The line of destruction left behind from the EF-5 tornado that hit Parkersburg in 2008 is still visible on Thursday, May 23, 2013 from the roof of Aplington-Parkersburg high school. The south side of town is marked by young trees and new homes. (Kelsey Kremer/The Gazette)

PARKERSBURG – Faith and small-town bonds widely reputed to live only in faulty memories helped this Butler County town become a model for disaster recovery, community leaders say.

• View the KCRG.com’s Parkersburg special coverage: Road to Recovery

Those same values, widely publicized in the weeks after an EF5 tornado blew up the southern third of the town five years ago today, continue to attract young families to Parkersburg. Mayor Perry Bernard said.

“Small-town America still exists. People are moving here because they want to raise their kids in a place like Parkersburg. Houses don’t stay on the market very long,” said Bernard, whose house was one of nearly 300 destroyed when the mile-wide tornado struck Parkersburg in the middle of a Memorial Day weekend.

The tornado, which continued along a 43-mile course through New Hartford, Dunkerton, Hazleton and Lamont, “has brought everyone in Parkersburg to an even higher level of friendship and support. It taught us all to value our friends and neighbors,” Bernard said.

Rep. Bruce Braley, in town Friday to highlight the community’s recovery, recently inserted a statement into the Congressional Record, citing Parkersburg as “a model for recovery after a natural disaster.”

Braley, a Democrat representing Iowa’s 1st district, in town five years earlier to help with the cleanup, recalled sorting through the debris in an elderly couple’s home, asking if they wanted to save certain items.

“None of the stuff was theirs. Their stuff was all somewhere else, probably miles away,” he said.

Parkersburg’s rebuilding effort is a “reflection of the community’s commitment to come back stronger and better,” Braley said.

During Friday’s tour, the only sign that a killer tornado had ever visited the town is the utter lack of shade in the sparkling new residential neighborhoods. Saplings now stand in the place of the large trees that had dominated pre-2008 aerial photos.

A stone bench at the entry to the new City Hall commemorates the seven Parkersburg residents killed in the tornado: Richard and Ethel Mulder, Shirley Luhring, Ruth Knock, Charles Horan, Raymond Meyocks and Bertha Eckhoff.

At the new high school, built like City Hall with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, Superintendent Jon Thompson said enrollment in the Aplington-Parkersburg School District has increased 8 percent since 2008, while Parkersburg’s population has remained flat at just below 1,900.

Like Mayor Bernard, Thompson said Parkersburg’s ethos of community pride and support and a strong work ethic appeals to young families.

The community’s post-tornado recovery has taken that ethos to another level, he said.

Thompson said the new school has a heavily reinforced basement wrestling room that would provide safety for 1,000 people in the event of another tornado.

Mayor Bernard said most of the new homes, including his, have safe rooms.

The EF5 tornado that killed 24 earlier this week in Moore, Okla., caused some flashbacks in Parkersburg, the mayor said.

Many residents are still dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome, he said.

With five years’ perspective, the man whose photographed image became a national symbol of the anguish felt by thousands of fellow flood victims, does occasionally flash a grin as he recounts the ruination of his three southwest Cedar Rapids homes on June 12, 2008.

Fiala says the low point of his ordeal came three days later when he and thousands of others were denied access to their flooded homes. “It’s a terrible mess, and we need to be there cleaning it up,” Fiala told then Gazette photographer Courtney Sargent, who captured the frown that has been likened to the theatrical mask of tragedy.

Vince Fiala with the photograph of him and his daughter as he reacts to the frustration of not being able to check on the damage to his home after the Flood of 2008. Photographed Friday, April 26, 2013, in southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)

“It was a tense situation,” Vince Fiala’s wife, Barb, says. Hundreds of other flood victims waiting at the checkpoint in the hot sun for clearance to revisit their homes would have stormed the barricades if her husband had given the word, she says.

The Fialas say they have recovered from the flood, but at the expense of considerable labor and much of their life savings.

All three homes — theirs, Vince’s late mother’s and a rental unit — have been refurbished after floodwaters filled the ground floors with 2 feet of filthy water.

Fiala, 73, a retired plumbing contractor, worked 12-hour days with a hired carpenter for several months to repair their homes.

The Fialas also lost two late-model vehicles to the rapidly rising floodwaters.

“We thought we’d have time to drive them out, but the water just came up too fast. Mallory Street was like a raging river,” Vince Fiala says.

The Fialas, who live seven blocks from the Cedar River, thought they would be all right until floodwaters began lapping at their back door on the morning of June 12.

In the hectic scramble to save possessions, they moved everything from their finished basement to the first floor, but that was not high enough. The receding floodwater left behind two inches of mud on the carpet.

Fiala lost a nearly new pickup, and his daughter, Diane Stanek, lost a new car that had been parked in one of his garages.

“It was a pretty white car with 220 miles on it. We jacked it up until the roof of the car touched the roof of the garage, but it wasn’t high enough,” he says.

Barb Fiala left their home in a rescue boat at 2 p.m. Her husband waded out through shoulder-deep water two hours later. As hard as getting out was, getting back in was even harder, the Fialas say.

While they lived with their daughter, squatters occupied their home, tapping into the phone line and making more than 50 calls to Bosnia, they say.

“They wouldn’t let us in, but there were strangers living in our house,” Vince Fiala says.

In the flood’s aftermath, Vince Fiala underwent heart bypass surgery, which he attributes at least in part to flood-induced stress, and was hospitalized for a serious lung infection, which he attributes to the mold that flourished in his and so many other soggy houses.

The Fialas say they never considered moving, though.

“I’ve lived here (on Mallory Street, near the Czech Village business district) all my life. My dad owned Pohlena’s Meat market (a Czech Village institution before the flood closed it) for many years. I wouldn’t feel at home anywhere else,” he says.

Chuck Peters, President & CEO of The Gazette Co.

In an unpredictable and steadily worsening disaster, the city evacuated tens of thousands of flood victims without loss of life, while The Gazette and KCRG-TV9, crippled by the loss of power and threatened with forced evacuation by armed National Guard soldiers, provided a lifeline of information to a community in desperate need of it, Peters says.

Mary Sharp, then Metro-Iowa editor and now retired from The Gazette, says she experienced a shiver of foreboding as she drove to work on the morning of June 12.

When she topped the last rise, revealing downtown Cedar Rapids, “all I could see was gray floodwater and dark, marooned buildings,” she recalls.

Her doubts about the paper’s ability to publish a June 13 edition intensified when she surveyed the dark, clammy newsroom.

“We had no electricity, no water, no phones, no radio, no TV, no faxes, no emails,” she says.

The Gazette's newsroom in downtown Cedar Rapids is light by computer screens and two portable work lamps as journalists finish work on Friday's paper on the night of Thursday, June 12, 2008. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

With two computers hooked to an emergency generator, editors in a dark backroom posted stories about the flood on TheGazette.com.

Sharp assigned the reporters she could reach via cellphone to get out on the street and immersed herself in a 15-hour day she described as trying to organize chaos.

“You know it’s going to be the story of your lifetime, and you want it to be your best work, but you have handicaps to overcome,” she says.

With floodwaters lapping across Fifth Street toward company headquarters, facilities staffers armed with flash lights pumped 900 gallons of water per minute from the pitch-black basement. Facilities and information technology staff strung cable and operated portable generators to reboot the company. Human resources staff arranged for potable water and portable toilets, which would remain in place for weeks.

On the Second Avenue side of the building, operating under equally adverse conditions, KCRG-TV9 co-anchors Bruce Aune and Beth Malicki went on camera and stayed there, with only a few breaks, for the next four days.

“We had answers when others didn’t, and people turned to us. The phones never stopped ringing,” Malicki recalls.

Aune says they could not have done it without the support of KCRG reporters, photographers and producers, and members of the community.

“With the information they were feeding us and live interviews with officials, we were keeping it fresh, providing what viewers needed,” he says.

Working under hot lights with no windows and no air conditioning, they found it hard to project the cool, crisp look associated with television anchors, Aune says. They eventually began broadcasting from the water’s edge.

Anchors Bruce Aune and Beth Malicki broadcast from Second Avenue SE on the night of June 13, 2008.

Their wilted hairdos, shiny foreheads and open collars, along with their obvious commitment to help Eastern Iowans through a crisis, endeared them to sweat-soaked, mudcaked viewers, says Malicki.

“Even to this day people come up and thank us for what we did in the flood,” Malicki says.

Gazette and KCRG photographers in hip boots and chest waders slogged through the floodwater, documenting the disaster.

Liz Martin, while caught in the (mostly) stop and (occasionally) go traffic on the Interstate 380 bridge, the only bridge open in Cedar Rapids, paused to capture the iconic “Epic surge” photo of May’s Island seemingly sinking into the raging river. That photo covered the front and back pages of the June 13 Gazette.

“People know what that scene is supposed to look like, and the contrast encapsulated the flood’s extreme nature,” she says.

Veteran reporter Rick Smith, who chronicled much of the city’s post-flood recovery, also wrote the lead article in the June 13 edition.

Working on a laptop computer with 30 minutes before deadline, Smith was just about to file when the computer battery crashed, scattering his day’s work into the hidden recesses of cyberspace.

“That’s what I remember most about that day — trying to re-create that article in 20 minutes,” he says.

Smith and Martin say repeated exposure to victims’ raw emotions heightened the need for balance among fairness, accuracy and sensitivity.

All The Gazette’s June 12 efforts would have been in vain had Peters not successfully resisted the National Guard’s order to evacuate immediately or be arrested.

“They were carrying guns. They were not friendly people. They had been given a mission,” Peters says.

Peters, who had previously worked out a deal to stay in the building with Mayor Pro Tem Brian Fagan, called him again at the flood command center at Kirkwood Community College.

Fagan said something to the effect that it’s going to get bad and we’ve got to get out, Peters recalls.

“I told him we would take the risk, and he said OK, but you’re on your own, don’t call for help,” Peters says.

Though the local river gauge had malfunctioned and no one really knew how high the river might get, Peters says it was not a hard decision.

“By then we knew how much people were depending on us,” he says.

Peters’ assessment was soon validated when then reporter Justin Foss burst onto the air around 10 p.m. June 12 to plead for volunteers to sandbag the city’s last functioning water well. Hundreds of people soon converged on the well, saving it and saving the community from the water dearth that would have ensued.

Spectators photograph the historic Althea Sherman chimney swift tower as a crane lowers it Wednesday onto a foundation built for it at the Bickett-Rate Preserve near Buchanan in Cedar County. (Orlan Love/The Gazette)

The historic Althea Sherman chimney swift tower stood upright Tuesday for the first time in 21 years.

“There were many times I thought this day would never come,” said Barbara Boyle of Williamsburg, shortly after a crane lifted the 6,500-pound tower onto a concrete foundation at a 560-acre nature preserve along the Cedar River near the Cedar County town of Buchanan.

“It has been 98 years since the tower first went up, 77 years since Althea Sherman last used it, nearly 21 years since it last stood,” said Boyle, a member of the Johnson County Songbird Project who has championed the effort to preserve the memory of Sherman.

“Your devotion has paid off,” Dan Daly of Iowa City, a member of the Songbird Project’s board of directors, told Boyle.

“No one knows more about Althea (than Boyle),” Daly said. “This project will help popularize the work of a very important woman scientist of the early 1900s who seemed doomed to oblivion.”

Pioneering ornithologist Althea Sherman built this tower as a means to study chimney swifts at the family home in National in 1915. The tower was moved to Harpers Ferry in 1962 and it has been in storage for the past 20 years, but it may soon be restored and erected in Cedar County under a partnership of the Johnson County Songbird Project and the Cedar County Historical Society. Oberlin college archives

Althea Sherman, a self-taught ornithologist, built the ingenious tower in 1915 in the Clayton County town of National to aid in her study of chimney swifts.

The tower’s artificial chimney attracted nesting swifts, which Sherman observed through windows and peepholes accessible from a circular stairway. Her groundbreaking bird study methods and meticulous observations attracted renowned ornithologists to National.

Born in 1853, Sherman lived most of her life in National, where she conducted painstaking studies of birds that nested near her home. Many of her observations were recorded in “Birds of an Iowa Dooryard,” a book published after her death. In 1912, she became only the fourth woman to be named a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

“The more I read about her, the more that woman amazes — a self-taught woman rising to the top of a then-male dominated field,” said Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Research Project, whose Decorah eagle nest cam has set the modern standard for bird observation techniques.

As soon as swifts settle in the tower, Anderson will set up a nest cam that will enable Internet users to see what Sherman saw though her peepholes.

After Sherman’s death in 1943, the family property in National was sold and the tower was moved to Harpers Ferry, where it stood until the Songbird Project acquired it in 1992. The 28-foot-tall, 9-foot-square tower has since been in storage.

The site is the Bickett-Rate Preserve and the partner is the farm’s owner, the Cedar County Historical Society.

“I think we’ve got something special here. History is coming back alive,” said society president Sharon Lynch-Voparil.

Self-taught onirthologist Althea Sherman peers through binoculars at birds near her home in the Clayton County hamlet of National early in the 20th century. (Oberlin College Archives photo)

The tower stands next to Edgewood Hall, a rambling 1836 farmhouse listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The preserve has seldom been open to the public since it was bequeathed to the historical society in 1994, but that will change when restoration of the tower and of Edgewood Hall is complete, Lynch-Voparil said.

“It will be a combination historical site and bird refuge. We should not be hiding something like this,” she said.

Postville leaders reacted without vindictiveness last night to a guilty verdict against Sholom Rubashkin , the man widely blamed for plunging the town into a humanitarian and economic disaster.

“I personally don’t think he was evil. He was just a bad manager who got in over his head,” Mayor Leigh Rekow said after learning that a South Dakota jury had found the former top executive at kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors Inc. guilty on 86 of 91 charges in a financial fraud trial.

“I think it’s a big disappointment,” said former Postville City Council member Aaron Goldsmith, a leader in the Postville Jewish community and a friend of the Rubashkin family.

The prosecution of Rubashkin has exceeded the gravity of his crimes, Goldsmith said.

“He’s already paid a high price with the loss of his good name and his livelihood. Now he will lose his freedom,” he said.

The guilty verdicts will be a turning point in the lives of the hundreds of former Agriprocessors workers who suffered in the aftermath of the massive immigration raid in May 2008 that started Rubashkin ‘s demise, said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk.

“There has been a need for justice. Many people have prayed for justice,” said Ouderkirk, who has ministered to the mostly Hispanic displaced workers sheltered at St. Bridget Catholic Church in Postville.

The jury verdict in Sioux Falls, S.D., could mean a prison sentence of hundreds of years for Rubashkin , who is now 50. He still faces a second federal trial on 72 immigration charges.

Jurors returned the verdict on their second day of deliberations after a nearly monthlong trial. Rubashkin had faced 91 charges, including bank, mail and wire fraud and money laundering. He was found not guilty on five of 19 charges alleging he did not make timely payments to livestock dealers.

A sentencing date was not immediately set.

Defense attorney Guy Cook said he would appeal the verdict.

Prosecutors offered no immediate comment and referred all questions to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Bob Teig, who did not return a call seeking comment last night.

Rubashkin was detained after the jury was dismissed, despite a request from his attorneys that he remain free on bail.

A hearing was set for Wednesday in Cedar Rapids to determine whether Rubashkin will be freed before his second trial, which is scheduled to begin Dec. 2.

During the trial that ended Thursday, prosecutors alleged that Rubashkin , as a manager of the former Agriprocessors plant in Postville in northeast Iowa, intentionally deceived the company’s lender. Former Agriprocessors employees testified that Rubashkin personally directed them to create fake invoices in order to show St. Louis-based First Bank that the plant had more money flowing in than it really did.

