The Waterloo South Quarry, used by the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University as a coal ash dump. (Photo courtesy of Plains Justice)

The announcement that the schools will conduct groundwater testing comes a little more than a month after publicly saying they were confident their disposal methods were safe.

The monitoring program, a response to concerns expressed by school administrators, will begin in January and will be paid for by all three schools.

“The utility folks at each school ultimately made the decision,” said Jeffrey Witt, assistant director of utilities at Iowa State University. “Primarily it was a decision to satisfy the curiosity and concerns of the administration.”

As The Iowa Independent has reported in recent months, the schools — Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa — are some of the biggest producers of coal ash in the state. All three dispose of their ash in a quarry in Waterloo that received a waiver from the Department of Natural Resources allowing it to accept ash without installing a protective liner and without conducting groundwater monitoring.

Environmentalists and students had been highly critical of the schools for using this disposal method. Because coal ash contains high concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium, dumping it into a quarry with no liner could result in contaminants leaching out into groundwater supplies, they contend. And with no groundwater-monitoring program, there is no way of knowing whether that is already taking place.

The state began drafting stricter rules on coal ash disposal last year, but coal producers and disposal site owners – along with the University of Iowa — derailed the process. The state is now waiting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to unveil new federal rules, something expected by the end of the year.

Those federal rules are also part of the schools’ motivation for beginning to test groundwater for contaminants.

“Basically, we know whatever new regulations come out are going to require groundwater monitoring at the very least,” Witt said. “So we figure we would just get a head start on that.”

Witt said the groundwater testing would follow standard procedures for a typical landfill, including monitoring wells both upstream and downstream from the quarry. The samples will be taken by the operator of the quarry, BMC Aggregates, and turned over to a certified lab for analysis.

The results of the testing would eventually be turned over to the state DNR after new regulations are passed. Until then, Witt expects the data to be kept from the public.

“Ultimately, the DNR will receive the data, once it becomes a requirement,” Witt said.

Iowa State University's coal plant, which produces 30,000 tons of ash every year, with 75 percent of that total going to the Waterloo quarry and the rest going to other uses such as cement manufacture, manufactured compost materials and soil stabilization applications. (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent)

The schools’ practice of dumping coal ash into an unlined, unmonitored quarry had garnered them a lot of criticism. Peter Taglia, a hydrogeologist with environmental watchdog Clean Wisconsin who worked for five years as a consultant for utilities, said last month that it was odd that institutions with “a mandate to serve the public” would engage in an activity other states have determined is dangerous enough to prohibit.

In Wisconsin, all coal ash disposal sites are mandated to have protective liners and conduct groundwater monitoring. Two-year’s data about groundwater quality and flow is required for any coal ash dump sites, with minimum quarterly samples in order to observe seasonal changes, Taglia said.

Lucie Laurian, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Iowa who has spent years studying the effects of toxic sites on local populations, said even if initial tests come back showing no contamination, the sites could still pose a huge public health risk.

“The ash is still sitting there,” she said. “Contamination might not show up for many years, and that’s the problem.”

ActivUs, a student environmental and social justice organization on the Iowa State campus, has been pressing the school’s administration for weeks to alter its coal ash disposal methods. Tyler Rygg, the group’s treasurer, said he was happy to hear that the “unlined, unmonitored” site will now just be “unlined.”

“It’s a step in the process of our school being more responsible,” he said. “At least now we can get some information.”

But the group will not stop pressing the school for an end to the practice. Leaders of the organization have a meeting Oct. 2 with ISU President Gregory Geoffroy. At that time, the students will discuss their long-term goal of phasing out the school’s coal ash plant altogether. In the short run, the students hope the school can begin the process of phasing out usage of the Waterloo dump site.

“We hope on that day we can get him to make a commitment to begin to do some real changes,” Rygg said. “We’ve found that 25 percent of the ash we produce goes to other uses. We’d like to see that number increase.”

