by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch
July 26, 2024

A large eastern Iowa facility that makes ketchup and other condiments failed for more than two years to monitor contaminants in the more than 1 million gallons of untreated wastewater it discharged into a creek each day, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Kraft Heinz Foods Company recently agreed to pay an $8,000 fine for the violations at its Muscatine location. It uses municipal water to cool its equipment and discharges it along with stormwater into Mad Creek, which flows for less than a mile to the Mississippi River.

by Seth Tupper, North Dakota Monitor
July 25, 2024

The medals awarded to soldiers who participated in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre will be subjected to a review, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Wednesday.

The department said the review’s purpose is “to ensure no awardees were recognized for conduct inconsistent with the nation’s highest military honor.”

The move comes after years of activism by Lakota people — including descendants of massacre survivors — who want the medals rescinded.

Oliver “OJ” Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been active in the effort with his wife, Barb, and their Four Directions nonprofit. He said it’s gratifying to see some momentum after a long struggle, including failed attempts to rescind the medals through congressional legislation.

Iowa Capital Dispatch
July 18, 2024

The state panel charged with ensuring transparency in government is being sued for allegedly violating Iowa’s Open Meetings Law.

Briana Reha of Polk County is suing the Iowa Public Information Board and its members for the manner in which they approved a pay raise for the board’s executive director, Erika Eckley.

The lawsuit alleges that on June 25, IPIB posted an agenda for its June 27 board meeting. Nine minutes into the meeting, Monica McHugh, the board chairman, proposed an increase to Eckley’s salary as a topic for board deliberation and action. After briefly discussing the matter, the board approved a 6% salary increase for Eckley by unanimous vote, bringing her total annual salary to $103,307.60.

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 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.