Alcohol-related laws for boat operators should be the same as those for highway vehicle drivers, say Department of Natural Resources law enforcement officials. “It is inconsistent that we allow open containers in boats, but not in highway vehicles,” said Robert Garrison, chief of the DNR’s Law Enforcement Bureau. It is also inconsistent that boat [...]

  State officials are ignoring important public policy recommendations to cope with climate change and increased risks of flooding and water pollution, Iowa Policy Project researchers said Monday. “Iowans are going to see increased problems with water quality and quantity, in the form of flood damage, unless we make changes,” said Brian McDonough, lead author [...]

Fracking — a controversial oil and natural gas extraction method — is creating controversy along Main Street in this historic tourist destination. Not that there is any actual fracking going on here, but a steady stream of heavy trucks loaded with silica sand, a key fracking ingredient, is stirring dust, noise and discontent. “My peace [...]

  A wandering black bear left West Union under a police escort on Friday morning. “He was pretty compliant,” said Fayette County Sheriff Marty Fisher, who used his own ATV to herd the bear to a timber about two miles northwest of town. The bear, believed to be the same one seen Tuesday in Ridgeway, [...]

D1, the Decorah eagle with the satellite transmitter, has taken a sudden fishing vacation to Canada. After spending almost all of this year near or south of her natal area, the yearling took off May 3 for points north. As of Wednesday – after covering 453 miles in 12 days, including a 139-mile leg on [...]

State officials advise sobriety afloat and especially on Memorial Day weekend when a large contingent of Iowa’s 229,000 registered boats take to the water. Although state law allows boat operators to drink within the legal .08 blood alcohol limit, “We recommend a designated boat operator who abstains from alcohol,” said Susan Stocker, the DNR’s boating [...]

A scientific report issued Wednesday confirms what most Iowans have long known or suspected: that heavy rains have been falling with increasing frequency, causing disastrous flooding. Incidences of the most severe downpours have doubled during the past 50 years in eight Midwest states, according to a report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS — Medal of Honor recipient Sal Giunta told members of the senior class at Kennedy High School he is confident they will change the world for the better. On Tuesday night, the 2003 Kennedy graduate presented the first Sal Giunta Scholarship to graduating senior Abi Gray, 18, of Cedar Rapids. One of [...]

INDEPENDENCE — A sidewalk replacement project has opened a window to the past, providing a brief glimpse of what the city’s business district looked like before it was deliberately buried nearly 140 years ago. “Seeing it from the outside provides a new perspective,” said Wanda Goins, vice president of the Buchanan County Historical Society and [...]

  DELHI — Economic opportunity, religious freedom and a scenic rural landscape have attracted a new Amish community to the rolling hills southwest of here. Organic farmer John Henry Yoder said “religious differences” with the elders of the Edgewood Amish community, the settlers’ former home, played a role in his family’s move to the Delhi [...]

The resurfacing last summer of a box of human bone fragments has prompted a federal investigation into the mishandling of Native American remains at Effigy Mounds National Monument. “We would hope that the powers that be do something. All we want is justice and to take care of the remains of our ancestors,” said Johnathan [...]

Eastern Iowa apple growers survived a frost scare Friday morning, but they are looking ahead with concern to two more cold mornings next week. “So far, so good,” said Dave Nading of Strawberry Point, whose 650 apple trees appeared to have survived unscathed. Nading said he had heard local reports of 29-degree lows – a [...]

Legal challenges to new clean water protections in Iowa raised by the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and other groups are “without merit” and should not move on to trial, a judge in the Iowa District Court for Polk County ruled Friday. The protections, known as antidegradation rules, limit the harmful effects of new pollution in [...]

  As long as Iowa farmers lead the nation in corn production, they will be among the leading contributors of nitrogen fertilizer to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Peak corn production, upon which much of Iowa depends, itself depends upon nitrogen fertilizer, the pollutant responsible for the dead zone, and upon the [...]

Invasive plants and animals, many of them deliberately imported and without natural controls, continue to displace beneficial native species, degrading Iowa’s natural environment. With the early start to spring, many of these species have a leg up this year. So The Gazette asked a panel of experts to help us compile a list of Iowa’s 10 [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — While record March warmth has put a spring in the step of most Iowans, precocious plant development has caused problems for specialty crop growers. At Hughes Nursery and Landscaping in southwest Cedar Rapids, the early budding and leafing of shrubs and trees has quickly closed the annual window of opportunity for digging [...]

“I’m what you call a serious trapper,” said Larry Karels, who during the past season trapped and skinned 185 coyotes. While most Iowans seldom if ever see a coyote, Karels, 64, of Monticello, has trapped more than 1,300 of the wily predators during the past decade — a tribute not only to his skill but [...]

  Hatch watch is under way at the world famous Decorah eagle nest. “Here we go again,” said Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, which installed and maintains the nest cam that provided more than 200 million glimpses of the eagle family’s domestic life last year. “My guess is the first chick will [...]

Hatch watch is under way at the world famous Decorah eagle nest. “Here we go again,” said Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, which installed and maintains the nest cam that provided more than 200 million glimpses of the eagle family’s domestic life last year. “My guess is the first chick will hatch [...]

  MANCHESTER — The Delaware County supervisors on Monday authorized a $3 million essential county purpose bond to help rebuild the failed Lake Delhi dam. The supervisors had announced their intention to do so on March 5, when they set Monday’s public hearing as an opportunity for opponents to express their views. Five opponents spoke [...]