Iowa State University’s coal plant produces 30,000 tons of ash every year, with 75 percent of that total going to the Waterloo quarry and the rest going to other uses such as cement manufacture, manufactured compost materials and soil stabilization applications.

A member of the group ActivUs collects student signatures on a petition to stop Iowa State University from disposing coal ash in an unlined, unmonitored quarry in Waterloo. (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent)

The group, called ActivUS, will also be delivering signed petitions from students who feel it is irresponsible for a public university to engage in a practice deemed dangerous enough to be banned in surrounding states.

“We are expecting to hear them talk about budget issues and how we can’t afford to change,” said Graham Jordison, president of ActivUS. “If money is their argument, we think they should consider that there are more important things, like protecting the environment and protecting public health.”

Coal ash, the waste produced by burning coal, contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than the coal itself, and environmentalists fear that dumping it into unlined quarries may result in contamination of groundwater supplies.

Iowa State, along with the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, dispose of coal ash in a Waterloo quarry owned by BMC Aggregates that is not mandated to have a protective liner and is not required to conduct groundwater testing to see if contamination is taking place. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently drafting rules that many think could ban this practice, which is currently allowed in Iowa if a site receives a waiver from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

In addition to Waterloo, quarries in Goose Lake and Cedar Rapids and a mine in Buffalo have received such a waiver.

ActivUs believes that even if the rules governing coal ash are not changed, Iowa State should take the lead on the issue and change its disposal methods. Officials with the school have consistently maintained that its methods pose no threat to the public health. In June, all three schools said they planned to investigate any potential public health risks their disposal methods could create. After meeting with the owners of the quarry last month it was determined that the practice was safe and would be continued.

The student action against coal ash started on the first day of the fall semester, when ActivUs held a protest rally to raise awareness of the issue on campus. Jordison said membership has increased dramatically since that day, and several more events could be organized leading up to their meeting with the school president.

A spokeswoman for the university confirmed to the Iowa Independent that President Geoffroy would be meeting with students Oct. 2 to give them a chance to share their views.

Student environmental activists held a rally Monday at Iowa State University hoping to persuade the school to alter its coal ash disposal method. The group plans to deliver petitions to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy this week. (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent)

ActivUS, a student environmental and social justice organization, held a rally Monday on the Ames campus of ISU to call on the school’s president, Gregory Geoffroy, to end the practice of disposing of coal ash an unlined, unmonitored quarry in Waterloo. The group’s president, Graham Jordison, said the plan is to deliver a petition to Geoffroy’s office this week demanding he meet with students on the issue.

“This is sort of our first step of the campaign to change the school’s policy,” Jordison said. “We find it ironic that Iowa State has this ‘Live Green’ motto and yet they are dumping ash in an unlined quarry.”

Coal ash, also known as fly ash, is the waste produced by burning coal. The ash contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than the coal itself, and environmentalists fear that dumping it into unlined quarries may result in contamination of groundwater supplies.

A report released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year found the cancer risk to be 1 in 2,000 from exposure to arsenic in drinking water for residents living near unlined landfills containing coal ash and coal refuse, which is 500 times the level usually regarded as safe by current federal regulations.

Because the Waterloo site received a waiver from the state allowing it to accept coal ash without following strict landfill standards, there is no monitoring conducted to ensure toxins are not leaching into groundwater. State regulators say they are waiting for the federal government to issue new rules governing coal ash disposal, despite admitting to The Iowa Independent that contamination could already be taking place.

Iowa State, along with the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, said earlier this summer that they planned to investigate any potential public health risks their disposal methods could create. However, after meeting with the owners of the quarry, BMC Aggregates, all three schools announced they were not going to make a change.

It should not surprise anyone that the site owners would say the disposal method is safe, Jordison said, nor should it surprise anyone that the announcement was made over the school’s summer vacation.

“It was probably intentional,” he said. “I do think they had their meeting during the summer because there were no students around to pick up on the information. They are getting their facts from a corporation that owns the quarry. Of course the owner of the facility is going to say there is no problem.”