Cook argued that Rubashkin never read the loan agreement with First Bank and tried to portray him as a bumbling businessman in over his head.

About 20 supporters and members of Rubashkin ‘s family sat generally silent during the hourlong court proceeding.

Rubashkin turned around in court several times while federal Judge Linda Reade read the verdict and smiled at his wife, Leah, at one point passing her a note.

POSTVILLE — Postville is getting its groove back.

Two years after an immigration raid knocked it to its knees, the state’s most ethnically diverse community again bustles with immigrants hoping to earn a share of the American dream.

“We’re on the upswing,” said Mayor Leigh Rekow, who took office 11 months after federal agents in riot gear busted nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant on the morning of May 12, 2008.

The plant ‘s emergence from bankruptcy under new ownership and a new name, Agri Star Meat and Poultry, has fueled the town’s resurgence, Rekow said.

This time around, however, all the Agri Star workers are legally qualified to work in the United States, said plant owner and Chief Executive Hershey Friedman, who touted the company’s progress during a mid-April news conference in Des Moines.

The paychecks of the plant ‘s nearly 600 employees have renewed the community’s optimism and have begun to heal the wounds inflicted by the raid and its aftermath, which sundered families, imprisoned and later deported hundreds of Postville residents and plunged the plant into a downward spiral that eventually ground the town’s economic engine to a halt.

Postville’s groove — the characteristic that makes it special — is that disadvantaged people, through dint of hard labor, can still come here and build a better life for their children, said Maryn Olson, a leader in the community effort to help displaced workers and others directly affected by the collapse of Agriprocessors.

“It’s not about what you have or where you came from. Work is the great equalizer, and everyone who’s willing to work hard has a chance to get ahead in Postville,” Olson said.

Somali refugees, granted legal asylum in the United States, are among the most recent immigrants seeking to get ahead in Postville.

Scores of Somalis, who had fled their homeland’s chronic civil wars, took jobs at the post-raid Agriprocessors. Their community dwindled during the plant ‘s shutdown but is building again with Agri Star’s expansion.

Mohamed Abdi, 24, a three-year Postville resident, estimates the city’s Somali population at 130 and growing.

“We are mostly single men, which is a problem,” said Abdi, who worked at Agriprocessors before its transition to Agri Star.

Working conditions are better at Agri Star, said Abdi and several of his Somali co-workers.

The Somalis worship in a makeshift mosque in a rented commercial building on Lawler Street and socialize across the street in an upstairs hall.

A bigger problem than the shortage of Somali women is the shortage of Postville housing, said Aden Abdi, an Agri Star worker whose family must remain in St. Cloud, Minn., until he can find suitable lodging.

Mayor Rekow said a concerted effort is under way to upgrade houses that deteriorated while sitting empty for more than a year.

Banks have foreclosed on hundreds of houses once owned by Gal Investments and the Rubashkin family, which also owned Agriprocessors. The city is working with the banks to secure grants to rehabilitate the worst of them, Rekow said.

“All the rentable property is rented,” he said.

The March 31 dissolution of the Postville Response Coalition, formed 16 months earlier at the depths of the town’s economic and humanitarian crisis, is a tangible sign of the community’s recovery, said Olson, the coalition’s coordinator.

So, too, are recent retail sales statistics from the Iowa Department of Revenue.

Retail sales in Postville during the last three months of 2009 (the latest available data) totaled $31.3 million — an all-time high, up 24 percent from the comparable quarter in 2008, when sales registered $25.2 million.

As expected, retail sales slumped in the last quarter of 2008 and the first three quarters of 2009 before the Agri Star payroll began its dramatic expansion.

One Postville institution that fared better than expected during the upheaval is the town’s public school system.

Enrollment declined from 604 in October 2008 to 580 a year later, but the district has more than made up for the loss with a gain this year of 39 students, Superintendent Ottie Maxey said.

Most of the recent gain, he said, is attributable to new community members taking jobs at Agri Star.

Before and after the raid, the percentage of students whose native language is not English has remained about 30 percent, said Maxey, a former principal at Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids.

Maxey said he has observed steadily increasing community optimism since he moved to Postville 10 months ago.

So has former City Council member Aaron Goldsmith. Though the crisis has changed the town, “it is still accepting of diversity, committed to overcoming adversity and filled with the promise that working together can bring,” he said.

Postville’s Jewish community has suffered and shrunk during the ordeal, its leaders say. Rabbi Aron Schimmel, who directs the Judaic Resource Center in Postville, estimates that 40 percent of the city’s Jews have departed and that enrollment in the Jewish schools has declined by 30 percent since the raid.

Schimmel said Postville Jews also miss the leadership and beneficence of former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin, who awaits sentencing on multiple bank fraud convictions and is now being prosecuted for alleged child labor law violations in a Waterloo courtroom.

“The schools, the synagogue, the library, the kosher grocery — all depended on him,” Schimmel said.

Rubashkin’s trials — literal and figurative — have been agonizing for Postville Jews, said Goldsmith, who testified on behalf of Rubashkin at his recent sentencing hearing. Goldsmith acknowledged that his friend broke the law but said he did so to keep afloat an enterprise on which many depended.

Mayor Rekow said Agri Star’s emphasis on legal workers, fair wages and safe working conditions coincides with the city’s aspirations. The plant ‘s 90-day worker probation policy, which includes testing for illegal drugs, shows the company’s intention to develop a stable work force, he said.

Rekow said Friedman has been open with city officials and has “done everything he said he would,” including investing nearly $7 million in plant modernization.

The new owners, who have adopted a government-based verification system to check applicants’ credentials, appear to be running the business according to law, said the Rev. Steve Brackett, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church and a leader in the worker relief effort.

Brackett compared today’s Postville with the early years of Agriprocessors’ expansion, when the community’s population was in flux. The first round of workers, usually single men rather than families, may not become long-term residents, Brackett said.

Though wages at the plant have increased, Brackett said he does not believe they will attract many established northeast Iowans.

POSTVILLE — For flat-broke landlord Gabay Menahem, the dog and cat feces littering one of his many vacant rental units symbolizes post-immigration-raid life in Postville.

The word he uses to describe the litter sounds incongruous coming from a learned member of the town’s Orthodox Jewish community, but Menahem can hardly be blamed for letting slip the occasional epithet. He’s lost a fortune in the year since federal agents raided kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors Inc.

His 3 1/2-year-old business, GAL Investments Ltd., generated monthly revenue of $192,000 before the May 12, 2008, raid that plunged Postville into an economic recession months ahead of the rest of the nation. Now, with just 19 of his 129 rental units occupied, Menahem took in $16,000 last month — a fraction of his expenses.

Like many other Postville residents, Menahem suffers the ill effects of what local clergy describe as a government-inflicted disaster comparable to the floods and tornadoes that ravaged other parts of Iowa last year.

The arrests of 389 Agriprocessors workers and the tearing apart of their families, followed by criminal charges against plant supervisors, including former top executive Sholom Rubashkin, plunged the town’s leading employer into bankruptcy and a shutdown that put hundreds more employees out of work.

“Drive down main street, and you’ll see the condition of Postville. Five businesses have closed, and more are in the process,” said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk, a leader in the Catholic Church’s ministry to Postville’s Latino community.

Hispanic attendance at Postville’s St. Bridget Catholic Church, he said, declined sharply after the raid, which led to the deportation of hundreds of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican workers.

A year later, St. Bridget’s Hispanic Ministry is still caring for 30 families, most of which include members awaiting court hearings, and Ouderkirk said the ministry has hired a psychiatric counselor to help church wards cope with stress caused by the raid and its aftermath.

Departing laid-off workers, some embittered by their Postville experience, left many of the town’s rental units in shambles.

Menahem’s property was trashed, he said, by transients recruited after the raid, not by the longer term Agriprocessors employees who had put down roots in the community. The loss of those productive, stable and family-oriented workers may prove to be one of the greatest downsides of the raid, Menahem and Ouderkirk say.

As for GAL Investments, “The company is long gone, man. There’s nothing to save,” Menahem said.

“A year ago it was impossible to buy a house in Postville. Now there are 228 houses for sale out of 700 total,” said Menahem, who describes the town as “a sinking ship.”

Mayor Leigh Rekow, who was appointed in April after Robert Penrod resigned, said the city has struggled financially since the raid and the subsequent virtual shutdown of Agriprocessors, which employed more than 900 full-time workers a year ago and now has about 350 part-time workers.

On June 1, the city likely will be unable to make its twice-annual $167,000 payment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the mechanical wastewater treatment plant built specifically to process wastes from the kosher plant.

City Clerk/Administrator Darcy Radloff said the USDA has denied the city’s request to defer payments for at least a year while the future of the bankrupt plant is resolved.

Bankruptcy trustee Joseph Sarachek said he is confident the plant will be purchased by a responsible new owner but acknowledged that delay is one of the strategies employed by potential buyers to drive down the price.

Rekow said the town’s most pressing problems include the hundreds of vacant and deteriorating housing units; an anticipated decline in the value of housing stock, with a corresponding reduction in property tax receipts; and a sharp decline in receipts for the municipal water utility.

Radloff said the city has assessed unpaid utility bills totaling $60,000 to Menahem’s GAL Investments and another $24,000 to Nevel Properties Corp., a Rubashkin-owned company in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The town’s economic plight is further illustrated in the decline of sales tax revenues since the raid.

In the quarter ending Dec. 31 — the last period for which data is available — the state collected $3,806,482 in sales tax from Postville businesses, down 27.3 percent from the comparable year-earlier figure of $5,238,204.

Unpaid property taxes also could crimp city, county and school district budgets, Allamakee County Treasurer Lori Hesse said. Among the leading delinquents, she said, are Agriprocessors, owing $259,000, and Nevel, owing $95,000.

While Postville’s total population has fallen from an estimated 2,300 to fewer than 2,000, the city’s Jewish community also has shrunk, said Rabbi Aron Schimmel, a 12-year Agriprocessors employee whose kosher slaughter work has been curtailed since the raid.

Schimmel, who also directs the Judaic Resource Center in Postville, said of the 80 Jewish families in Postville before the raid, about 55 remain.

Schimmel said most Postville Jews bear no hard feelings toward the Rubashkin family, whose practice of hiring illegal immigrants precipitated the raid.

“It’s illegal. Maybe you shouldn’t do it, but it is how it’s done in the meatpacking business. You have illegal workers all over America. If you want good workers cheap, you have to take them,” he said.

Schimmel said the Jewish boys’ and girls’ schools in Postville still have enough students to justify continued operation. The future is less certain for the yeshiva, which educates about 40 13- to 16-year-old boys, most of whom are boarders, he said.

One community bright spot is that enrollment in Postville schools has declined only 3.1 percent after the raid, from 542 to 525, Superintendent Galen Reinsmoen said. “We could gain 40 to 50 students by next fall if the plant goes back to full production,” he said.

A level of quiet anxiety born of suffering and uncertainty grips many Postville residents, said Maryn Olson, a coordinator with the Postville Response Coalition, a group established after the raid to help its victims.

Though some have said the raid was necessary to depose exploitative owners of the Agriprocessors plant , Olson said Postville would not wish a similar raid on any other community.

“I don’t think anyone will ever look back and say it was a good thing. This is a community that is deeply hurt and grieving,” she said.

A months-long investigation of child labor practices at meatpacker Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville has uncovered 57 cases with multiple child labor law violations, the Iowa Labor Commissioner’s Office announced Tuesday.

“The investigation brings to light egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa’s child labor laws,” said Iowa Labor Commissioner Dave Neil, who recommended that the Attorney General’s Office “prosecute these violations to the fullest extent of the law.”

The alleged violations include working minors in prohibited occupations, failure to obtain work permits, exceeding the allowable hours for youths to work, exposure to hazardous chemicals and working with prohibited tools. Iowa law prohibits children under the age of 18 from working in meatpacking plants .

“It is Agriprocessors’ policy not to hire underage workers, and to terminate any employees who are determined to be under 18 years of age,” company spokesman Menachem Lubinsky said Tuesday.

Lubinsky urged people to keep an open mind and wait for the evidence before making any judgments about the allegations.

Allegations of child labor violations were included in an initial affidavit and a search warrant that led to the May 12 raid that resulted in the arrests of 389 Agriprocessors workers. Most of the arrested workers quickly pleaded guilty and are serving five-month prison sentences before being deported.

Kerry Koonce, a spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, the agency that oversees the labor commission, said Iowa’s child labor investigation into Agriprocessors began before the federal immigration raid in May, and was independent of the raid.

She said the number of child labor violations announced on Tuesday is much larger than what is typically found in Iowa.

“Typically, when we have child labor issues it’s an issue of one or two individuals,” Koonce said. “From our point of view, with this investigation, it’s a large-scale violation of the law.”

Under Iowa law, child labor investigations are forwarded to the applicable county attorney’s office for prosecution. But the county — as the Allamakee County Attorney’s Office did in this case — can turn such cases over to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which said in a statement Tuesday that it “will enforce Iowa criminal law if there have been violations.”

The Labor Commissioner’s Office also is investigating general wage violations at the Postville plant .

The labor investigation’s conclusions did not surprise Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville, who said post-raid stories of mistreatment of young workers “were enough to break your heart.”

McCauley said she is gratified that state labor officials followed through with their investigation.

So is Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, who has urged coordination and cooperation among the state and federal agencies investigating Agriprocessors’ hiring and labor practices.

“I’m appalled by what appears to be blatant and widespread violations of Iowa’s child labor laws at Agriprocessors,” Braley said Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

KCRG-TV9

Editor’s note: One in a series of stories on flood protection, a topic that The Gazette considers a content priority for 2013.

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration plans to collect Iowa precipitation data this spring that could launch a new era of timely and accurate flood predictions.

The data will help scientists understand how satellite radar images relate to actual rainfall so they can more accurately predict rainfall amounts and flood events, said Vitold Krajewski, director of the Iowa Flood Center, which is partnering with NASA on the Iowa Flood Study project.

Asked if the research would lead to more accurate forecasts that could reduce the shock experienced by Cedar Rapids residents on June 13, 2008, when the Cedar River crested more than 6 feet higher than predicted, Krajewski replied: “Yes. Eventually.”

“This experiment will yield high-quality data that will also enable us to develop mathematical models of how water flows in the environment — data that could help the flood center design specific land-use practices that could reduce the height of future floods,” Krajewski said.

The instruments deployed in Eastern Iowa will provide accurate, high-resolution measurements of rainfall that will help calibrate satellite-based rainfall estimates, said Walt Petersen, an atmospheric scientist at the NASA facility in Wallops Island, Va.

“The main objective is to determine how well our satellite radar estimates precipitation amounts. The end game, on a global basis, is more accurate and timely prediction of floods,” Petersen said.

Using the highly accurate Iowa data, “we will test ourselves, eliminate uncertainties, fine-tune our methods, figure out what little parts of our algorithms may be off,” he said.

Eastern Iowa research

NASA, better known for its work in space, will be working on the ground with the Iowa Flood Center in three Eastern Iowa watersheds: The Cedar in Linn, Benton, Black Hawk, Grundy and Tama counties; the Iowa in Grundy, Marshall, Tama and Iowa counties; and the Turkey throughout its watershed.

NASA also will collaborate with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in the operation of 22 instrument sites along the South Fork of the Iowa River in Hamilton and Hardin counties.

The Cedar, Iowa and Turkey were among nine Iowa rivers that reached record crests in June 2008 and contributed to multibillion-dollar damages.

