River Lock Bill Support
High Plains Journal
OMAHA
(DTN) Politicians, an environmental group, and producers joined forces
yesterday to show support for a bill which would modernize locks on the
Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
The
National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the Midwest Area River
Coalition and senators from states along the Mississippi River held a
press conference Thursday touting the critical need for passage of the
bill known as S. 2470, according to a NCGA news release.
Senators
Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Jim Talent (R-Mo.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.),
Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), a bipartisan group
representing the Mississippi River basin, introduced S. 2470 on May 20.
The bill calls for navigation capacity improvements and a major ecosystem restoration program for the upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway.
(more)
Water in Joice laced with fecal contamination
QC Times
JOICE,
Iowa (AP) — Residents in this northern Iowa town are depending on
bottled water after tests showed their water was contaminated with high
levels of fecal bacteria.
The
Worth County town of about 230 people depends on private wells, and
residents have been asked not to drink the water or bathe in it.
“Over 60 percent of the tests that came back failed,” Mayor Mark Thoma said Friday.
Thoma
says the city contacted the state’s homeland security department, which
arranged for donations of water and bleach to shock each well.
He believes last month’s storms caused the problem.
(more)
Cleanup targets former Allied site
QC Times
CLINTON,
Iowa — When a federal environmental cleanup starts in July at a former
coal-gas company site, 250 tons of contaminated soil and later 25,000
tons — or 1,000 trailer loads — of underground coal-tar deposits will
be removed from the Clinton riverfront property.
Kevin
Larson of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, told the
Clinton City Council that he nearly is finished hurtling through red
tape to get the first phase of cleanup started next month at the former
Allied Steel site.
He said
the work is proceeding now because the property’s owner, Riverview
Partners of Bettendorf, has worked out an agreement to sell the land to
Alliant Energy — the company held financially accountable for
contamination caused by a former energy-related business there long ago.
(more)
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