Tyler Rygg, treasurer of ActivUs, said even if the state never toughens regulations, the university should still stop using an unlined quarry as a dump site.

“I want Iowa State to do more than the bare minimum,” he said. “I know that there are not regulations on this, but I’d like them to be a role model for the rest of Iowa. We need to be doing more than simply what is required of us. They ask students to do this every day, so we’re asking them to do it today.”

In addition to changing the schools disposal methods, Jordison said his organization would also call on President Geoffroy to speak out against the practice and encourage other schools to do the same. Geoffroy should also pressure state regulators to toughen the law rather than wait for the federal government to do so.

“We want to pressure [the school] to live up to its rhetoric,” he said. “We’re not afraid to step it up, get our activists together and do some non-violent actions. Whatever it takes to get the school to wake up and realize students want this to change.”

In July, the chair of the state’s Environmental Protection Commission and two key legislators called for hearings on Iowa’s rules governing coal ash. However, state Sen. Dennis Black, D-Grinnell, said the earliest he expects this to happen would be the summer of 2010.

A spokeswoman for Iowa State University said President Geoffroy has not yet been contacted by any student groups in regards to the coal ash issue.

"Letters from Abu Ghraib," by Joshua Casteel

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, Casteel, 24, who served with the Army’s 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion as an Arabic translator and U.S. Army interrogator inside the prison, faced an internal struggle between his sense of duty as a soldier and his moral and religious obligations.

After he had executed over 100 interrogations, Casteel’s internal battle coalesced in the case of a 22-year-old Saudi detainee, a self-proclaimed Jihadi who never fired a gun in his life, yet came to Iraq to fill his cousin’s shoes.

Ironically, Casteel, who had already been fighting a moral struggle before the interrogation, ended up being the one interrogated.

“When the Saudi told me that I wasn’t following Jesus, I told him he was right,” Casteel told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “If anything, I should be in his shoes, because the people who are the most important to me in my life were prisoners: Jesus, Saint Paul, anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King. They were never the captors.”

It was this epiphany that convinced Casteel to tell his commanding officer that he couldn’t interrogate the Saudi prisoner anymore because he saw him as a 22-year-old kid and a person, not an object of exploitation.

“I couldn’t argue with him about the virtue of nonviolence, so it was at this point I decided that I needed to make a practical decision in my life,” Casteel said. “I, too, had to lead by example.”

Casteel’s conscience and morality as a human being overcame his duty as a soldier, and it was here that he initiated the process of filing for conscientious objector status, eventually ending his military career.

“I didn’t tell anyone over there about these struggles except my best friend,” Casteel said. “Although I did process them through e-mail messages that I had been writing to my family and friends back home. These letters ended up serving as the background for my CO status, illustrating my growing resistance to violence.”

Moreover, these e-mails sent home from the confines of the Abu Ghraib prison served as the foundation of Casteel’s book, “Letters from Abu Ghraib,” which was published this year – just before Casteel began his final year at the University of Iowa nonfiction writers’ workshop.

“I had this huge vat of correspondence that showed the trajectory of becoming a CO,” Casteel said. “I never wrote these letters with the intent of publication, and it wasn’t until I got hooked up with my editor at Essay Press, Eula Biss, a graduate from the UI’s nonfiction writing program, that I decided to publish them. Since I was too close to the material, I needed Biss to help shape the material and streamline an arc that I couldn’t see.”

Casteel, who had another month-and-a-half of interrogating left in 2004 after his decision to file as a CO, wanted to complete his tour in Iraq. “After telling my company commander that I was filing for CO, I refused to go to the promotion board, because I didn’t want to say the NCO [noncommissioned officer] creed,” Casteel said. “I didn’t believe it anymore, but I [said I] didn’t want to hand in my weapon until I returned to the States. I would continue the tour and wouldn’t demand being made a noncombatant, but I told my commander that if he would rather have somebody who is not nervous about pulling the trigger, then he might want to consider that.”