The instruments — including portable micro rain radars, rain gauges with soil moisture probes and units that measure the size, shape, speed and number of raindrops — will be deployed this month, with data collection slated for mid-April through mid-June.

Petersen said Iowa was selected as the initial site for the advanced research because of the presence of the Iowa Flood Center, the specific expertise of Krajewski and the relative flatness of its landscape.

New equipment

Sara Steussy, a research support coordinator at the flood center, said most of the instruments will be deployed in a line running roughly from Waterloo to Iowa City, with the most powerful portable radar unit situated southwest of Waterloo.

That radar unit will fill a gap in coverage of the four National Weather Service radars operating in Iowa, Petersen said.

A second cluster of about 20 rain gauges with soil moisture sensors and two smaller portable radars will be deployed in the Turkey River valley, Steussy said.

Petersen said most of the rain gauges will be deployed in pairs to maximize the accuracy of their readings. The gauges will form a dense network that will capture the geographic variability of rainfall, he said.

Satellite radar technology will undergo a major upgrade next year with the launch of a Global Precipitation Measurement Mission satellite that, in effect, will be a “flying physics lab,” Peterson said.

It will contain two radar units operating on different frequencies as well as a radiometer that will extract information about the physical properties of precipitation, he said.

The Iowa Flood Study “reflects the enormous strides scientists are making in their ability to understand and predict weather-related events,” said state Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, a longtime advocate of measures to reduce the impact of future flooding in the state.

Vietnam veteran Ron Williams (left) of Marion, Iowa, talks with a fellow veteran as he volunteers as a hallway ambassador at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Thursday, March 14, 2013, in Iowa City, Iowa. Williams wears a patch designating his Vietnam War service with the 4th Infantry Division, as well as various service ribbons he earned. Williams volunteers at the medical center Tuesdays and Thursdays. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

IOWA CITY — Unlike warmly welcomed veterans of earlier and later wars, Vietnam vets got the parting gift that keeps on giving: Agent Orange — a plant defoliant that mistakenly included the carcinogen dioxin.

Nearly 40 years after the war’s end, disability claims for often-deadly ailments caused by the ubiquitous toxic spray continue to mount, as do wait times for disposition of disability claims.

Though it would be difficult to confirm with government statistics, the number of veterans suffering Agent-Orange-related afflictions almost certainly exceeds the more than 358,000 U.S. military personnel killed or wounded in combat with the enemy during the Vietnam War.

“We track things by the condition itself, not by the cause of the condition,” said Randal Nollen, a spokesman for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C.

“The number one population that we handle for disability claims is Vietnam veterans with Agent Orange-related ailments,” ahead of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Don Tyne, director of the Linn County Veterans Affairs Office.

During the past eight months, Tyne said his office has helped more than 1,000 Vietnam veterans apply for disability benefits.

Tyne said the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs has 7,000 pending disability claims, with an average wait for disposition of 18 months.

“This is the longest wait period since I’ve been here. Ten years ago it was 90 days,” Tyne said.

Toxic legacy

Named for the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, Agent Orange is a toxic herbicide widely used by the U.S. military in Vietnam to destroy food crops and kill jungle vegetation that concealed North Vietnamese troops.

Manufactured primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical, the blend of herbicides was inadvertently contaminated with the dioxin TCDD, a toxic chemical later linked to numerous fatal diseases.

From 1961 to 1971 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces sprayed 20 million gallons over vast areas of South Vietnam and parts of Laos and Cambodia, exposing millions of U.S. troops and Vietnamese civilians to its ill effects.

Waiting for help

Navy veteran John Wilkinson, 67, of Marion, attributes the cancer that resulted in the 2008 surgical removal of his prostate gland to his exposure to Agent Orange in 1966 and 1967. Eighteen months after applying for disability benefits, Wilkinson is still awaiting a determination, and he is far from alone.

“I am convinced their (method of operation) is delay. The longer they can delay, the more likely (the applicant) will give up or die,” said Wilkinson.

Though Wilkinson is now considered cancer-free, he said his peace of mind was shattered forever when his doctor first told him he had the disease.

“Our country had no reluctance to send us to war, but it has dragged its feet following up on the war’s impact,” he said.

Richard Davis, a VFW service officer who helps veterans file disability claims at the VA Hospital in Iowa City, said he can relate to his clients’ frustration.

“I know exactly what they are going through,” said Davis, who retired from the Army in 2002 and subsequently spent 18 months awaiting approval of his disability claim.

Davis said the list of “presumptive illnesses” related to Agent Orange exposure includes several kinds of cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and neuropathy, which is characterized by tingling or loss of feeling in the extremities.

Since 2010, the VA has presumed these conditions are service-connected to herbicide exposure in Vietnam, enabling veterans with those illnesses who served in Vietnam from 1962 through 1975 to claim benefits without having to prove the connection. That presumption has not yet been extended to “blue water” sailors who served well off the coast.

Ron Williams, 67, of Marion, who was exposed to Agent Orange during his Army service in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967, suffers from diabetes and neuropathy.

Williams said he felt the same frustration as Wilkinson during his more-than-two-year quest for disability benefits, which entailed several appeals.

“They try to see if they can wear you out. You’ve got to outwait the suckers,” said Williams, who volunteers to help veterans twice a week at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Iowa City.

Both Williams and Wilkinson said their criticism of VA bureaucrats does not reflect on the excellent care they have received at the VA hospital in Iowa City.

 Remembering Vietnam

“Dioxin is bad stuff — one of the worst carcinogens ever made,” said Dan Gannon, 67, of Ankeny, a member of the Iowa Veterans Affairs Commission and a victim of the toxic chemical.

Gannon said he saw “a lot of defoliated jungle” during his 1969 service as a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam’s central highlands region.

“Agent Orange was the least of my worries. We loved it. It eliminated ambush sites and saved lives,” he said.

Gannon was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003. Though three of his friends have died of the same illness, Gannon survived and has since been engaged in helping other veterans secure their rightful benefits.

“One day they would spray. The next day half the foliage would be dead,” said Denny Myers, 63, of Marshalltown, a Navy cryptologist engaged in special operations in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972.

A rash appeared on Myers’ arms and torso shortly after he left Vietnam, and more serious ailments began to surface 10 years later, said Myers, who, like Gannon, helps other vets secure disability benefits.

“It’s not been fun,” said Myers, who considers himself “300 percent disabled,” with diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, neuropathy and chloracne, a skin disease.

The VA is 1 million claims behind, resulting in long waits that add to already stressful situations, Gannon said.

Ed Gaudet, 69, of De Witte, who served in Vietnam with the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in 1965 and 1966, suffers from three of the Agent Orange “presumptive” ailments — heart disease, diabetes and neuropathy.

“I remember having it sprayed on me. We slept on our ponchos when we were on patrol. We didn’t think twice about it. We ate the fruit and drank the water,” said Gaudet, who also helps veterans secure disability benefits.

Gaudet said 60 percent of the Vietnam vets he knows have ailments related to Agent Orange.

“Uncle Sam did that to us. It hurts when you know your own country did it to you,” he said.

An employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses a chain saw to cut down a leaner on pool 9 of the Mississippi River on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. Managers of the Upper Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge are cutting trees that are destined to be uprooted by the wind in hopes their stumps and root systems will keep islands from eroding. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo)

Cutting trees to save forests may seem paradoxical, but biologists are doing just that on islands in the Upper Mississippi River.

“By cutting trees on the edges of islands, we hope to save the islands themselves and all the other trees growing on them,” said Rich King, manager of the McGregor District of the Upper Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.

The trees targeted for cutting, King explained, are “leaners” that were eventually going to topple into the river anyway.”

“We’re spending millions (through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Management Program) to build new islands, and it only makes sense to do what we can to protect the ones we already have,” said Mike Griffin, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ biologist who introduced the concept to refuge personnel.

“Mike has been talking about it for years. It is a practical and inexpensive way to protect a valuable resource,” said Clyde Male, assistant manager of the refuge’s McGregor District, which covers Mississippi River pools 9, 10 and 11, stretching from Genoa, Wis., to Dubuque.

Griffin said wave action has been eroding refuge islands for decades. The standard response, armoring shorelines with big rocks, is extremely expensive and in many cases cost-prohibitive, he said.

The trees on the edges of islands, mostly silver maple and cottonwood, have shallow root systems limited by the high water table in the river’s backwaters.

With their disproportionately small root systems, they are top-heavy and especially vulnerable to strong winds when they are fully leafed out, said Griffin.

“It’s just a matter of time before the leaners are uprooted,” he said.

Rather than allowing nature to take its course, King and his colleagues are cutting the ‘leaners’ before they fall, taking tons of island soil with them into the river and exposing their banks to further erosion..

Doing so, they say, leaves the stump and its root system in place to protect the island from erosion.

In most cases, the stump will sprout suckers and remain a living organism on the edge of the island.

Griffin said siltation reduces river bottom diversity and fills in holes and depressions that some fish species depend on to survive the winter.

Island living

Besides keeping harmful sediment out of the river, maintaining the islands preserves nesting and roosting trees for bald eagles, the signature bird of the Upper Mississippi. The islands also provide critical habitat for migrating songbirds, and the islands’ higher elevations support hardwoods like the swamp white oak, whose acorns nourish wood ducks and other wildlife.

The logs and branches of the felled trees are allowed to settle into the backwaters, where they will increase habitat for fish, turtles and other aquatic animals.

Crews cut many leaners this winter on the edges of long, narrow islands in Harpers Slough at the lower end of pool 9. Islands in pools 10 and 11 have been targeted for additional work after ice out this spring, King said.

Biologists will be monitoring the outcome of the experimental program.

If it works, it will be much less expensive than using some of the more traditional mechanical methods to slow down island erosion, King said.

Iowa National Guard Staff Sergeant Curt Wyman of Springville replaces a starter at the Iowa National Guard Armory in Cedar Rapids on March 21, 2013. The furlough of federal technicians could lead to one day of work off per week, resulting in a pay reduction. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette)

The federal budget sequester will impair the readiness of the Iowa National Guard, as well as the personal finances of at least 1,100 of its members, officials say.

“Our main concern is readiness. That is everything to our operation,” said Guard spokesman Col. Greg Hapgood, one of about 1,100 “federal technicians” facing mandatory furloughs this summer.

The sequester, which took effect March 1, forces the federal government to cut $85 billion, half of which impacts defense. Those defense cuts, in turn, will require the Iowa National Guard to cut its $370 million federal funding by about 10 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Squeezing most of the cuts into a five-month period – May through September – makes them harder to implement, said Hapgood, who along with other federal technicians will be taking one unpaid day per week, in effect a 20 percent pay and benefits cut during that period.

The furloughs affect only personnel classified as “federal technicians” – full-time, uniform-wearing Guard members who are basically indistinguishable from the majority of the Guard’s personnel, classified as Active Guard and Reserve.

CWO3 Kevin Unkel, maintenance chief at the Iowa National Guard Armory in Cedar Rapids and one of 20 federal technicians working in the shop, said vehicle readiness will suffer during the furloughs.

“We will lose 160 shop hours a week, which will force us to set maintenance priorities,” he said.

Unkel said his shop will have to cut back on required thorough annual servicing , which when deferred, results in suspended use of affected vehicles.

Unkel’s crew is responsible for the maintenance of about 4,000 pieces of equipment assigned to units in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Clinton and Davenport. Most local Guard units have mechanics, he said, but they generally lack the specialized training required to maintain modern military equipment.

While Unkel, 52, a 35-year Guard member, said he expects to weather the pay cut without major difficulty, younger, less-well-established federal technicians will feel more pain, he said.

A freezer is turned off with the door open at the Iowa National Guard Armory in Cedar Rapids on March 21, 2013. The sequester has led to a the need to cut down utility costs. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette)

“It’s going to be tight, but we’ll adapt to it as a family,” said Sgt. First Class Jason Schwendinger, 36, of Anamosa, the father of three children.

“It’s definitely going to be a tougher summer for the kids,” said Sgt. First Class Brent Andersen, 33, of North Liberty.

Both Schwendinger and Andersen said the reduced vehicle maintenance will hurt the readiness of Guard units during their upcoming 15-day annual training exercises.

“We will see a reduction in the operational readiness of our equipment, as well as reduced ammunition availability,” said Maj. Rob Cain, commander of the Guard’s 650-member 234th Special Troops Battalion in Cedar Rapids.

Though many Guard units will train close to home this year, Cain said the 234th still plans to conduct some of its annual training at camps in Wyoming and Minnesota.

The Iowa Guard began making cuts before the sequester took effect, cutting travel expenses and utility costs, delaying purchases of new equipment and deferring maintenance and new construction at its 53 armories.

Hapgood said the Guard intends to reduce utility bills by 30 percent during the fiscal year. “Most spaces are cool and dark unless someone is working there,” he said.

“We’re trying to do what we can (to cut utility expenses), but this building is really green,” Cain said of the Guard’s new super armory in Cedar Rapids.

The facility, which opened in 2011 at 1500 Wright Brothers Blvd., is heated and cooled with an elaborate geothermal system, which has only two settings, “hot and cold,” he said.

It’s also equipped with motion sensors to turn lights off when rooms are not in use, Cain said.

Cain, a Cedar Rapids native, said the Iowa National Guard last faced similar budget constraints shortly after he enlisted in 1992, when the Department of Defense cut its budget in response to a period of relative peace.

Scott Flory of Clear Lake sits in the sunshine on a park bench on S. Clinton St., during a brief break, in Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday, March 15, 2012. Temperatures this March haven't been nearly as favorable for many Iowans. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette)

This March has been much colder than normal – an impression amplified by comparison with its 2012 counterpart, the warmest Iowa March in 141 years of records.

The statewide average temperature during the first three weeks of this March has been 7.9 degrees cooler than normal, according to State Climatologist Harry Hillaker.

That might seem more bearable if the March freshest in Eastern Iowans’ memories had not been 14.7 degrees warmer than normal.

The nearly 23-degree warmth gap between this March and last – the difference between greening grass and frozen, snow-covered soil — helps explain why many Iowans are fuming at Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania woodchuck who on Feb. 2 erroneously predicted an early onset of spring.

As cool as this March has been, it could be much worse. Though Iowa has not experienced a colder March since 1975, it had earlier experienced 15 colder ones. The coldest on record, in 1960, was 15.2 degrees colder than normal, Hillaker said.

The coldest March temperature in Iowa, 40 degrees below zero, was recorded March 1, 1962, in Waterloo, according to Hillaker.

Looking ahead, Hillaker said the remainder of the month will stay “on the cool side of normal,” with the warmest day in the next seven likely to top out around 38 degrees on Thursday, which compares with a normal high for that date in the low 50s.

Longer range forecasts indicate April in Iowa will be “a little cooler than normal,” but not as far below average as March has been, he said.

While last year’s hot, dry March presaged the state’s worst drought in a generation, precipitation has been above normal in Eastern Iowa since late January, Hillaker said.

During the first three weeks of March, Cedar Rapids has recorded 6.1 inches of snow, well more than the 4 inches that normally falls during the entire month.

Unlike a year ago, farmers and gardeners will have to wait awhile to till their soil, which remains frozen in the northern two-thirds of the state.

Though frost depth is not widely measured and recorded, Hillaker cited the following readings on Thursday: Davenport, 6 inches; Toledo, Iowa, 16 inches; and Cuba City, Wis., 18 inches.

Luster Heights Prison Camp is a satellite facility of Anamosa State Penitentiary operated by the Iowa Department of Corrections. It is located in the Yellow River State Forest near Harpers Ferry in Allamakee County. (The Gazette)

LUSTER HEIGHTS — The state correctional facility that looks more like a Boy Scout camp than a prison is again on the budget chopping block.

