farms she rents to others. She’s big into the quest to rebuild the carbon level in soils to where they were before decades of growing crops depleted minerals. She said farmers like to say they are stewards, and they need to prove it with actions.

“We’ve always known that building the soil back again is the only thing that will sustain farming. Plus, it makes for better crops, you know, (with) the organic matter,” Buell said.

From the Sierra Club’s Iowa Chapter website:

“The Chapter is thrilled that Donna has been elected to the board,” said Jerry Neff, chair of the Iowa Chapter Executive Committee.  “We’ve never had an Iowan represent the Sierra Club on its national board of directors since we organized in Iowa in 1972.  We’re very excited.”

Buell has served in various capacities with the Sierra Club at the local, state and national level.  In 2006, she organized the Prairie Lake Group that encompasses Buena Vista, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, O’Brian, Osceola, Palo Alto and Pocahontas counties and served as its chair.  Elected to the chapter executive committee, Buell has served as the chapter treasurer since 2008.    Nationally, she currently serves as Budget Officer of the Council of Club Leaders Executive Committee and on the National Finance and Risk Management Advisory Committee.

A volunteer for the environment for the past 20 years, Buell also served as a member of the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission from 2003 to 2007 as an appointee of then-Gov. Tom Vilsack.  

According to Buell, “roughly 4,000 of the 5,000 members are urban residents who live in or near Des Moines, Iowa City or Cedar Falls.”  If you would like to get involved, you can find much more information about the Iowa chapter here. They also have an e-mail discussion group and a Facebook page.