Casteel completed his tour, returned to the United States in January 2005, submitted his CO paperwork in February and was honorably discharged in May.

“This is wildly fast for a CO to get processed and discharged,” he said. “I had never heard of such a quick turnaround. Under the military’s ‘Needs of the Army’ clause, a CO is a lag to morale, so the military didn’t want me around killing morale.”

Casteel soon enrolled in the UI’s graduate playwright workshop, graduating with an M.F.A. in 2008. As a student in the workshop, he wrote a play about his experiences as an Abu Ghraib interrogator, which premiered at the UI Theaters in February.

Since his return to civilian life, Casteel has been very active in spreading his message through organizations such as the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Iraq Veterans Against the War and UI Anti-War Committee, and he facilitated a panel discussion during the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, D.C.

“I started doing a lot of public speaking after I left the military, and the more I spoke, the more people wanted copies of my speeches,” he said.

While collaborating with the IVAW, Casteel and other members formed a writing group, Warrior Writers, which recently published a book.

Casteel also shared his experiences on camera in the documentary film, “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers,” and portions of his “Letters from Abu Ghraib” will be excerpted in the October edition of Harper’s Magazine.

Iowa Independent interview with Joshua Casteel:

Iowa Independent: Having grown up in an evangelic Christian household, what compelled you to join the military?

Casteel: I also grew up in a military family. My grandfather fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. My father was a captain in the military, and my aunt also served n the Army. I had ambitions of going to West Point, so I enlisted in the military when I was 17 to bolster my chances of getting in to the West Point Academy.

Iowa Independent: How did that pan out for you?

Casteel: After graduating valedictorian from Cedar Rapids Washington High School, I was accepted into West Point. Unfortunately, I hated West Point and had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I would be surrounded by a bunch of people like me, who were intellectually curious, but that was not the case. I did not like the military culture in the classroom, and this environment squelched my intellectual curiosities. I ended dropping out the first month and did ROTC for a year, before transferring to Colorado Christian University.

Iowa Independent: So how did you end up back in the military?

Casteel: 9-11 happened. Plus, I’ve always had some political aspirations, and I didn’t want people to think of me as somebody like President Bush, whose military experience is suspect. I was interested in learning a foreign language, and the only job that guaranteed foreign language training was an interrogator, so I re-enlisted and was deployed immediately after I had completed my year and a half of training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, where I studied Arabic.

Iowa Independent: Given your religious upbringing, did you have any reservations about going over to Iraq, especially knowing what had happened at the Abu Ghraib prison?

Casteel: Yes. While I was attending the language institute, where most of the instructors were Iraqi Catholics, I watched the morning news with one of my instructors, whose family lives there, and watched Baghdad get pulverized. That personal connection really shook me up. I would go back and forth between ‘I’m in this. Let’s go the whole nine yards’ to ‘What the hell is going on? I don’t believe in violence, and I should file for CO status.’

So before deployment I decided I wanted to be a noncombatant and help soldiers, so I applied and was accepted to seminary. Unfortunately I got accepted two weeks before deployment, so I would have to wait until I returned. I left all of my pacifist literature at home and went to Iraq, thinking to myself that I should know what it is like to be a soldier before I administer to them.

Iowa Independent: Having been deployed in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal, did you find yourself plopped in a hostile environment?

Casteel: The locals knew about the scandal, and they were pissed. The prisoners were also terrified of us. When I was there, the world’s cameras were upon us so, but unfortunately this did not stop the dark activity that had been going on; it just moved away from the prison. Special forces teams and mobile interrogation units were still using questionable techniques.

Iowa Independent: What do you mean by dark activity and questionable techniques?

Casteel: Special forces units, private contractors and the CIA were using induced hypothermia, sensory deprivation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and smashed prisoners fingers with hammers as a means of extracting information. A really common technique used was shackling a prisoner’s ankles and hands to a loop at the bottom of a shipping container while blaring music and flashing lights for extended periods of time, thus inducing sensory and sleep deprivation. Sometimes dogs would be used as well.

