Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
The University of Iowa is reviewing new reports on the environmental impact of coal ash and whether the way it disposes of the ash it produces should be changed, the school’s spokesman said Thursday.
Following an Iowa Independent story discussing the school’s method of disposing of coal ash in an unlined, unmonitored quarry in Waterloo, university spokesman Steve Parrott said the school is in compliance with current Department of Natural Resources requirements. But a newly released report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that found higher public health risks associated with coal ash disposal than previously known could cause the school to alter its approach, he said.
“Our environmental specialists are reviewing the recently disclosed reports to which you refer and intend to study the results carefully,” Parrott said in a statement. “Protecting Iowans and Iowa’s environment is important to the university, and we are exploring alternative disposal sites.”
Parrott said the school is in the first year of its second five-year contract with a company that hauls the ash produced by the university’s solid fuel boilers to the Waterloo South Quarry for use as fill. The DNR issued a beneficial use waiver to the owners of the site, Basic Materials Corp., in 2008 allowing them to begin accepting coal ash, the waste produced by burning coal.
The school combines coal with biomass — oat hulls from the Cedar Rapids-based Quaker Oats plant — which ultimately reduces the amount of coal that is burned.
“Please note that our aggressive use of biomass fuel has resulted in decreasing the amount of coal ash needing disposal in each of the last five years,” Parrott said.
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