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Iowa State opens season with 34-17 win

September 3, 2009 By

ISU coach Paul Rhoads Iowa State opened the college football season with a 34-17  win over North Dakota State in Ames Thursday night.

The Cyclones went 81 yards in nine plays and scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the game, but seemed to struggle at times on offense and defense.

 I.S.U. Coach Paul Rhoads says it wasn’t pretty. He says most first games aren’t pretty no matter what side you’re on, but says they are prettier when you win. The Cyclones gave up 210 yards rushing, and despite that, Rhoads thought they improved on their tackling from preseason.

He says they did tackle, although they missed a couple of critical tackles that led to big plays. Rhoads says some of their big plays were through big holes and they have to work on that. Rhoads says North Dakota State didn’t give up despite trailing the whole game. 

It was a return to Iowa State for Rhoads and his first win as a head coach. "It’s special to win a football game as a head coach and to do it here, yeah, it was a fun night," Rhoads said.

Quarterback Austin Arnaud says breaking a 10 game losing streak was big. Arnaud says it was good to get the win but they made a lot of mistakes and he says he personally did not play as well as he thought he would. Arnaud says the offense was able to get points when North Dakota State scored and looked like they might come back.

He says it was huge to do that as they want to score every time they have the ball, and they responded every time the Bison scored. The Cyclones next face in-state rival Iowa next Saturday in Ames.

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Two EPA administrators tour farms, visit biorefinery

September 3, 2009 By

Two top officials in the Environmental Protection Agency who’ve never visited an American farm were in Iowa today, at Senator Chuck Grassley’s invitation. They toured Grant Kimberly’s farm near Maxwell.

Kimberly said he sensed the D.C. folks were apprehensive when they arrived, but after they climbed aboard a high-tech combine and got their first-ever look at Midwestern corn and soybean fields, Kimberly thinks they were hooked.

"I could see that they were certainly engaged and listening and very excited to be here once the conversation got started," he said.

The dialogue between the farmers and the E.P.A. officials was "warm" according to Kimberly and covered everything from raw commodities to renewable fuels.

"They kept asking lots of questions and they really didn’t want to leave," he said.

The E.P.A.’s Gina McCarthy heard presentations on everything from manure management to the latest global positioning system technology.

"We’ve heard information that will be valuable for us and we want to make sure that we understand everything that we can about the decisions that we’ll make and the impacts they’ll have," McCarthy told reporters.

Land use rules under consideration at the E.P.A. are staunchly opposed by the state’s ethanol industry and McCarthy’s agency is also considering new fuel standards which would boost the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.

"We’re still in the process of learning," McCarthy said. "Our comment period are open on the renewable fuels standard and we’re going to have some follow up."

Senator Grassley says he wants to make sure the E.P.A. uses sound science and considers the economics of its decisions. Margo Oge, the top E-P-A administrator dealing with air quality issues, admits the agency’s decision on ethanol is controversial.

"We know a lot about what’s going on in the United States, but the controversy has been, you know, how the fact that we’re going to export less corn in 2022 will impact other countries that will grow this corn and by doing that, will you increase greenhouse gas emissions?" Oge told reporters in Iowa. "And the data is not there."

Kimberly, the man who hosted Oge and McCarthy on his farm, believes today’s visit "opened a door" for farmers to make their case to the E.P.A.

"We built some mutual respect and some positive relationships off of these visits and they actually asked us to come out to D.C. and visit with them further to talk about some of these issues we have with agriculture and the biofuels industry," Kimberly said during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa. "So the door is now open for us and that is a great success for us."

Kimberly said the visit to his homestead was designed to give the E.P.A. a look at a "modern farm" – from the ground up. Kimberly said he explained how things work:  "Soybeans sink nitrogen in the soil; they don’t use nitrogen. How the physiology of the plants work, how we use technology, global positioning to improve fertility (and) to manage our costs."

Kimberly is a fifth generation farmer. His family manages a 4000 acre operation and he lives on the farm his grandfather bought in 1950. The two E.P.A. officials also visited an Iowa State University research farm this morning and they toured a biorefinery in Newton this afternoon.

(Additional reporting by Jim Turbes of KWBG Radio in Boone, Iowa.)

 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, Environment & Conservation, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,

State to raise contribution level for unemployment fund

September 3, 2009 By

 Iowa’s unemployment rate has been slowly inching up and that’s put more of a drain on the fund that the state uses to pay unemployment benefits. Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson Kerry Koonce says the state now needs to make an adjustment to charge employers more to cover the unemployment trust fund.

The fund currently has a balance of 508-million dollars, but the state has paid out over $709-million in the last 12 months. Koonce says there’s been a higher number of people on unemployment for a longer period, so on January 1st of 2010 they will change the contribution rate table for employers from table six to table four. There are eight tables with table one having the highest rates of contribution.

Koonce says not every business will have to pay more. She says roughly 56% of the businesses in Iowa will see an increase in their rate, and the amount of increase depends on the number of charges for unemployment in the last five years. Koonce says the Iowa code requires the rate table review once a year to keep the unemployment trust fund solvent.

Koonce says if the unemployment fund runs too low, it could end up costing more money to pay unemployment benefits. Koonce says:"We don’t want to get to the point where we were in the early 80′s when the trust fund actually went into the negative and we had to borrow money from the federal government. Because then we have to pay that back with interest."