After wriggling off in 2003 and 2010, the Luster Heights Prison Camp, the last stop before release for many inmates, is again slated for closure under Gov. Terry Branstad’s proposed 2014 budget.

Closing it would be a mistake, according to Luster Heights staff and officials in nearby communities.

“These guys are going to be your neighbors when they get out, and we are helping them become productive and law-abiding citizens,” said Kris Kovarik, a counselor at the camp for the past 14 years.

Branstad’s proposal calls for closing the nearly full 88-bed minimum-security camp and diverting to other prisons its $1.6 million annual appropriation, which covers the salaries and benefits of 14 full-time employees.

Doing so, camp officials say, would be a disservice to the inmates, who receive counseling and training that prepares them for a successful re-entry into society; to taxpayers, who benefit from the camp’s thrifty operation; and to northeast Iowans, who benefit from the cheap labor of inmates working for local government and non-profit entities.

Few escapes

Though prison rules prohibit inmate interviews, it seems they, too, would oppose the proposed closure, based on the rarity of escape attempts.

Despite the lack of a fence or security guards, “we have not had a walk-off in eight years,” said Maj. Kevin Hagemann, the camp’s security manager.

Inmates have earned their way to Luster Heights through good attitude and behavior, and they don’t want to blow it, he said.

If Luster Heights were situated near Des Moines, it would be considered a model for state correctional facilities rather than a target for closure, said Larry Schellhammer, chairman of the Allamakee County supervisors, whose conservation and roads departments stretch taxpayer dollars with inmate labor.

“It makes no sense to close an efficient, successful facility so funds can be diverted to a more expensive one,” Schellhammer said.

Cost-effective

The annual cost to keep an inmate at Luster Heights is $19,559, which compares with the systemwide per inmate cost of $30,456. The relative lack of security holds down costs, of course, but Luster Heights’ high degree of self-sufficiency also plays a role.

Wood cut and salvaged by the inmates provides 95 percent of the facility’s heat, and produce raised in the unit’s several acres of gardens help hold down food bills.

Much of the wood comes from the nearby Yellow River State Forest, where inmates salvage the treetops and other leavings of timber harvest operations, said Bob Honeywell, a Department of Natural Resources forester there..

Luster Heights inmates also plant replacement trees and maintain trails in the 8,500-acre Yellow River State Forest, Honeywell said.

“We would get a lot less done without them,” he said.

So would Waukon, whose employment of Luster Heights inmates has saved the city at least $50,000 in labor costs during the past three years, said City Council member John Ellingson.

Under 28E agreements, the inmates are paid $5 for up to a 10-hour day. The value of their labor to participating agencies was estimated at $234,000 in 2012.

Good for inmates

The benefit goes both ways, according to camp staff.

Regular, productive work teaches the inmates marketable skills — woodworking and landscaping, for example — as well as such desirable traits as teamwork, responsibility and reliability, said Kovarik, one of three substance abuse counselors at the camp.

About 85 percent of Luster Heights inmates participate in drug treatment, which is required for their release and critical for their successful re-entry to society.

The effectiveness of their treatment is reflected in the unit’s recidivism rate, defined by the Department of Corrections as “the percent of offenders released from prison who return within three years.”

According to a 2007 Department of Corrections report, Luster Heights had a 22.7 percent rate of recidivism, which compares with an overall statewide rate of 31.8 percent.

Looking due north, this 3-D view of Decorah and the Upper Iowa River shows the impact area of a meteorite that crashed into the area mearly half a billion years ago. (Credit: Adam Kiel graphic/Northeast Iowa RC&D)

Recent aerial surveys in the Decorah area have confirmed that a huge meteorite crashed into the earth there about 470 million years ago.

“Yeah, we have a very high confidence level” that a meteorite about 200 meters across struck there, said Robert McKay, a geologist with the Iowa Geological and Water Survey, which is partnering with the U.S. Geological Survey in the scientific study.

“I would say it is a pretty big scientific discovery,” said Paul Bedrosian, a USGS geophysicist in Denver, Colo., who is leading the effort to model the recently acquired geophysical data.

Only 183 meteor impact craters have been documented worldwide, according to an international database at the University of New Brunswick.

No evidence of the giant underground crater – more than 3 miles in diameter — is visible to anyone studying the area through satellite images, aerial photos or even from a lofty vantage, said McKay, who pieced together several disparate clues to nail down the discovery.

The shale formation that led to the discovery pokes through the earth’s surface at only one known location, he said.

McKay credits the late Jean Young, a Decorah-area independent geologist who died in 2007, with finding the first clue.

“She called to my attention in 2000 an unusual cluster of well boring samples containing thick layers of shale, all from a confined area in and immediately around Decorah,” McKay said.

When McKay plotted them on a map, they described a circular basin 3.5 miles wide overlaying the city of Decorah.

Beneath the shale, formed when an ancient sea deposited sediment in the crater, was another layer of material unique to that particular spot, a substance McKay suspected was shocked quartz, shattered crystals often associated with meteorite impact structures.

McKay sent photos and samples to Bevan French, a scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who subsequently identified shocked quartz — considered near definitive evidence of an extra-terrestrial impact – in the samples.

Finally, the recent aerial survey, which collected electromagnetic and rock density information, has yielded data consistent with the existence of the crater hidden beneath Decorah.

Bedrosian said “the one-to-one correspondence of data collected in completely independent studies provides pretty definitive evidence” of an extraterrestrial impact.

The energy released in that long-ago collision, he said, would have been equivalent to the explosion of a bomb rated at more than 1,000 megatons of TNT. That compares with the 57-megaton rating of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated and the estimated 10 megatons of force generated by the meteor that exploded over Russia last month.

Bedrosian said the survey is part of a larger USGS effort to evaluate the concealed mineral resource potential of the greater Midcontinent Rift region that formed about 1.1 billion years ago.

The recent flights, he said, targeted the Northeast Iowa Igneous Intrusive complex, which geologists suspect may be similar to an area of northern Minnesota known for deposits of copper, nickel and platinum.

While more analysis will be required to determine the mineral potential, the study has unearthed a valuable finding about the area’s water resources, McKay said.

“We found that the presumed impact shattered the Jordan sandstone layer, disrupting the Jordan aquifer in that locale,” he said.

That means, for example, that if the city of Decorah wanted to supplement its shallow alluvial wells with a deeper source of water, drilling beyond the crater boundaries would be advised, he said.

McKay also said the shale in the crater is too young in the geological sense to be a source of oil or natural gas.

This Dec. 5, 2012 photo provided by The United States Coast Guard shows barges passing in tight quarters due to low water levels as they navigate the Mississippi River near St. Louis. (AP Photo/United States Coast Guard, Colby Buchanan)

The anticipated drought dividend of greatly reduced flood risk this spring has not fully materialized.

Despite thirsty soil and what until recently had been low stream flows and subnormal snowpack, flood risk in the weeks ahead will be normal to only slightly below normal, the National Weather Service said Thursday in its first spring snowmelt flood outlook of the season.

Winter precipitation has been above normal in Eastern Iowa, returning most streams to normal winter flows, and “below normal soil moisture will likely be neutralized by frozen ground,” said Maren Stoflet, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities.

Exceptionally deep frost, in the 15- to 30-inch range, will likely repel most snowmelt and spring rain, leading to increased runoff into creeks and rivers, “even more so than in a normal spring,” said the National Weather Service in La Crosse, Wis., which monitors streams in northeast Iowa.

Soil has been made even less permeable, the Weather Service said, by a condition called “concrete frost,” which occurs when the top several inches of soil soak up moisture from rainfall and snowmelt and freeze solid before the arrival of appreciable snow cover.

Precipitation falling after the soil thaws – typically in mid-March in Eastern Iowa – would be more likely to soak in rather than run off, State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said.

Although much of western Iowa remains extremely dry, the 10-county east-central Iowa region, which includes Linn and Johnson counties, has had a wetter than normal winter, according to Hillaker.

From Dec. 1 through Feb. 25, the region has recorded an average of 5.07 inches of precipitation – almost an inch more than the region’s 4.24-inch average for the period, Hillaker said.

Among Eastern Iowa locales, some of the season’s lowest flood risks are on the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids and on the Iowa River at Iowa City.

At Cedar Rapids there is just a 6 percent chance the Cedar will reach even the 12-foot minor flood stage, while the likelihood of the Iowa reaching its 22-foot minor flood stage in Iowa City is less than 5 percent.

Iowa River flood chances are much higher upstream at Marengo (a 49 percent chance of reaching minor flood stage) and downstream at Lone Tree (a 26 percent chance).

Iowa City’s comparatively secure status is due to the water storage capacity of Coralville Lake, according to Jim Stiman, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Water Control Section in Rock Island, Ill.

Coralville Lake is at normal winter pool, 683 feet above sea level, and will be drawn down another 4 feet before March 20, Stiman said.

The Corps had been considering skipping the spring drawdown until winter precipitation somewhat alleviated drought concerns, he said.

Stiman said flood risk on the Mississippi River along Iowa’s eastern border is “a little below normal right now.”

At McGregor, for example, there is a 29 percent chance the Mississippi will reach minor flood stage during the snowmelt period, while the likelihood is 21 percent at both Guttenberg and Dubuque. In a normal year, there would be about a 50 percent chance of reaching minor flood state in each of those three river towns.

The Eastern Iowa rivers with the highest risk of reaching minor flood stage are the Turkey at Elkader (52 percent), the North Skunk at Sigourney (50 percent), the Iowa at Marengo (49 percent) and the English at Kalona (39 percent).

Cattle eat feed containing sawdust at Bob Batey's property Monday, Feb. 18, 2013, in rural Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Batey's veterinarian, who is overseeing the heard's health, says the animals are in good health. (Jim Slosiarek/Gazette)

While it’s not quite spinning straw into gold, Bob Batey is converting sawdust from his lumber mill into nutritious and palatable feed for his cattle.

When Batey fills his feed bunks with the 70 percent sawdust ration, his cows eat it like candy, plunging their faces into it and licking their lips.

“They like it. It’s good for them. It’s economical. And it’s green.” said Batey, 85, an outside-the-box thinker whose entrepreneurial endeavors have often turned dross into profit, especially in the custom machinery he has “invented” for use in his family’s large and successful lumber mill.

“They are a happy bunch of cattle,” said Tara Wellman-Gerdes, a West Point veterinarian who is monitoring the health of Batey’s 50-cow herd of Angus and Charolais near Mount Pleasant.

The cows, who are expecting calves in March, are the picture of health, she said.

Animals can barely digest untreated sawdust, which consists of more than 50 percent cellulose and about 30 percent lignin.

Stephanie Hansen, an assistant professor in the animal science department at Iowa State University, said lignin wraps itself around cellulose, giving wood its strength and rigidity and acting as a barrier to the digestibility of cellulose.

“You could potentially free up the cellulose, which has high food value,” she said.

Breaking the cellulose-lignin bond is precisely how Batey extracts feed value from sawdust, he said.

As long as the cows are maintaining good health, Hansen said the process sounds like “a good example of how producers are getting creative in feeding their livestock” at a time when traditional feedstocks are expensive and in short supply.

Dan Loy, an ISU animal science professor who participated in tests of sawdust as sheep feed 30 years ago at Penn State University, said he is skeptical.

“Based on my experience at Penn State, which found sawdust to have very low feed value, I doubt sawdust would contribute more than the bare minimum of nutrients,” Loy said.

Byron Leu, an ISU extension regional beef specialist at Fairfield, said he too was skeptical until he sat down with Batey and discussed the project.

“When I got the phone call, I thought someone was pulling my leg,” he said.

After the meeting, however, Leu said he is convinced that Batey “is trying to figure out ways to help people who don’t have adequate forage find an inexpensive source of fiber and carbohydrates.”

Leu said he and his colleagues are conducting similar experiments to break down the lignin and improve the digestibility of cornstalks.

“Not much grows out of the ground that cows won’t eat,” said Batey, who has been raising beef cows and calves since 1959.

He first tumbled to the idea of feeding them sawdust after observing cows eating sawdust that had washed into their pasture from an Illinois paper mill.

Batey said he deduced that something happened in the mill to turn an otherwise indigestible substance into palatable food.

In the late 1970s, when hay and pasture were scarce, Batey said he began experiments to duplicate that process.

“I soaked the sawdust in nitric acid to break down the bond between the cellulose and lignin and cooked the mash in a big stainless steel vessel,” he said.

Though the cows readily consumed the 75 percent sawdust ration and did well on it, Batey said he discontinued the practice when hay and grass became more abundant.

With hay and grass again short during the drought of 2012, Batey resolved to resume the practice but discovered that nitric acid, a precursor in the manufacture of explosives, had fallen under strict government regulation.

He then collaborated with Mike Kassmeyer of Quality Plus Feeds in St. Paul, Iowa, to develop the ration his cows now relish to the tune of 30 pounds each per day.

“It’s a green way to raise cattle. You are basically recycling something that would otherwise go to waste,” said Kassmeyer, whose firm mixes Batey’s sawdust with corn, vitamins and minerals, as well as other ingredients that he declined to specify, presumably for proprietary reasons.

Kassmeyer and Batey said the sawdust ration has food value equivalent to grass hay.

The green aspect is definitely one of the benefits, said Wellman-Gerdes, a cattle specialist.

Feeding sawdust eliminates all the fuel consumption, chemical inputs and intensive land use that would be required to feed grain or hay, she said.

In an era of high grain prices and diminishing hay and pasture acreage, it “is definitely a positive” to take advantage of otherwise wasted byproducts, she said.

With corn at $7 a bushel, beans at $13.50 and hay at $200 a ton, a low-cost, nutritious and palatable sawdust-based ration “could get the attention of cow-calf beef producers pretty fast.” Leu said.

Kathleen Stewart (left) and Emma Hornsby, both of Iowa City, choose organic potatoes at New Pioneer Food Co-op in Coralville on Wednesday. From 2008 through 2012, New Pioneer’s purchases from local producers increased 39.86 percent to nearly $1.7 million last year, New Pioneer marketing manager Jenifer Angerer said. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette)

Though few hard statistics are available, Iowans’ appetite for organic food and locally raised fruits and vegetables appears to be growing.

“We don’t have real current and accurate data, but my sense is that, yes, we are getting more organic growers and more people raising food for local consumption,” said Maury Wills, bureau chief of agriculture diversification and market development for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Data for specialty crops “is just not there like it is for commodity crops such as corn and soybeans,” said state horticulturist Mike Bevins.

While the number of farmers markets in Iowa doubled from 2004 to 2009, more recent developments won’t be known until the next USDA farmers market survey is conducted in 2014, Bevins said.

“Specialty crops are a very important part of Iowa agriculture, as they allow farmers to diversify and give customers access to locally grown products,” Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said Thursday in announcing the availability of $271,000 in grants to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops.

The specialty crops segment is definitely growing in the Iowa City area, according to Jenifer Angerer, marketing manager at New Pioneer Food Co-op with stores in Iowa City and Coralville.

From 2008 through 2012, New Pioneer’s purchases from local producers increased 39.86 percent to nearly $1.7 million last year, Angerer said.

Local produce “is the fastest-growing segment of food production,” said Jason Grimm, food systems planner with the Iowa Valley RC&D in Amana.

Grimm said the Iowa Valley Food Co-op, an online network of producers and consumers in Eastern Iowa, has grown to more than 450 members since it was founded in August 2011.

Restaurants have also recently become an important outlet for locally grown produce, he said.

Grimm, who helps newcomers break into the business, said marketing is more difficult than production.

“You need to start lining up customers before you plant the seeds,” he said.

