Iowa's largest ethanol producer – POET, LLC – has agreed to fines totaling $53,000 for hazardous air emissions from its Shell Rock refinery over a two-year period.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) imposed a $10,000 fine – the most the department is allowed to levy without submitting the case to the Iowa Attorney General's office – and assessed a $43,000 fee – or $70 per ton for the more than 600 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) the plant released during 2021 and 2022.

The city of Bettendorf has agreed to pay a total of $2.3 million to the victims struck by a car while they were walking on the pedestrian trail adjacent to the I-74 Bridge two years ago.

Two of the victims were killed and the third seriously injured when a drunk driver mistook the bike/pedestrian trail for a vehicular lane and drove into the trio as they were crossing the bridge May 22, 2022.

In addition to the amounts to be paid by the city and its insurance carrier, the settlement agreement approved by the city council June 18 states the city of Moline will pay a total of $100,000 to two of the victims. Under terms of the settlement, the city is not admitting liability.

by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 17, 2024

A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction for Iowa’s law on illegal immigration, blocking it before enforcement was set to begin July 1.

The U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of civil rights groups argued in court a week ago that Senate File 2340 should not be allowed to take effect.

Signed earlier this year, the measure gives law enforcement officials the power to charge undocumented immigrants with an aggravated misdemeanor for being found in Iowa after having been previously deported, denied admission or removed from the U.S., or if they have an order to leave the country.

by Ed Tibbetts, Iowa Capital Dispatch
May 31, 2024

Iowa’s top Republicans were unanimous in reacting to the guilty verdict against Donald Trump on Thursday.

Not a one declared he was innocent.

Did you notice?

Sure, they all complained the trial was a sham. They criticized the judge and the prosecutor. They said the case was politically motivated. But none of them declared in their statements that Trump was innocent.

Trump claimed he did nothing wrong. But his top supporters in Iowa didn’t back up his claim.

This silence shouldn’t be lost on anyone. It speaks volumes about how our state’s top Republicans see the American legal system, at least insofar as it pertains to Donald Trump.

by Ed Tibbetts, Iowa Capital Dispatch
May 16, 2024

First, the good news: Most Americans trust juries.

Now, the bad news: Iowa’s attorney general apparently isn’t one of them.

Brenna Bird joined a bunch of other Republican politicians at the New York trial of Donald Trump this week and immediately pronounced it a farce. “Politics has no place in a court of law,” she said.

Unfortunately, Brenna Bird fails this standard. Iowa’s attorney general, who formerly worked for Rep. Steve King, has been aggressively making her name in GOP circles since being narrowly elected in 2022, repeatedly suing the Biden administration. Hardly a week goes by when her public relations people aren’t heralding a new lawsuit. Donald Trump has even practically anointed her a future governor.

On Monday, Bird took leave of her duties in Iowa to be in New York to be part of the Trump entourage seeking to torpedo the proceedings there. Among her fellow travelers: U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville.

Iowans who value the rule of law ought to be disgusted.

by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch
May 12, 2024

Nitrate contamination of Iowa’s rivers has surged in recent weeks amid heavy, widespread rainfall, according to data collected by the Iowa Water Quality Information System.

Concentrations of nitrate in several large waterways — including the Boone, Cedar, Iowa and Turkey rivers — have recently reached four-year peaks, the data show. Further, many of the affected rivers also have much higher than usual stream flows, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That often reduces the concentrations.

Because the flows and concentrations are so high, the total nitrate load is also very high.

“This is one of the biggest nitrate leaching events in 11 years,” said David Cwiertny, director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at the University of Iowa.

Lee Enterprises, Inc. – calling itself a high quality and trusted source of news – issued a news release last week about its second quarter earnings without stating it lost $2.06 per share ($12.2 million) for the three-month period ended March 24.

The owner of the QC Times and Daily Dispatch/Argus and 70 other newspapers and online news site detailed its digital revenues, digital subscriptions, digital subscribers and digital advertising and marketing service in the news release.

But the company omitted stating it lost money during the second quarter, more than double its $1.01 loss ($5.9 million) loss a year ago. (The actual earnings numbers for the period are contained in the financial statement of operations – required by the Security and Exchange Commission – and attached to the news release narrative.)

by Keith Schneider | The New Lede, Iowa Capital Dispatch
April 21, 2024

VENICE, Louisiana —  Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern Louisiana, near the juncture where the 2,350-mile-long Mississippi River ends at the Gulf of Mexico.

Clark Porter is a 62-year-old farmer who lives in north-central Iowa where he spends part of his day working as an environmental specialist for the state and the other part raising corn and soybeans on hundreds of acres that his family has owned for over a century.

Though they’ve never met, and live 1,100 miles apart, Arnesen and Porter share a troubling kinship – both of their communities are tied to a deepening water pollution crisis that is fouling the environment and putting public health in peril across multiple U.S. states.