Koonce says there are a lot of variables that will determine the impact on a business. She says if the increase was averaged across all employers, there would be a roughly eight-tenths of a percent increase, and a company with 10,000 employees would have to pay $10,000 more a year. But Koonce says there are nearly 32,000 employers who have a zero contribution rate. Iowa if doing better than other states that never fully recovered from the recession of 2001 and find their unemployment funds depleted.

Eighteen states are currently borrowing from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits. Missouri’s trust fund deficit is two-point-six-billion dollars. Officials in Kansas announced in early August that its unemployment trust fund would be in the red by November and they will have to start borrowing from the federal government.

Florida used up its trust fund on Monday of last week and got a federal loan to fill the gap. One of the provisions of the federal economic stimulus package made federal loans to the trusts funds interest-free through 2011.

 

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government Tagged With:

Photo released of pickup suspected in fatal hit and run

September 3, 2009 By

Truck involved in fatal accident. Authorities have released a photo of the vehicle suspected of hitting and killing a bicyclist on Sunday in south-central Iowa. The photo was taken from surveillance video near the scene of the accident on Highway 28 in Norwalk.

The Warren County Sheriff’s office describes the vehicle as a white 1980s GMC or Chevrolet pickup with a roll bar and attached off-road lights. The front of the truck has a white sign with black lettering. A small piece of the sign was found at the crash site.

The pickup is suspected of hitting 54-year-old Mark Grgurich of Des Moines. Authorities says he was thrown more than 100 feet from the bicycle into a ditch. Grgurich died at the scene. Witnesses said the pickup driver was speeding and did not stop to offer help.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

State to send out H-1-N-1 info postcards

September 3, 2009 By

Flu postcard that will be sent to Iowans. Every Iowa household will be receiving a postcard in the mail later this month from the Iowa Department of Public Health .

I-D-P-H spokesperson Polly Carver-Kimm says the postcard contains information about influenza and the H-1-N-1 flu virus.

"We wanted to really concentrate on the personal actions that folks can take to prevent the flu and what they can do to fight all kinds of viruses," Carver-Kimm said. "So, our message is remember the three ‘C’s’ – cover your cough, clean your hands and contain germs by staying home when sick."

Right now, the H-1-N-1 flu is not as widespread or severe as the regular, seasonal flu. But, health experts say the new virus could spread and become more dangerous.

"On the back of the postcard, there’s also a message from (state epidemiologist) Dr. Quinlisk advising folks to get the seasonal flu vaccine and also talk to their health care provider about the H1N1 vaccine when that becomes available," Carver-Kimm said. State health officials are printing and mailing over 1.5 million postcards.

The mailing carries a price tag of nearly $200,000, which is being paid for by an H-1-N-1 grant from the federal government. Iowa may be the only state in the nation conducting a postcard campaign. "I don’t know if any other states are doing a postcard mailing," Carver-Kimm said.

"I know about every state is preparing some sort of media campaign, but I have not heard of any doing a postcard." Iowans can expect to receive the postcards sometime around the end of September.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Politics & Government

Northwest Iowa man to spend 22 months in federal prison

September 3, 2009 By

A northwest Iowa man will spend 22 months in federal prison for selling a gun that was used in an attempted murder/suicide. This past May 31-year-old Hilario Valverde-Gonzales of Sioux City pled guilty to one count of possessing a firearm while being a felon and a fugitive from justice.

Prosecutors say he sold a .45 caliber pistol to a gang member. The gangster gave that gun to another man who used the pistol to shoot his wife and then commit suicide. Valverde-Gonzales had been convicted of marijuana possession in California back in 2000, but he fled before he could be sentenced and he was considered a fugitive.

Federal agents tracked this gun sale back to him and he’s going to spend a little less than two years in prison on the gun crime charge. 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Harkin says farm safety details still in the works

September 3, 2009 By

A survey of Iowans on food safety released Wednesday at Drake University showed support for a fee of $500 on food processors to fund increased food safety efforts. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat who chairs the ag committee, says such fees are a possibility.

Harkin says the system has to be changed, but the fees and how much they would be are not known. He says the fees could go to help improve the inspection system, but that isn’t known either.

Harkin says the main thing is people want to ensure that food is safe. He says producers have shown interest in fees if they help with the safety issue. He says the Vegetable Growers Association of America is supportive of the bill, because they realize an outbreak of food poisoning like happened with tainted spinach can harm everyone, and they want a national system of inspections and preventative measures in place.

"So I don’t think you’re going to get a real big push back from agriculture on this, as I said, they’re supportive of it," Harkin says. The U.S. House has passed a food safety bill and Harkin says they’ll have to end up in a conference committee to work out differences once the Senate completes its bill.

Harkin says the big hurdle is how they combine the F.D.A. jurisdiction and with the jurisdiction of the U.S.D.A. Harkin says the U.S.D.A. does a good job with the things they have put in place for the inspection of meat over the last 10 to 12 years. Harkin says the incidents where people get sick from tainted spinach, salad or other foods have been increasing, and that erodes the public confidence in the system.

Harkin says we are importing more and more foods from overseas that are inspected like the food the U.S. grows, and he says people are rightfully concerned about the safety of food. Harkin made his comments following a discussion of food safety at Drake University in Des Moines. 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Health & Medicine, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,
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