New Pioneer specializes in both organic foods, which are certified to have been produced in accordance with well-defined natural specifications, and locally grown products, which are often produced with similar care but lack the certification.

‘Fresher is better’

Angerer said New Pioneer customers believe “fresher is better.”

In a farm state that imports 90 percent of the food its residents eat, conscientious Iowans worry about the carbon footprint inherent in transporting food great distances, she said.

They also believe that small-scale production, as opposed to industrial models, is friendlier to the environment, more sustainable and more accountable in an era of food scares involving pathogen contamination, she said.

New Pioneer buys from about 30 local producers with more growers applying each year, said Mike Krough, the company’s produce coordinator.

Maximizing locally sourced products is part of New Pioneer’s mission to support the local economy, he said.

Certified organic food — which can cost as much as one-third more than conventionally produced food — is a much bigger deal in Iowa City than it is in Cedar Rapids, according to Teresa White, farmers market coordinator for the city of Cedar Rapids.

“Iowa City people care more about how food is raised and will pay the price,” White said.

While Cedar Rapids residents value fresh, locally raised fruits and vegetables, they seem less willing to pay the premium commanded by organic produce, she said.

Locally grown produce is the biggest attraction at the new Downtown Farmers’ market, according to Jill Wilkins, who manages the market for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.

About one-fourth of the 220 vendors specialize in horticultural products, and they almost always sell out, she said.

Jim Fink, who has operated a 40-acre organic farm near Urbana for the past 20 years, said farming without chemicals is not all that different from the way his parents farmed.

Fink, who said he finds chemicals “disagreeable,” fertilizes his soil with manure from his organically raised livestock and controls weeds through crop rotation and mechanical cultivation.

Fink, who derives much of his income from the sale of beef and pork, emphasizes that his meat is not certified organic, but that is only because he cannot find a meat processor willing to invest the time and money in achieving organic certification.

Fink’s hogs and cattle eat only organic food, much of it produced on his farm, and they thrive without the hormones and antibiotics common to modern meat production.

“I sell it as ‘natural’ and set my prices at the higher end of the market,” he said.

The Decorah Eagles sit in their new nest Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 in Decorah. (Jim Womeldorf of Decorah)

The world-famous Decorah eagles have moved to their new nest and will raise this year’s young beyond the scrutiny of the webcam that has endeared them to millions, Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, said Friday.

“They have been bringing grass and lining the bowl of their new nest and not the old one” – a strong signal that they’ve made their choice, Anderson said.

Because the new nest lacks a camera and other video-streaming equipment, “the Decorah eagles will be offline this year,” he said.

Pending approval and support from nearby landowners, Anderson said cameras will be installed this fall at the new nest. “Cameras at both nests will ensure that the public will again be able to follow these famous eagles,” he said.

The eagles began building their new nest, about 400 feet from their established nest, in mid-October.

After bouncing back and forth between the two during the winter, they began showing a pronounced affinity for the new one this week, Anderson said.

Jim Womeldorf, who has been observing the eagles from his home about 300 yards from the new nest, said the eagles were busier in the nest on Friday than they had been on any preceding day.

Anderson said the female could lay her first egg of the season during the upcoming week.

Eagles, known as “compulsive nest builders,” often build more than one nest in their breeding territory and will sometimes alternate between the two, according to Pat Schlarbaum, a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources’ wildlife diversity program.

Their move in no way suggests a fear of the camera, which has documented their nesting seasons since 2007, Anderson said. In fact, the eagles were copulating at the old nest last week, he said.

Nor does it suggest any fear of the people who have stopped to observe them in their original nest 80 feet up a cottonwood tree on private property across from the Decorah Fish Hatchery, Anderson said.

The new nest tree, just 60 feet from the heavily used Trout Run Trail, is an even more public spot than the old nest tree, he said.

Anderson said he will be seeking approval from nearby property owners to post signs cautioning people to keep a respectful distance from the nest tree.

Anderson said he hopes Decorah eagle fans will use the break to explore some of the Raptor Resource Projects many other nest cams, which focus on other eagles, as well as falcons, kestrels, red-tailed hawks, vultures, herons and owls – all of which can be viewed from www.raptorresource.org by clicking on “bird cams” at the top of the page.

WILLIAMS, Minn. — You’d hate to think that experiencing ambient air temperature of 40 degrees below zero would be the highlight of four days’ ice fishing in the “Walleye Capital of the World.”

But for me and six fishing buddies, the memory of our unprecedented exposure to such frigid air will outlast our recollections of cranking up the occasional foot-long sauger from daylight-deprived depths along the 49th parallel.

From our vantage in wood and Styrofoam igloos on a seemingly infinite expanse of 2-foot-thick ice, we had front-row seats for the 2013 Lake of the Woods Walleye and Sauger Lure Rejection Tour. We did not buy the T-shirt.

We know we were rejected, rather than ignored, because we could see the electronic blips indicating fish on our sonar units.

“Lookers,” we called them — red marks hovering, sometimes indefinitely, near the electronic blips indicating our minnow-tipped jigs.

While the approach of a fish to a jig often signals an imminent strike, the “lookers” almost always left without doing anything else.

The guys who ran the resort said the walleyes were preoccupied with a hatch of crustaceans and could not be bothered to bite a minnow. An examination of the entrails of fish we cleaned supported their assessment, as did the fishes’ occasional regurgitation of a ¾-inch-long, olive green shrimplike creature.

The seven of us — Richard Brace of Cedar Rapids; Don Dutler, Doug Reck, Jim and Dan Brace, all of Winthrop; and Bill Sloan and I of Quasqueton — cleaned about 80 saugers and caught a fair number of a malodorous species known both as cisco and tullibee, as well as several eelpout, an amphibian-like fish known also as burbot and poor man’s lobster.

In four days the seven of us caught a combined total of six walleyes, which together would have fit within the white tail spot on the 40-foot statue of “Willy the Walleye” that helps proclaim the city of Baudette the walleye capital of the world.

Homeward bound at 6 a.m. Feb. 1, with the ambient air temperature at 28 below zero, the pickup engines sounded as if they were on their last turns before they groaned to life.

Ninety minutes later, as our convoy dipped into an ice-fogged hollow outside Northome, Minn., the thermometer on Richard’s pickup registered 41 below — a reading confirmed as realistic by the National Weather Service, which reported the day’s lowest temperature in the contiguous 48 states as 39 below in Northome.

The Wapsipinicon River trickles over the dam at Independence on Friday, Oct. 5, 2012. The river was flowing at a rate of 4.8 cubic feet per second on Friday morning, barely one hundredth of its normal flow in early October. The river was at its fourth-lowest flow for that date in the 80 years that records have been kept at that guage. (Orlan Love/The Gazette)

“Vulnerable” is the word most often used by climatologist Brian Fuchs to describe the prospects of a second straight drought year in Iowa.

“We’re in a worse situation than we were a year ago, and we will be talking about drought issues again in 2013,” said Fuchs, who works at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb.

Although precipitation in Iowa has been slightly above normal this winter, “that is not a drought breaker, given the deficits at the end of 2012,” he said.

State Climatologist Harry Hillaker agreed Monday that the recent return to normal precipitation levels does not signal an end to the drought.

“It’s hard to know the long-term implications because this is the driest time of the year. The critical months, from March onward, will tell us a lot more about the status of the drought,” he said.

“If we fall below normal in the March through May period, we will have missed our best chance to catch up,” said Tim Hall, coordinator of the Governor’s Drought Task Force, which on Feb. 7 issued its most recent Water Summary Report.

Hall said declining ground water is the task force’s greatest current concern.

In parts of northwest Iowa, where concentrated livestock feeding operations place year-round demand on water supplies, shallow ground water is lower now than it was in the depths of summer and 7 ½ feet lower than it was a year ago, Hall said.

“Many Iowa cities that depend on shallow aquifers for drinking water are dusting off their water conservation plans,” he said.

In Cedar Rapids, which draws much of its water from shallow wells, the water department last month diverted water from the Cedar River into an 8-foot-deep channel designed to recharge a shallow aquifer that feeds city wells.

Fuchs said Iowa’s drought status is much worse now than it was a year ago.

About 54 percent of the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, which compares with 24 percent of the state a year ago, he said.

While only one-third of the state fell under any drought classification a year ago, the entire state does now, he said.

Fuchs said the state gets progressively drier from east to west, prompting him to predict a central Iowa demarcation line separating more favorable growing conditions in Eastern Iowa from less favorable conditions in the west.

Recent rains, heavy is some areas, ran quickly off frozen ground, doing little if anything to replenish subsoil moisture.

That runoff, however, improved stream flows to normal levels in most parts of Iowa and to above-normal levels in far southeast Iowa, according to the Feb. 7 Water Summary Report.

Dan Christiansen, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Iowa City, cautioned that winter stream flows can be deceptive because ice dams and other anomalies can distort gauge readings.

Recent runoff in Iowa and other Midwest states has alleviated low flows that had been disrupting barge traffic on the Mississippi River below St. Louis, according to Hillaker.

Lake levels continue to drop, with Saylorville Lake, an impoundment of the Des Moines River in central Iowa, standing Monday at more than 6 feet lower than its normal pool.

Both Hillaker and Fuchs said it is hard to get a handle on subsoil moisture because accurate data is scarce.

“We know for sure that shallow wells and aquifers are lower than they were a year ago,” Hillaker said.

Low-water-related winter fish kills have not materialized, in part because clear ice with little snow cover has allowed sufficient light penetration to support oxygen-producing vegetation, Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist Paul Sleeper said.

The reported curative properties of ginseng make it among the most popular of herbs. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

The recent indictment of a Lamont man on five counts of illegal ginseng trafficking highlights the temptations posed by a wild-growing root that fetches $700 a pound on international markets.

“The higher the price, the greater the potential for illegal harvest,” said Mark Loeschke, the Department of Natural Resources botanist who oversees the state’s wild ginseng, a forb/herb thought by many to have potent medicinal properties.

A lengthy multi-agency investigation resulted in a federal indictment of Jeff Sargent on charges that he bought and sold illegally obtained ginseng and that he conspired with others to do so.

Sargent and unnamed co-conspirators recruited others to buy harvest permits, and the co-conspirators then harvested ginseng under those permits and sold it to Sargent, according to the indictment, filed Jan. 16 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

Neither state nor federal investigators would elaborate on the nature of the illegal activity, presumably because the ongoing investigation may lead to additional charges.

DNR conservation officer Mike Macke, who participated in the investigation, said the price of dried wild ginseng root has more than doubled in recent years, primarily because of booming economies in China and Korea, leading importers of American ginseng.

Each year Iowa, one of 19 states that permit hunting of wild ginseng, issues about 500 ginseng harvester permits, and Iowans annually export more than 1,000 pounds of dried ginseng root, Macke said.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it takes between 125,000 and 150,000 plants to produce that weight,” he said.

The sustainability of ginseng, a slow-growing perennial that takes at least seven years to reach reproductive maturity, depends to a large extent upon the stewardship of harvesters.

State law requires, for example, that harvesters dig only mature plants, as evidenced by the number of leaf clusters and annual growth rings on the roots, and that they remove the seeds from the plant’s red berries and plant them nearby.

DNR conservation officers say Iowa has strong laws protecting ginseng but that enforcement is rendered difficult by the remote wooded areas in which ginseng grows and the secretive and stealthy nature of ginseng gatherers, both legal and illegal.

It’s hard to get a handle on the activities of solitary, camouflage-clad individuals operating far off the beaten path, they said.

Common ginseng-related violations include harvesting before the season, which runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31; harvesting immature plants, trespassing and and harvesting in proscribed areas, which include all state parks, preserves and recreation areas.

“Most of our state parks have already been picked clean,” Macke said.

DNR conservation officer Burt Walters, who collaborated in 2008 with Macke in a major rewrite of Iowa laws governing ginseng harvest and sales, said ginseng hunters often use hand-held GPS units to record waypoints of the areas in which ginseng grows.

But technology can be a two-edged sword, he said. Increasingly prevalent trail cameras deployed by deer hunters are capturing images of trespassing ginseng pickers, which can generate useful tips for law enforcement officers, Walters said.

Macke said the state tightened its ginseng-related laws to protect not only the plant itself but also the interests of conscientious, law-abiding ginseng hunters.

Sargent, who pled guilty In June 2009 to a violation of ginseng regulations, did not respond to an invitation to discuss the case.

A sign opposing a proposed frac sand mine is seen on a mailbox along Black Hawk Rd. on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, southwest of New Albin, Iowa. The road leads to land owned by David Mitchell. (Jim Slosiarek,/The Gazette-KCRG)

WAUKON – No frac sand will be mined in Allamakee County for at least 18 months following action Monday by the county supervisors.

By unanimous vote, the supervisors approved a temporary moratorium to allow time for the Planning and Zoning Commission to study the potential ill effects of frac sand mining and to make corresponding amendments to the county’s zoning ordinance and comprehensive plan.

“This is not over. It’s just starting. Now the hard work begins,” said Supervisors Chairman Larry Schellhammer.

The Planning and Zoning Commission has begun researching the issue and will make recommendations to the supervisors by July of 2014, Zoning Administrator Tom Blake said.

Supervisor Dennis Koenig said more than 98 percent of the feedback he received from county residents indicated support for the moratorium.

Ric Zarwell of Lansing, a spokesman for the Allamakee County Protectors, a group formed to oppose frac sand mining, thanked the supervisors for listening to their constituents.

“Twenty to 30 years from now, Allamakee County could be an island of beauty in the tri-state area,” Zarwell said.

Zarwell referred to the “sand rush” under way in neighboring Wisconsin and Minnesota, where scores of mines are extracting the specialized sand used in hydraulic fracturing — the process by which water, silica sand and chemicals are injected under high pressure into underground shale deposits to release otherwise inaccessible oil and natural gas.

The group formed last fall after a Minnesota firm began pursuing at least three mining leases in northeast Allamakee County. All applications for conditional use permits have since been withdrawn.

Zarwell said the group hopes “to stop frac sand mining cold.” If that is not possible, he said, the moratorium will allow formulation of rules to protect the environment, public health and county infrastructure – mainly the roads that would be pounded by heavy truck traffic.

No one spoke against the moratorium at Monday’s meeting. Lansing resident Maynard Johnson, however, urged the supervisors to keep an open mind.

“You can restore mined areas to natural conditions,” said Johnson, whose farmland north of Lansing is believed to have deposits of Jordan sandstone.

Geologists say Allamakee County’s Jordan sandstone is well suited for fracking because its grains are round, hard, crush-resistant and of an ideal size, and the deposits are close to the surface and easily accessible.

The Pattison Sand Company operates the state’s only active frac sand mine near the town of Clayton along the Mississippi River in Clayton County.

After approving the first reading of the ordinance allowing the moratorium, the supervisors voted to waive the second and final readings and then voted to pass the ordinance effective immediately.

The Turkey River runs through Elkader, beneath the Keystone Arch Bridge, on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013. The river has flooded several times in recent decades, including a high water level more than 15 feet over flood stage in 2008. The bridge is the longest double-arch stone bridge west of the Mississippi River. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Innovative research on northeast Iowa’s Turkey River may herald a breakthrough in state efforts to mitigate future flood damage.

“This really is the first time that hydro modeling has been done in advance of project implementation to get the highest value for the investment,” said Larry Weber, director of IIHR — Hydroscience & Engineering, the parent organization of the Iowa Flood Center.

Iowa Flood Center hydrologists, in cooperation with the Turkey River Watershed Management Authority, have been gathering flow data from scores of sensors, mapping the entire 1.1 million-acre watershed and creating geomathematical models that will enable them to identify areas where the implementation of flood mitigation projects is most likely to reduce downstream damages.

