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EPA orders former owner of Waterloo plant to clean up soil

April 21, 2010 By

The former owner of the Chamberlain Manufacturing site in Waterloo has been ordered to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater. The former ammunition plant occupies a 23 acre site in a residential area near downtown Waterloo. Chamberlain employed more than 800 people during the Vietnam War. The plant was shut down in the mid-1990s and acquired by the City of Waterloo in 2005.

Chris Whitley, with the Environmental Protection Agency, says the order also requires the company to provide ventilation systems to nearby homeowners. “There is some indication that there may be vapor intrusion occurring in homes,” Whitley said. “As a precaution, we believe it is a prudent thing…to offer vapor mitigation systems.” Whitley says longterm exposure could cause severe lung problems and cancer.

Chamberlain’s parent company is Duchossois Industries based in Illinois. Waterloo Mayor Buck Clark says the company is cooperating. “I think it’s a very positive step,” Clark said of the EPA order. “While we’ve got a very good relationship with Duchossois and we expect to continue that, this order really kind of gets all of us off dead center and requires some action to be taken which was a good step.”

Whitley says it’s still too soon to determine how long the cleanup will take and how much it will cost. “The initial steps of this is for the former owners to (begin) assessing the level of contamination that’s present. You really have to do that first before you start making additional decisions,” Whitley said. The E.P.A. will hold a public forum in Waterloo in the coming weeks to explain the order.

Filed Under: Business, Environment & Conservation

ISU professor part of advisory panel for Haitian agriculture

April 21, 2010 By

An Iowa State University professor is now part of a government task force assigned to help rebuild Haiti’s agricultural system. I.S.U. sociologist Cornelia Flora was appointed to an advisory panel representing a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development that focuses on rural issues. Flora says the task force will counsel Haitian farmers on how to increase food production on their small plots.

“The earthquake has driven people from the major cities,” Flora says. “They’re going back to their lands, because almost every Haitian has an itty-bitty piece of land, which have degraded soils, enormous erosion because there’s been huge deforestation.” The 12-member panel will advise Haitian farmers on how to restore soil severely damaged in January’s earthquake.

The panel’s members come mostly from public universities. Flora has spent much of her 40-year career working on development issues in rural areas, primarily in Latin America. Flora says Iowa State offers some expertise that could be useful to the Haitians.

She says, “We have very good soil analytic capabilities that can help diagnose some of the soil problems and we also have a very strong sustainable ag program that can come up with alternative ways that small farmers can afford in dealing with these soil fertility problems.”

She says the task force will conduct its work from long-distance because the island nation of Haiti already has too many foreigners wandering around making judgments. Flora says the panel will meet for the first time next week in Orlando, Florida.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Pink cement truck promotes awareness in Quad Cities

April 21, 2010 By

Motorists in the Quad Cities might think they need to have their vision checked. If you see a pink cement truck driving to and from construction sites in eastern Iowa, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. It’s the newest rig in the W-G Block Company’s fleet and it’s, well, pretty in pink.

The truck was unveiled yesterday. Genesis Center for Breast Health says it’s the area’s largest symbol for breast cancer awareness.

By Phil Roberts, Davenport

Filed Under: Business, Health & Medicine

Court of Appeals upholds James Bentley sex abuse conviction

April 21, 2010 By

The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a Vinton man in a high-profile sexual abuse case. James Bentley was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse for abuse of Jetsetta Gage that began in 2003.

Gage was not able to testify as she had been murdered. Bentley’s brother Roger was found guilty of her murder and is serving a life sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a taped interview with Gage could not be used at James Bentley’s trial. Prosecutors used testimony from a psychologist who said Gage told her she had been sexually abused by Bentley as the psychologist treated the girl following the assault.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Planting already well ahead of schedule

April 21, 2010 By

The heavy snow that covered Iowa all winter hasn’t slowed spring corn planting. In fact, Clark McGrath with Iowa State University’s Corn and Soybean Initiative, says planting is way ahead of schedule. “We are looking at one of the best early starts to a planting season that we’ve had in a long time,” McGrath said. “I don’t want to jinx it, but, so far so good.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that Iowa farmers had planted 19% of the corn crop as of this weekend. Normally, at this time of year, only 5% of the crop’s been planted. “We’re probably a week to 10 days ahead of schedule as far as the crop getting in the ground and the way things are working out in the fields,” McGrath said.

The mild weather in late March and early April helped the snow to melt gradually, allowing it to soak into the ground instead of flooding fields. Roger Elmore is a corn agronomist with Iowa State University Extension. “Every year is different…normally a snowpack like we had would just create all sorts of havoc with runoffs and erosion and floods and wet soils,” Elmore said.

Forecasters are predicting a good growing season with warm, mild conditions. Elmore says earlier planting dates often mean higher yields.

Filed Under: Agriculture Tagged With:

Sixteen-year-old girl charged with arson in LeClaire fire

April 21, 2010 By

There’s been an arson arrest in an eastern Iowa fire. The call came in about 7:30 Monday night for a residential structure fire in LeClaire. Firefighters from LeClaire, Princeton and Riverdale teamed up to put it out.

An elderly man in a wheelchair, a 16-year-old girl, her mother, an 18-month-old child, two cats and a dog were home at the time. Everyone escaped but the animals, who perished. Following an investigation, the 16-year-old girl, Anissa Reyna, was charged Tuesday with first-degree arson.

Under Iowa law, she’s been charged as an adult and was taken to Scott County Jail.

By Phil Roberts, Davenport

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Conditions create halo around sun

April 21, 2010 By

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as the flaming meteor that flew across the Iowa last week, but there was another sight some saw in the sky Monday. If you looked to the sun, you may’ve seen a rainbow colored circle around it. Jim Lee of the National Weather Service says it’s call a halo.

Lee says the halo is produced when you have very thin high cirrus clouds in the atmosphere. He says the clouds are thin ice crystals and if everything lines up right, then the sun shines through and refracts off the ice crystals and produces the halo effect. Lee says a halo is a little more common than a flaming meteor.

“We don’t get them terribly often here, but you usually get several a year,” Lee says. He says they don’t last very long and you have to be looking up at the right time when the conditions are right to see them. Some wondered if the volcanic ash from Iceland could have caused the halo. Lee says that’s not the case, and the ash hasn’t traveled this far.

Lee says so far we haven’t seen any impact and he says a lot of factors are involved in any impact on Iowa. He says if the jetstream was right and the eruptions continue, we could see it impact sunsets. The halo was visible Monday around noon.

Filed Under: Weather
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