Iowa Independent: What was your role as an Arabic translator and interrogator?

Casteel: I served specifically on a team that interrogated terrorists and foreign fighters. My job was to find information that would help battlefield commanders with missions.

The textbook definition of interrogation is to exploit the greatest amount of information in the least amount of time. We would use the phrase “tactical exploitation” causally all of the time. I was reading Pope John Paul II at the time, and he described the current age as “the culture of death,” which he defines as any time one reduces a human being to an object as a means to an end of exploitation, you participate in the culture of death.

I conducted over 130 interrogations, and I can count on one hand the number of people who were guilty of anything more than being Arab.

Iowa Independent: So who were you interrogating?

Casteel: I interrogated taxi drivers, laborers and young fathers. Units would go out looking for four people and would come back with 80. The problem was that all of the linguists, those who had cultural training, were back with me, so soldiers with little knowledge of the culture were rounding up anyone who looked suspicious in their mind, which meant carrying an AK-47.

What they didn’t know is that the terrorists involved in the violence were a maximum of 2 percent. Political insurgency, people tied to political movements, was 30 to 35 percent. Most of the violence came from the Tribal Defense System, which is like neighborhood watch with guns. They are mainly trying to keep their people safe, and they might be fighting other Iraqis, coalitions or anyone they deem as a threat to their neighborhood. So our soldiers would see these guys and would suspect they may be working for Osama bin Laden, whereas they may just be guarding an alley for safety reasons.

Iowa Independent: When did you begin sensing that your religious faith and your sense of duty as a soldier were clashing?

Casteel: There was this painting at the chapel we used in Abu Ghraib which had this huge, beefy-looking Jesus, who looked like Brian Uhrlacher, a barrel-chested linebacker. He was surrounded by soldiers in combat poses with M-60s and M-16s, and there were a bunch of blue-skinned angels with gold, glowing swords flying about. After meeting the Saudi, I felt like this painting was a good metaphor for America and how things worked out in American Christianity. The painting conveyed the message that Combat Jesus helps me kick my enemies’ ass.

I didn’t like that idea.

Iowa Independent: What do you see as your new calling in the post-Abu Ghraib, post-military world?

Casteel: I’m interested in spreading the notion of political nonviolence and teaching Christians about their faith. There is no such thing as Combat Jesus. The single most important issue when it comes to Christianity and violence is nationalism. It is the single most divisive thing that can push a Christian from a discussion of ethics to a discussion about law. I never heard a Christian say that violence is a good thing and hating people is OK. But there has always been a way to frame it so that violence is no longer personal. It is policy.

What I experienced in Iraq is that I had a unique view from the battlefield. I actually had to talk to the enemy. I knew the names and ages of their kids. How long it had been since they had seen their wives. They had real questions about our democracy and how it worked.

The language our leadership use is always purely policy. Nations have interests, and it is no longer about people. As long as we stay within the language of policy, rather than talking about pain which is never talked about, when it comes to the politics of war. … We have given countries and institutions emotions instead of people.

Iowa Independent: What do you think should happen in Iraq?

Casteel: Nothing can happen without deep, serious conversation with Iran, Syria and Jordan. It is their part of the world. Every time I hear somebody say we need to withdraw with honor, I want to throw my shoe at the television or radio. When did Iraq’s stability have anything to do with our honor? We need to fess up to the fact that we did a very dishonorable thing; that would be the honorable thing to do.

We are always concerned about our interests in the long run. The building of the 14 permanent bases in Iraq needs to stop immediately. On the one hand I am more concerned about individuals than policy and using the political power of “no.” I don’t simply think the war in Iraq is the fault of a bunch of neocons; it is the fault of individuals who said “yes” and bought into the myth of nationalism. People, especially the working class, need to be educated that they have no duty of passing on an aristocracy.