“We are going to do it. We are going to have a positive impact,” Weber said.

He and his colleagues will unveil their findings and specific recommendations for Turkey River flood mitigation projects at a public meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday at the YMCA in Postville.

Targeted effort

“This is the vision for the whole state of Iowa — targeting mitigation projects based on scientific expertise to reduce flood risk,” said state Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, who was instrumental in the establishment of both the Iowa Flood Center and the watershed management authorities after the June 2008 floods that caused as much as $10 billion damage in the state.

“It doesn’t mean we will never have another flood, but we can reduce our vulnerability by reducing peak flows,” Hogg said.

Because rates of precipitation and runoff vary at different locations, hydrologists have developed engineering models that describe the land surface and use precipitation and river gauge data to predict stream flow at hundreds of sites, Weber said.

Such models have been used for at least a decade, but only recently have sufficiently fast and powerful computers become available to optimize their use, he said.

“This is one of the most exciting and promising projects I’ve been involved with,” said Rod Marlatt, in his 30th year as director of the Fayette County Conservation Department.

“This whole project was the Legislature’s answer to the floods of 2008, and now we are in a position to find out what can be done to reduce the impact of future floods. It’s invaluable, ” said Marlatt, chairman of the watershed authority that encompasses five counties, 35 towns and cities and several conservation agencies within the Turkey River watershed.

More projects

In addition to the Turkey River research, hydrologists have similar projects under way on the upper Cedar, the middle Raccoon and a pair of Des Moines River tributaries in southern Iowa, Soap and Chequest creeks.

Weber cited peak flow reductions of as much as 40 percent in the Soap Creek watershed after landowners built 134 water retention ponds.

A peak flood reduction of 15 percent would prevent immeasurable damage, said Marlatt.

“Fifteen percent doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot when floodwaters are 1/8 inch from the tops of the sandbags, as they were in Elgin in 2008,” he said.

That same year, downstream in Elkader, the Turkey poured into scores of homes and businesses, causing as much as $5 million in damage to the city’s infrastructure and resulting in the buyout of 32 homes, according to City Administrator Jennifer Cowsert, a regular attendee at watershed authority meetings.

Cowsert said the organization provides an ideal means of looking at the entire watershed as a unit with a shared understanding that rain must be managed and controlled where it falls.

“That’s really what it’s all about — taking a watershed approach. We’re all in this together, ” said state Rep. Roger Thomas, D-Elkader, another leader in the establishment of watershed authorities and funding for the Iowa Flood Center’s research.

Perhaps owing to their pride in the scenic Turkey, valley residents share a sense of community that may be lacking in other Iowa watersheds, said Corey Meyer, watershed coordinator with the Winneshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District.

The Turkey River authority also is developing a comprehensive flood control and water quality plan and working with natural resources professionals from several agencies to gather water quality samples at 50 locations, according to Brad Crawford, the Turkey River watershed project coordinator with Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development in Postville.

Iowa has committed about $10 million to watershed management projects, part of $84 million in federal Disaster Recovery Enhancement Funds awarded to the state in 2010. About $5.2 million will be spent on flood mitigation projects identified by the flood center, according to Weber.

Researchers will closely monitor the completed projects’ impact on runoff and river levels and present the information to legislators in the hope of securing more funds for more projects, Weber said.

Water from the Maquoketa River flows through the breach in the dam at Lake Delhi on Sunday, July 25, 2010, in Delhi. Organizers working to repair the dam say work could begin this spring. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Though several hurdles must yet be cleared, reconstruction of the washed-out Lake Delhi dam likely will begin this spring, according to lake district officials.

“This has definitely gone slower than we’d have liked, but it’s looking good for a spring start on phase 1,” the repair of the original concrete portion of the dam, said Steve Leonard, president of the board of trustees of the Combined Lake Delhi Recreational Facility and Water Quality District.

Phase 2, construction of an adjacent earthen dike and spillway, could be undertaken concurrently if the Maquoketa River flow remains manageable, said Pat Colgan, a retired civil engineer and volunteer coordinator of the rebuild effort.

Several issues remain to be resolved — including a fish ladder, flood plain easements and permits from the Corps of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources — but both Leonard and Colgan expect all the outstanding puzzle pieces to fall into place in a timely manner.

“With so many variables, including the weather and regulating agencies, it’s impossible to predict when the refilling of the lake might begin,” Leonard said.

In theory, at least, that process could begin as early as this fall, he said.

Making plans

As a condition for a $5 million appropriation to help restore Lake Delhi, the Legislature required the district to submit plans to improve public access and to reduce pollution and improve the lake’s water quality by addressing district residents’ septic systems.

The DNR initially rejected both plans, which have since been updated and resubmitted.

The DNR has accepted the updated water quality plan, and Lake Delhi officials hope the revised public access plan will address DNR concerns.

The DNR said it would require the district to install and maintain at least one public beach and one public boat ramp, each of which will be free to the public and include access from a state or county road, adequate parking and modern restroom facilities.

The revised plan, developed in cooperation with the DNR and several Delaware County departments, calls for a new recreational complex near the county-owned Turtle Creek Recreation Area. Accessible by county road, it would feature an additional two-lane boat ramp, parking for more than 50 vehicles, a new beach, public restrooms and additional shoreline access for observation and angling.

Cost estimates have yet to be completed, but lake officials said work is under way on an application for a state grant that would require a 25 percent local match.

The lake district’s revised wastewater treatment systems plan is “adequate … to reduce pollution and increase water quality at Lake Delhi,” DNR Director Chuck Gipp said in a Dec. 6 letter.

Wastewater inventory

The plan calls for a wastewater treatment inventory of all lake district properties. Two pilot mailings to residents have enabled the district to fine-tune the inventory process, Leonard said.

The DNR and the Delaware County Sanitation Department will jointly review the inventory and identify properties suspected of deficient or absent treatment. Those candidates will be required to have an inspection by a certain date.

Based on inspection results, the county will identify properties that may need septic system upgrades or replacements. The DNR and county will prioritize and schedule upgrades and replacements based on potential impact to wells, ground water and lake water, the density of properties and whether the system serves year-round or part-time residents.

Lake officials also have asked the DNR to waive its requirement that the dam include a means for fish to traverse the barrier.

Stanley Consultants of Muscatine, the design engineer for the project, estimates that it would cost about $2.4 million for a structure designed to facilitate fish passage over the 40-foot-high dam.

If the DNR grants the fish ladder waiver, Colgan said the lake district would likely be required to provide mitigating features elsewhere in the fishery.

Colgan said lake bed cleanup is another priority in preparation for the return of water.

“Most of the flood debris has been removed, but much of the lake bed has grown up to weeds and willow trees that will have to be cleared out,” he said.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Dan Solomon’s beagles, who bark only when they smell a rabbit, bayed nonstop for four hours Sunday morning in the Cedar River badlands just southeast of town.

Barreling at full cry through horseweeds and multiflora rose, Sadie, 11, the leader of the pack, and her proteges, Storm and Jasmine, hounded scores of cottontails from hiding and drove all but those who found refuge in holes within range of their human companions’ small-bore shotguns.

Solomon and Gary McNeese, both of Cedar Rapids, Keith Lowe of Mount Vernon and I shot an even dozen, whose pink flesh will be transformed into delicacies at an upcoming game feast to benefit youthful cancer patients.

As is typical of a good rabbit hunt, the actual shooting was overshadowed by the hounds’ dogged and melodious pursuits. Every boss would like to have employees with a beagle’s sense of cheerful urgency in the performance of difficult tasks.

Thirst, hunger, heat, cold, pain and fatigue mean nothing to a beagle on the trail of a rabbit.

They never pause for rest. They have to be encouraged to drink. They plunge heedlessly into gnarly brush piles. They hurl themselves through fences. And even when obstructions momentarily halt their progress, they run in place until they find a way through.

Nor do they ever cheat. Proceeding strictly by scent, they won’t leapfrog a packmate or bypass a brambles patch to gain ground on a hot trail.

For all their single-mindedness, however, they remain obedient, leaving, perhaps a little less than willingly, a fresh trail to go to their boss when he hollers: Hup. Hup Hup.

Such doggedness leads inevitably to cuts and scratches at times so severe they leave blood trails in the snow.

With a snowless landscape Sunday, Dan kept a close eye on the pack, pausing occasionally for drinks of bottled water and inspections of their faces, bellies and paws.

With Sadie bleeding from a cut near her one good eye, Dan called off the hunt at noon to spare the dogs further contact with thorny canes.

The dozen rabbits will be part of the fare at a March 10 wild game feast to benefit the Aiming for a Cure Foundation, which in turn helps cancer patients at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.

The feast starts at 2 p.m. at Touch of Class Catering and Events Center, 5977 Mount Vernon Rd. SE, Cedar Rapids.

A spring breeze unfurls the American flag on Main Street in downtown Central City in 2000. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

Central City will be recognized as the Iowa Rivers Revival’s “River Town of the Year” Monday.

“It’s exciting to be honored,” said City Administrator LaNeil McFadden.

“The community volunteers who have worked hard on improving our riverfront are thrilled,” McFadden said.

The award celebrates vibrant river communities across Iowa that are reclaiming river fronts as anchors for recreation, economic development, ecological practices and good water quality, said Roz Lehman, executive director of the statewide advocacy group that encourages Iowans to respect and enjoy their rivers.

Two events, the Wapsipinicon River flood of 1999 and becoming a Main Street Iowa community in 2000, changed the community’s relationship with the river, Mayor Don Gray said.

With assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city acquired 12 flood-prone properties, which were converted to parkland, essentially changing the river from a flood hazard to the community’s premier asset.

The city’s designation as a Main Street Iowa community strengthened residents’ resolve to develop that asset, Gray said.

In addition to fishing and paddle sports, which have long been popular in the community, Central City’s riverside attractions now include a basketball court, playground equipment, a splashpad and pavilions for community events.

Perhaps the greatest attraction, according to McFadden, is the hiking and biking trail that stretches nearly a mile along the east side of the river and has recently been connected with the eight miles of trails at Linn County’s Pinicon Ridge Park.

“We’ve always had a lot of fishermen along the river, but the popularity of the trail has been amazing to us. People are on it all the time, even in the winter,” she said.

Both McFadden and Gray said they see an increasing number of Iowa communities looking at rivers as assets they can capitalize on.

The award will be presented at a 10:30 a.m. ceremony at the Falcon Civic Center, 137 Fourth St. North.

Previous “River Towns of the Year” recognized by Iowa Rivers Revival are Webster City, Elkader, Coon Rapids, Cedar Falls and Charles City.

Bill Miller of Dubuque uses a feller bunchier to cut down pine trees at F.W. Kent Park on Monday, Jan. 14, 2013, near Tiffin. More than 26,000 non-native trees that were planted 40 years ago are now diseased and dying, and the Johnson County Conservation Department is working with the University of Iowa to reuse the wood by mixing it with coal and burning it at the UI power plant. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

Problem: Johnson County has 24 acres of dead and dying invasive species-infested pine trees and little if any money to clear the environmental wasteland for productive use.

Problem: The University of Iowa’s Sustainability Office is well short of its goal to meet 40 percent of the institution’s energy needs through sustainable sources by 2020.

Solution: The UI hires a contractor to cut and grind the Johnson County trees into biomass to be burned with coal in the university’s steam-generating boilers. The university ups its sustainable energy quotient, while the conservation department replaces an environmental nightmare with prairie and oak savanna jewels.

“Collaboration is enabling us to make the best of a bad situation,” said Harry Graves, director of the Johnson County Conservation Department.

Once the pines and spruces are cleared and the invasive plants subdued, the department will set about returning the land to the vegetative communities prevalent before European settlement.

Graves said his staff has been removing the dead trees — located mostly at the county’s flagship F.W. Kent Park near Tiffin — for firewood and mulch, but the trees are dying faster than they can be removed.

“Letting nature take its course is not an option,” he said.

A rogue’s gallery of invasive species — including garlic mustard, exotic honeysuckles and Canada thistles — would turn the ruined pine groves into an environmentally hostile jungle, he said.

Graves said he has been working for more than a year with Department of Natural Resources district forester Mark Vitosh to find a use for the resource.

The search was fruitless until Graves learned that the UI was looking to expand its use of biomass at its main power plant on Burlington Street, which since 2003 has been supplementing coal with oat hulls procured under an agreement with the Quaker plant in Cedar Rapids.

While the UI will “be paying a little more” for the wood biomass than for the fuel equivalence of coal, “this project allows us to gain the data and experiential knowledge that will allow us to further develop the concept of using local, sustainably managed biomass as fuel,” said Liz Christiansen, director of the university’s Office of Sustainability.

Gaining knowledge

Between 8 percent and 13 percent of the energy used by the university is provided by the oat hulls, she said.

“This project may move that up by 1 percent or so, but the real value here is in the data and experiential knowledge to be gained,” she said.

That knowledge could become even more valuable if the state’s millions of ash trees start succumbing to the emerald ash borer, which has been detected in northeast Iowa, Vitosh said.

Graves said Bill Miller Logging of Dubuque began clearing and harvesting the trees on Jan. 4, with the work expected to be complete by the end of the month.

The Kent Park trees, combined with out-of-place cedars and alien black locust trees growing on about 4 acres of sand prairie at the Ciha Fen, will yield about 1,800 tons of biomass, he said.

“We have literally thousands of trees dying in Kent Park right now,” said Dave Wehde, the department’s natural resources manager. “They are pretty much an eyesore and a fire hazard.”

Planting practices

Such plantings were common in the 1960s and ’70s, when county conservation boards were first established in Iowa. They served their purpose at the time, providing beauty and wildlife habitat, but the non-native trees were not sustainable over the long haul, Wehde said.

The failure of these plantings underscores the importance of planting species native to their specific area, Graves said.

The Linn County Conservation Department recently dealt with a similar situation involving about 50 acres of dead and dying pines on four plots at its Matsell Bridge Recreation Area.

The county not only rid itself of its unwanted pineries, but also netted $18,000 on the sale of the timber to a Dubuque logger, said Dennis Goemaat, the department’s deputy director.

Like the Kent Park trees, the Linn County pines were planted mostly in the 1960s, before conservationists understood the negative implications of non-native vegetation, Goemaat said.

Clearing of the timbers began two years ago and was completed last summer, said Dana Kellogg, the department’s natural resources specialist.

Some of the harvest was sold for construction poles, with the bulk of it ground for use as landscape mulch, pulpwood for paper manufacturers and biomass for energy generation, he said.

“We just hit it at the right time,” said Kellogg.

Although county workers will be exterminating invasive species for at least two more years, some areas have been replanted with a goal of returning the area to the prairies and oak savannas that were there before settlement.

Sgt. First Class Steven Webb of Indianola (from left), Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mike Baldus of Boone and Sgt. James Prince of Mason City work on exiting an upside-down MRAP Egress Trainer at Camp Dodge in Johnston on Dec. 19, 2012. The simulator can roll at different speeds and different directions so soldiers can understand the disorientation caused by a rollover and then learn to safely exit the vehicle with their team. The exercise also is performed with the lights out to simulate nighttime conditions. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

CAMP DODGE — Changes are in store for the Iowa National Guard as relative peace replaces more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The tempo will slow to a pace not seen for the past 12 years,” said Maj. Gen. Tim Orr, the Iowa Guard’s adjutant general.

For Guard members and their families, the most obvious anticipated change will be fewer, smaller, shorter and less dangerous deployments, he said.

The Guard will, however, “remain an operational force, trained and ready to resume combat roles when called upon,” Orr said.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Orr said the Guard changed suddenly from a strategic reserve to an operational force, with a beefed-up budget to fund more intense, combat-specific training and upgraded equipment. For the foreseeable future, he said, the Guard will make do with much less funding.

“The world can change on short notice, and the Army realizes we are probably going to be called on again, but for now we are maintaining our relevance through training and preparation,” said Col. Ben Corell, who commanded the 2nd Brigade Combat Team during the Guard’s recent Afghanistan deployment.

The challenge, he said, is maintaining readiness in a peacetime environment.

“It’s hard to duplicate the focus and intensity that soldiers have when they know they are going to war,” said Corell, a Strawberry Point native who has been deployed to combat zones four times in the past 10 years.

The extent of the forthcoming budget cuts “remains to be seen and will depend on the strategic environment around the world,” Iowa Guard spokesman Col. Greg Hapgood said.

Maintaining numbers

The Guard’s shrunken budget will not, however, result in a substantial reduction in force, he said.

Hapgood said a high percentage of Iowa Guard troops served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“During that time we’ve lost 22 members in combat operations, which includes deaths from wounds, accidents and illnesses,” Hapgood said.

The Iowa Guard’s most recent deployment — about 40 soldiers in the 186th Military Police Company sent off Dec. 2 for service in Honduras — will be typical of most deployments in the immediate future, Hapgood said. Their mission will be disaster relief, humanitarian aid, strengthening a regional ally and countering transnational crime.

A major casualty of the downsizing will be the Iowa Air National Guard’s detachment of 21 F-16 aircraft, which will be moved from Des Moines under provisions of a federal defense bill recently approved by Congress.

Orr said about 32 Iowa Guard positions are expected to be eliminated when the 132nd Fighter Wing is replaced in Des Moines by three smaller units, including one that will remotely fly unmanned aircraft and another that will analyze the data collected.

Training simulators

Hapgood said the Guard is reducing its training expenses by taking advantage of combat simulators.

The Iowa Guard uses the Engagement Skills Trainer 2000, an elaborate $1.4 million computer system, for marksmanship training and combat scenarios including shoot/don’t shoot situations.

“The sound, recoil, shape and heft of the weapon — everything is realistic except the bullets,” said Staff Sgt. Beaumont Pierson, who manages the EST 2000 at Camp Dodge, the Iowa Guard’s headquarters in Johnston.

Using the EST 2000, “a whole battalion can accomplish its weapons training goals in a single weekend,” said Pierson of Remsen.

Capt. Kent Greiner said the Iowa Guard’s eight EST 2000 units save both time and money, compressing training sessions, reducing transportation expenses and eliminating the cost of ammunition.

“It gets troops on target much faster and expedites diagnosis of shooting problems,” said Greiner, a company commander with the Guard’s 168th Infantry Regiment.

The system accommodates every weapon typically used by an Army platoon, from pistols and rifles to machine guns and grenade launchers.

The Guard’s training also includes equipment that simulates rollovers with two common Army vehicles — the Humvee and the MRAP (mine-resistant ambush-protected) vehicle.

Soldiers in combat need to understand how to safely exit a wrecked vehicle and how to defend themselves when they do, said Greiner, whose company experienced two MRAP rollovers while serving in Afghanistan last year.

“You can’t be wrecking Humvees for training,” said Greiner, a Dike native who served with the Guard’s 1-133rd Iron Man Battalion in its marathon Iraq deployment in 2006 and 2007.

Ice fishing will never replace open-water angling in my affections, but it will do until spring returns.

Three of the biggest thrills of open-water angling — the detection of the bite, the hookset and the battle — are substantially subdued in ice fishing.

And, of course, personal comfort is harder to come by when the wind chill factor falls below zero, as it often does during an Iowa winter.

But the central challenge of all angling (and the sport’s fundamental appeal), finding fish and getting them to bite, remains the same.

And in the long, dark days of January and February, watching the slender tip of a 24-inch pole for the slight movement signifying a bite beats watching strangers catching lunker bass on television.

Especially when you have an electronic flasher to signify that a fish is near your jig.

Some people criticize flasher units — which show the bottom, your jig and any nearby fish — as an unfair advantage. In effect, flashers tell you if there are fish in the water column beneath your hole, and they signal the presence of a catchable fish, enabling the angler to be fully alert to the subtle rod tip movements that betray a softly biting fish.

Not only does it enhance an angler’s effectiveness, it also adds video game excitement to a sport that could otherwise get dull.

Our screens were almost constantly lit up Sunday with the red lines indicating interested fish on what turned out to be one of the easiest and most comfortable ice fishing outings I’ve ever experienced.

My nephew, Sam Patterson of Atkins, took me to a secret Benton County lake where we set up his tent over the same holes through which he had pulled crappies the day before.

With his propane heater purring, we sat in gloveless comfort watching the red lines of crappies converge with the yellow lines our jigs.

When our spring bobbers dipped, we cranked up a crappie.

The only lulls in the action occurred when we sloppily allowed our wax worms to get too ragged to appeal to the otherwise not-too-discriminating fish.

In three hours we caught our limits of identical 9.5-inch crappies.

It took us another hour to clean them all, and by evening my wife and I were enjoying the meal I would request if it were my last night on Death Row.

Despite this summer's drought, farm fields with tile drainage systems tended to produce higher yields. Photographed near Quasqueton on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Counterintuitive as it may seem, farm fields with the best tile drainage systems generally produced the highest yields during last year’s drought, area farmers and other experts say.

“I saw that right away in the first field I harvested this fall,” said Marion-area farmer Curt Zingula.

Zingula said he became “100 percent convinced” of the benefits of tile in a dry year when he observed a disappointing harvest of soybeans on his traditionally wettest field.

“My conclusion is that you have a better soil structure yielding better root growth in well-drained fields,” he said.

Tracy Franck of Quasqueton said dips in his combine yield monitor data showed him exactly which of his Buchanan County fields were most in need of more tile.

Iowa State University Extension field agronomists reported similar findings at a meeting in October, according to drainage tile expert Matt Helmers, an associate professor of agricultural and biosciences engineering at ISU.

Better yields on better-drained soil “was common this year,” Helmers said.

While it may seem counterproductive to drain subsoil water away from plants in a drought year, “tiling removes only excess water. It does not reduce the amount of plant-available water,” Helmers said.

Tile drains soil only to the depth of the tile — typically between three and four feet — so it does not affect water stored below that depth, said Gene Blazek, whose company, Blazek Corporation of Lawler, installs agricultural drain tile along with its specialty, sewer and water system repairs.

Well-drained soil encourages deep and healthy root systems, which in 2012 enabled corn to tap subsoil moisture to depths well below 5 feet, said Blazek, a past president of the Iowa Land Improvement Contractors Association.

“Tile is always a plus, even in dry years,” said Blazek’s brother, Don Blazek, who farms near Lawler.

“You pay for tile, whether you have it or not,” Don Blazek said.

Thorough tiling of formerly undrained land can increase corn yields as much as 50 bushels per acre, he said.

Increasing tile density on already tiled fields will typically increase yields from 5 percent to 10 percent, he said.

More tiling

Helmers said more ag drainage tile has been installed in Iowa during the past two years than in any other comparable period.

“Farmers have money to spend, but land prices are so high they are investing in tile,” said Gene Blazek.

Dense tiling can cost as much as $1,000 per acre, but farmers quickly recoup their investment through the increased value and productivity of their land, he said.

Although almost all Iowa cropland has already been tiled, many farmers are installing more of the plastic drainage tubes in a practice known as pattern tiling, he said.

“Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the standard was 80 feet between the lateral lines emptying into tile mains. Now most of the lateral lines are either 40 or 60 feet apart,” Don Blazek said.

Gene Blazek said the demand for ag tile has created a backlog for contractors, encouraging many farmers to buy specialized tile plows that enable them to tile their own fields.

“They have the money. They have slack time after harvest. They already have the big tractors required to pull the tile plows,” he said.

Although tiling contractors generally regret the advent of do-it-yourself tile installation, Blazek said farmers can do a good job “if they know what they are doing.”

Trumpeter swans are spotted on the Cedar River on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids on Monday, December 31, 2012. (Kyle Grillot/The Gazette)

The nearly two dozen trumpeter swans residing here on the Cedar River below the roller dam in Cedar Rapids attest to the success of the state’s swan reintroduction program.

“For all the effort that has gone into the program, a large flock in an urban area is a nice indication that it is paying off,” said Ken Carroll, a parks and natural resources assistant professor at Kirkwood Community College – an institution that has been deeply involved in the restoration effort since shortly after field work began in 1995.

Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Dave Hoffman, who coordinates the program, said he is not greatly surprised to learn of the swans’ concentration in the state’s second-largest city.

“The swan population is growing. They are attracted to open water, which is becoming hard to find right now. And the area has nearby crop fields where they can feed,” Hoffman said.

The swans have been on the Cedar since at least Monday, and Kirkwood students and staff have been regularly monitoring them since Tuesday.

Carroll said the birds’ presence on the river has prompted expressions of concern about their safety, following the wanton fatal shooting in February of a swan residing on a pond on the Kirkwood campus.

That incident remains under investigation, and a $1,000 reward remains in effect for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the responsible party, according to Dick Heft, board chairman of Turn In Poachers of Iowa.

Heft said pertinent information should be referred to local law enforcement authorities and can be provided anonymously by calling the TIP hotline, 1-(800) 532-2020.

Hoffman said shooting is the leading cause of mortality among swans and “one of our most frustrating challenges” in restoring the majestic birds to their native Iowa.

“We had three or four shooting deaths last year and 57 since the program began,” he said.

Some of the shootings have been classified as “mistaken identity” on the part of hunters, but others, including the Kirkwood slaying in February, have been classified as “thrill kills,” in which the shooter knowingly kills a legally protected bird.

Other leading causes of swan deaths, Hoffman said, are power line collisions, lead poisoning, predators, disease and, last year especially, the ill effects of drought, which dislocated many young swans when their natal wetlands dried up.

Despite more than 250 known swan deaths since the mid-1990s, Iowa’s swan population has grown steadily and is close to establishing a sustainable wild population, according to Hoffman.

The state now has about 50 wild nesting pairs raising about 80 cygnets to flight stage each year. Successful nests have occurred in at least 20 of Iowa’s 99 counties, mostly in north-central and east-central Iowa. Tagged Iowa swans have been observed in 17 states and two Canadian provinces.

Carroll said one of the swans on the Cedar River has a yellow neck band inscribed with “27T.”

“That’s a Wisconsin band, and the swans on the river are probably a mixture of Iowa and Wisconsin swans,” said Hoffman, who encourages Iowans to report nesting or marked swans by calling (641)-357-3517.

Following recent cold weather, Iowa has received an influx of waterfowl and other birds from Minnesota and Wisconsin, he said.

Before the reintroduction, the last nesting pair of trumpeters in the Iowa wilds was seen in 1893 in Hancock County in north-central Iowa. The birds became extinct in Iowa because of the drainage of wetlands for farm production and because the big birds were shot for food and feathers before the turn of the century.

Trumpeter swans, the only swans native to Iowa, are North America’s largest waterfowl, weighing up to 30 pounds at maturity and with a wing span of 7 feet. They are distinguished by their loud trumpet sound.

Teel, 31, speaking Wednesday evening at the club’s annual awards banquet, said it’s an honor to have his name inscribed on the traveling trophy that records winners dating to the club’s formation in 1973.

“That means a lot to me to have my name up there with my mentors,” Teel said. “This club has a high level of competition. It’s awesome to be able to compete with them and come out on top once in a while.”

Teel attributed his success to versatility and a strong work ethic.

Having pre-fished for every club tournament the past two years, Teel said his familiarity with local conditions and his ability to adapt to changes gave him an edge over many competitors.

“It’s hard to do well if you have to spend tournament time finding fish and determining how to catch them. You have to have that figured out from the get-go,” he said.

Teel joined the club in 1999 and fished out of the back of other club members’ boats until 2004. Becoming a boater, he said, has enabled him to find fish-holding spots that are not commonly known.

“You just have to go out and try it. That’s how you learn,” he said.

The Cedar Rapids Bassmasters title goes to the angler who records the highest cumulative score in the club’s seven tournaments, with 100 points to the winner of a tournament, 99 points to the runner-up, and so forth. Teel recorded 686 points without winning a tournament, although he placed in the top five in all club tournaments a second straight year.

Runner-up Dean Miller, who won the club title in 2004, also without winning a single tournament, finished eight points behind Teel. The winner’s dad, Steve Teel of Independence, finished third.

Others in the top 12 (in descending order) were Dave Reibsamen, Darren Corley, Bob Heath, Roger Corley, Dennis Olson, Jim Roth, Justin Lubbock, Verlyn Hines and Tom Milder.

The club’s annual fundraiser, an ice fisheree on Pleasant Creek Lake, is Jan. 27. Proceeds benefit the popular recreation area near Palo.

Iowa Farm Bureau Federation President Craig Hill said he was “shocked and surprised” that the farm bill extension included in the package reauthorized direct payments to farmers.

So were traditional farm bill critics such as the Environmental Working Group and the R Street Institute.

Hill said farmers were generally pleased with the nine-month statutory extension of most Department of Agriculture programs.

The extension of federal crop insurance subsidies and minor adjustments to the estate tax “give farmers the certainty they need going into the 2013 planting season,” Hill said.

But the reauthorization of the $5 billion per year direct payment program, which pays about $500 million a year to Iowa farmers, left him feeling “a little unsettled,” Hill said.

“The money could have been better spent,” particularly in light of the nation’s ongoing fiscal crisis, Hill said.

Created by the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, direct payments are provided to owners of farm land that historically has been used to grow corn, cotton, rice, soybeans or wheat.

President Barack Obama has proposed abolishing the program, as has even the American Farm Bureau, and direct payments were zeroed out in the versions of the Farm Bill passed last year both by the Senate and the House Agriculture Committee.

Given the uncertainty surrounding U.S. fiscal policy, Hill said he would not count on the money until the check arrives – typically in the fall.

The average per acre direct payment is about $24 for corn and in the $10-to-$12 range for soybeans, according to David DeGennaro, a legislative analyst for the Environmental Working Group.

The average for rice and cotton, however, is about $100 and $75, respectively, which explains why Southern farmers fought to keep the payments and why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wanted them as part of the farm bill extension, DeGennaro said.

Hill said farmers were relieved that the legislation will provide a permanent 40 percent tax rate on estates worth more than $5 million ($10 million per couple). Some proposals had called for a 55 percent rate with an exemption of only $1 million.

The Environmental Working Group, in a press release Wednesday, said the farm bill extension “perpetuates the widely discredited direct payment farm subsidies that will send $5 billion this year alone to large farming operations that already reap record profits.”

The R Street Institute said the extension marks a missed opportunity to kill a program “that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle recognize is horribly wasteful.”

Scientific instruments hang beneath a helicopter that will be used in the coming weeks to gather data for mapping the rock layers deep beneath northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota. The maps will help determine water and mineral resources beneath the region. (U.S. Geological Survey photo)

Residents of Winneshiek and Allamakee counties needn’t be alarmed if they see low-flying aircraft with dangling instruments in the weeks ahead.

It is only scientists studying the rock layers deep beneath northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A low flying airplane and helicopter with auxiliary instrumentation will be used in flights beginning as soon as Sunday and continuing through January, the USGS said.

The data will be used to generate 3-D subsurface maps of the region’s water and mineral resources.

“The USGS uses the latest technology to find new sources of” clean water and valuable minerals “even when buried deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and places that information in the public domain to benefit all Americans,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt.

The survey area is thought to be part of the 1.1 billion year old Midcontinent Rift, which stretches across much of the central United States. The rift includes large volumes of iron and magnesium-rich igneous rocks that, in the Lake Superior region, contain deposits of nickel, copper and platinum.

USGS scientists plan to use the new geophysical data to help determine if there is potential for similar resources in the survey area. A secondary goal is to evaluate water resources beneath the sandstone and limestone layers.

Large electromagnetic and magnetic instruments will be suspended on a cable beneath the helicopter. The airplane will carry gravity gradient instruments.

Because different rock types differ in their content of water, magnetic minerals and density, the resulting geophysical maps will allow visualization of the geologic structure below the surface.

None of the instruments pose a health risk to people or animals.

All survey flights will occur during daylight hours at heights between 100 and 500 feet. The east-west grid lines will be about a quarter mile apart, while the north south lines will be about 2.5 miles apart.

In this April 22, 1991 file photo, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf waves to the crowd after a military band played a song in his honor at welcome home ceremonies at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. Schwarzkopf died Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 in Tampa, Fla. He was 78. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published in The Gazette April 7, 2002.

A business suit has replaced the desert fatigues, but the expansive face and resonant voice of retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf inspired the same comfort and confidence during his speech here last night as it did during his frequent press briefings during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.

About 1,100 people paid between $45 and $100 to hear the retired general discuss “leadership in difficult times” at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center on the University of Northern Iowa campus.

The event was sponsored by the UNI Alumni Association. Schwarzkopf gave his listeners the following two rules, which he called the secrets of 21st century leadership.

“When placed in command, take charge” and “do what’s right.” Good leaders, he said, have a bias for action.

When faced with a tough decision, he said, “don’t do what you think the chief of staff wants done or what you think will make you look good – do what’s right.”

It takes character, the most important ingredient in leadership, to discern what’s right, Schwarzkopf said.

“We all want to be led by someone who is special, someone we think is better than we are,” he said.

Grasping the U.S. flag next to him, Schwarzkopf said, to our enemies, this is a symbol of a godless, selfish nation. To others around the world it is a symbol of wealth and high technology, he said.

“They’re all wrong,” he said. “What this is, is you. America has always been the American people.”

The greatest challenge of military leadership, according to Schwarzkopf, is to persuade people to do things they really do not want to do.

Outside the auditorium, about 60 peace activists waved signs and handed out leaflets questioning the general’s character.

“We feel he is an unethical leader in his denial of gulf war syndrome,” said Andrew Moomaw, co-president of the UNI Amnesty International chapter. Moomaw, a senior from Newton, said gulf war syndrome has afflicted thousands of gulf war veterans and the military leadership has done little to help them.

Self-taught onirthologist Althea Sherman peers through binoculars at birds near her home in the Clayton County hamlet of National early in the 20th century. (Oberlin College Archives photo)

A 97-year-old dilapidated bird observation tower in storage for two decades will soon be returned to its original purpose.

Pioneering ornithologist Althea Sherman’s ingenious chimney swifts’ tower, constructed in 1915 in the Clayton County town of National, will be restored and erected, perhaps as soon as next year, at a historic Cedar County nature preserve.

It’s uncanny how similar the two sites are,” said Barbara Boyle of the Johnson County Songbird Project, which is working with the Cedar County Historical Society to make the restored tower a reality.

The historical society owns the Bicket-Rate Preserve, a 560-acre tract along the Cedar River near the town of Buchanan, on which stands Edgewood Hall, a rambling 1836 farmhouse that closely resembles the long- demolished Sherman house in National.

The restored tower will stand next to Edgewood Hall, just as it once stood next to the Sherman home, when scores of renowned ornithologists visited to learn about Sherman’s groundbreaking bird study methods.

“You’d swear it’s meant to be,” said Sharon Lynch-Zoparil, director of the historical society.

Not only are the houses similar but the surrounding areas are also bird havens, she said.

“Much of the preserve is timber and river bottom, and the only sounds you hear are natural. People notice the quiet, which is like it must have been at National a century ago,” Boyle said.

Pioneering ornithologist Althea Sherman built this tower as a means to study chimney swifts at the family home in National in 1915. The tower was moved to Harpers Ferry in 1962 and it has been in storage for the past 20 years, but it may soon be restored and erected in Cedar County under a partnership of the Johnson County Songbird Project and the Cedar County Historical Society. (Oberlin college archives)

The preserve has seldom been open to the public since it was bequeathed to the historical society in 1994, but that will change when the tower is up and the restoration of Edgewood Hall is complete, Lynch-Zoparil said.

After Sherman’s death in 1943, the family property in National was sold and the tower was moved to Harpers Ferry, where it stood until the Songbird Project acquired it in 1992. The 28-foot-tall, 9-foot square tower has since been stored first in Iowa City and later at Bicket-Rate.

The tower’s artificial chimney attracted nesting swifts, which Sherman was able to observe through windows and peep holes accessible from a circular stairway.

While Sherman’s research was cutting edge in the 1920s, the restored tower will be fitted with a pair of cameras and a microphone that will enable bird lovers to view the swifts’ domestic life via the Internet.

The equipment will be donated and installed by Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Research Project, whose Decorah eagle nest cam has set the standard for the innovative bird observation technique.

“I’m honored to be involved,” said Anderson, who is a fan of both chimney swifts and Sherman’s research.

Sherman (1853-1943) lived most of her life in National, where she conducted painstaking studies of birds that nested near her home. Many of her observations were recorded in “Birds of an Iowa Dooryard,” a book published after her death.

She taught herself how to study birds and became only the fourth woman to be named a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1912.

Songbird Project President Jim Walters said a pair of anonymous donors recently pledged $25,000 toward the restoration effort on the condition that other donors match the funds.

“We are about half way there, but we can use some help,” he said.

The group is also still raising money to meet the required match on a $175,000 Historic Site Preservation Grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa, Boyle said.

Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to the Johnson County Songbird Project, 1033 E. Washington St., Iowa City 52240-5248.

For more details, go to http://www.althearsherman.org/

A Decorah eagle known as D1 flies Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, near Wadena, Iowa. The eagle was one hatched in the Raptor Resource Project nest south of Decorah. (Photo by Jim Womeldorf)

Christmas may be is just another day in the life of a bald eagle, but D1, the parapatetic offspring of the world-famous Decorah eagles, is home for the holidays.

D1, who spent three months this summer above the Arctic Circle, “was right in downtown Decorah on Saturday morning,” said Raptor Resource Project Director Bob Anderson, who has used a satellite transmitter mounted on D1’s back to track her many thousands of miles of wandering since she left the nest 18 months ago.

When Anderson switched on his receiver Saturday morning, he said he got a strong signal right from his kitchen table on Locust Street in Decorah.

That signal increased in strength and maxed out as he drove across the Upper Iowa River on the Fifth Avenue bridge, where he spotted D1 perched in a tree overlooking the river.

“It’s completely amazing that this same eagle, which spent three months this summer in Polar Bear Provincial Park on Hudson Bay in northernmost Ontario, Canada, is again back in Decorah,” Anderson said.

Anderson photographed D1 from a distance, but she spooked when he drove closer in an attempt to get a better image.

“This is good. She has a fear of people that can only help her in life,” Anderson said.

D1, which signifies Decorah first satellite, was fitted with a satellite transmitter July 12, 2011, to help Anderson and other researchers learn what becomes of young northern eagles after they leave the nest.

Last year D1 took a four-month, 900-mile tour of Minnesota and Wisconsin before returning to Decorah on Dec. 28.

Anderson said he doubts that familial bonds have anything to do with her attraction to Decorah. “At this point, if she returned to the nest, her parents would probably chase her off,” he said.

Earlier this year Anderson fitted one of the 2012 hatchlings with a satellite transmitter. That eagle, dubbed D14, rarely strayed far from home. It was electrocuted in late October near Rockford, about 50 miles southwest of its natal nest at the Decorah Fish Hatchery.

Another of this year’s hatchlings was also electrocuted. D12 was found dead July 1 at the base of a power pole near the nest at the hatchery.

Through the first 11 months of this year, sheriffs in Iowa’s 99 counties had issued 37,327 permits.

Those permits, combined with the 102,795 permits issued in 2011 — the first year after Iowa went from a “may issue” to a “shall issue” state — brings to more than 140,000 the number of Iowans licensed to carry weapons.

At the end of 2010, before the law change, 1.3 percent of Iowans had carry permits. That percentage increased to 3.3 percent at the end of last year and stands at 4.6 percent through the first 11 months of this year.

The number of new permits issued this year is about equal to the cumulative number of Iowans who had permits to carry before the law changed on Jan. 1, 2011, said Ross Loder, bureau chief of the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Though the law seems to be working well, with few untoward incidents involving permit holders, sheriffs remain concerned that system allows potentially dangerous people to buy and carry handguns.

The law that liberalized the issuance of weapons permits includes a provision requiring the Department of Public Safety to forward disqualifying mental health information to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System.

While the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits the possession of firearms by the mentally ill, it specifies that people can be deprived of that right only if they have been declared mentally unfit by a court or have been committed to an institution for the mentally ill.

The FBI database, which is used for background checks on applicants for permits to own and carry weapons in Iowa and other states, flags applicants with the two disqualifying mental health statuses.

During 2011, Iowa clerk of court offices transmitted to the FBI database 2,369 mental health disqualification records, according to Loder. As a practical matter, the system includes few such records generated before 2011, he said.

“Absolutely, that is a concern,” said Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner. “Mental illness is a key factor in most of the mass murders” such as the Dec. 14 fatal shootings in Newtown, Conn., he said.

Maj. Steve Dolezal of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said the “shall issue” law’s limitations on sheriffs’ discretion in issuing gun permits is especially harmful in the case of applicants with mental health issues.

“We’ve lost the ability to take input from family, friends, neighbors and employers — the people with the best insights into an applicant’s mental health status,” Dolezal said.

Gardner said jail and prison populations include a high percentage of people suffering from mental illness. In most cases, he said, “they don’t get any treatment until they come to me.”

People with mental health ailments began showing up disproportionately in the criminal justice system in the 1970s after the state began reducing services at its mental health institutions without providing adequate funding to duplicate those services within communities, according to Jessica Peckover, jail alternatives coordinator with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.

Today, she said, people with serious, chronic mental ailments make up 16 percent of the criminal justice system population, which compares with 5.8 percent in the general public.

The Johnson County program diverts from jail to treatment programs about 200 of the approximately 7,000 people arrested each year by the Sheriff’s Office, Peckover said.

Her clients, she said, have been arrested for lower-level offenses rather than violent crimes.

Though Gardner regrets that the “shall issue” law has taken away most of his discretion in issuing permits, he acknowledges that few if any permit holders have been involved in shooting-related crimes, either as a victim or perpetrator.

“That’s not surprising — the bad guys are not going to think it’s important to apply for a permit,” he said.

Loder said he had heard of only a few untoward incidents involving people with permits to carry, mainly drunken driving arrests of people carrying weapons.

During the past year, the Linn County Sheriff’s Office has issued 63 denials, suspensions or revocations of permits either to purchase or carry weapons, according to Maj. John Godar.

Most of those cases, he said, involve felony convictions or convictions for drug or domestic violence offenses.

Godar said some disqualifications are detected when the department does an annual recheck of its database, which flags violations that may have occurred after the issuance of a permit. Johnson County also conducts annual rechecks of its database, Dolezal said.

USDA watershed project coordinator Michelle Turner stands along a stretch of Farmer’s Creek in Jackson County on the farm of Bob and Judy Kremer on Thursday. The Kremers voluntarily participated in a program that paid for a manure facility, fencing off the stream from their cattle and stream bank stabilization. The stream was cited in the Environmental Working Group’s report on Iowa water quality as an example of the concerted action required to improve water quality. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

Voluntary conservation, the prevalent method in Iowa, is not making the state’s water any cleaner, according to a study released today by the Environmental Working Group.

“If we are serious about cleaning up Iowa’s water, we are going to need regulations” to curb damaging farming practices, said study co-author Craig Cox, EWG senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources.

The 52-page statistical analysis of Iowa water quality data, titled “Murky Waters,” concludes that Iowa rivers, streams and lakes are no cleaner than they were 10 years ago and predicts water quality “will still be poor 10 years from now, given business as usual.”

The critique of voluntary conservation comes just weeks after state leaders announced the Iowa Nutrient Management Strategy, which is intended through voluntary conservation practices to greatly reduce the volume of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer washed into state waters from farm fields.

“I can’t see how a voluntary program would yield the necessary amount of change in the way we farm,” said Susan Heathcote, water programs coordinator for the Iowa Environmental Council.

In today’s report, the EWG analyzed Iowa Water Quality Index data — nitrogen, phosphorus and bacteria among nine total parameters — from 98 stream monitoring sites, including 10 on the Iowa River, nine on the Cedar and four on the Wapsipinicon.

To account for variations in weather and stream flow, the analysts averaged data for two 36-month periods — from October 1999 to September 2002 and from October 2008 through September 2011.

Their calculations showed that, on average, 60 percent of the sites were in either poor or very poor condition, that 39 percent were rated fair, that no stream segment was rated excellent, and only one, the Chariton River downstream of Lake Rathbun, was rated good.

“Relying solely on paying farmers who volunteer to apply conservation practices has failed to clean up Iowa’s streams and rivers. Common sense regulation is desperately needed,” the EWG report said.

Bill Northey, secretary of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, one of the agencies that developed the Iowa strategy, said a science-based voluntary approach to conservation “is a better alternative than one-size-fits-all regulation that limits choices.”

Northey told farmers gathered in Des Moines last week for the annual meeting of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation that they can expect regulation if they don’t substantially reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus escaping their fields.

“You can’t require 90,000 farms on widely varying soil types all to do X, Y and Z and expect it to work,” said Rick Robinson, environmental policy adviser for the Iowa Farm Bureau. “The strategy’s science assessment shows it will take a specific set of practices tailored to each farm.”

Robinson cautioned that controlling runoff from non-point pollution sources such as farm fields is limited by available funding, weather, soil types and tillage practices, and that progress might not be as rapid and dramatic as hoped.

Iowa farmers are becoming increasingly aware, he said, that if they can’t make voluntary conservation practices work, they will likely face legislation or regulation through the courts.

Increased public demand for clean water will put additional pressure on everyone to make the strategy succeed, said Kevin Baskins, spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, which also helped develop the strategy.

Contrary to the assertions of environmental advocacy groups, Iowa farmers have made considerable progress in reducing pollution of Iowa waters, Robinson said.

Citing a USDA National Resources Inventory report, Robinson noted that soil erosion in Iowa had been reduced 33 percent from 1982 through 2007.

A 2008 University of Iowa survey of rural well water in the state showed a reduction in herbicides and an 11 percent reduction in nitrates during the preceding 20 years, Robinson said.

Iowa and Mississippi are the first two of 12 states, as required by the Environmental Protection Agency, to develop a state nutrient reduction strategy not only to clean up the state’s waters but also to address the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone.” Farm pollution from fertilizer and manure, with the leading shares coming from Iowa and Illinois, contributes 70 percent of the nitrate that is depleting oxygen and imperiling aquatic life in the Gulf.

Northey said his agency has asked the Legislature for $2.4 million in fiscal year 2014 and $4.4 million in the following year to fund cost-share conservation projects.

Iowa Policy Project Director David Osterberg, a former legislator, said Iowa consistently underfunds water quality. A report issued in March by the group reported a 25 percent decline in water quality funding since 2002.

Osterberg said the state ought to “mandate and figure out a way to pay for” the implementation of vegetation buffer strips along waterways to filter phosphorus and strategically placed wetlands to filter nitrogen.