Here is what I would say to soldiers: ‘No soldier is obliged to follow an order that is contrary to God.’ Sadly enough our laws don’t allow the conscience the full scope of freedom. For example, we don’t have selective conscientious objection in our country. You can’t object to unjust wars. Once you are in, you are in; you cannot pick and choose your wars, which basically turns our soldiers into indentured servants.

There are plenty of European countries that have selective CO. There has been no declaration of war since World War II, which means wars go through appropriations. This means that the mechanism of fighting wars that our constitution dictates has been bypassed, so individual soldiers are no longer being represented by their elected leaders in Congress. They are being turned into mercenaries. In a democracy, it is the responsibility of individuals to hold their elected officials responsible when they are unjust.

That means we have to care about things like education in our country.

When New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced he was applying for the coming vacancy in the Oval Office, he had a good idea what was in store for him.

Help Wanted: 43rd President of the United States

Applicants must be a natural born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. The position is temporary, lasting 4 – 8 years, and duties are spelled out in detail in the U.S. Constitution. No experience is necessary, but candidates possessing experience relevant to the job will be given preference. Position needs to be filled by Nov. of next year and duties begin Jan. ‘09. Starting pay is $400,000. Prospective candidates will face a rigorous interview process, which lasts anywhere from 10 – 23 months. Those interested in seeking this job must apply within by filing their intent with the Federal Elections Committee. The United States of America is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

The latest round of interviews landed Richardson in Iowa City on Tuesday, where he was carefully scrutinized and vetted by 150 prospective employers at the Iowa City Library. Richardson arrived to the interview 15 minutes late, which in most interview scenarios would seal a candidate’s fate, but given the history of late starts in politics, the interviewers were quick to forgive the New Mexico governor.

Besides, Richardson quickly disarmed the crowd with his sarcasm and sense of humor. “This is my grass-roots campaign. I’m committed to visiting every house in Iowa,” Richardson kidded, before making an appeal to the audience: “Seriously, let’s decide who is president by who has the best vision, not who is the biggest rock star or raises the most money.”Richardson’s resume speaks for itself: staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Mexico congressional representative, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, secretary of energy, governor of New Mexico, and four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Sounds good on paper, right?

Without any prompt and before the interviewers could sink their teeth into their interviewee, Richardson addressed the obligatory interview question: What will you, as president, bring to our country’s table?

Like most aspiring applicants tend to do, Richardson outlined his ambitious first six days of office. Richardson’s first day of office will be dedicated to getting us out of Iraq with no residual troops. “The current policy is not working in Iraq, and our troops have become targets,” said Richardson. “Not until our military presence is removed will diplomacy work.”

On the second day of office, Richardson will announce a massive Apollo program, which will focus on becoming energy independent. Like his hero John F. Kennedy’s vision of putting a man on the moon in 10 years, Richardson would like to help make America energy independent in 10 years.

To round out the next four days of office, Richardson would announce a comprehensive plan guaranteeing universal health care, focus on improving education initiatives, reinvigorate America’s economy, and restate what makes us America. Regarding the latter, Richardson said he would respect a woman’s right to choose while simultaneously reducing unwanted pregnancies, promised to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, and made a vow to respect the U.S. Constitution. “As president, I will not got to war without the approval of Congress, and I will shut down Guantanamo Bay and restore habeas corpus,” he said.

Referencing his first day in office, Richardson reiterated the import of ending the war in Iraq as a means of accomplishing the sixth day and regaining America’s moral authority in the world. “What we need to do is do what Congress did five years ago when they made a huge mistake. They authorized the war, and what they need to do before summer break is de-authorize it,” he said. “Congress should not be able go home for summer recess until they do.”

After spelling out what he would do the first six days of office, Richardson fielded several questions from the audience. The questions ranged from naming his favorite author to explaining where he stood on gay marriage and why. The latter question, usually a hot-button issue, was asked by one of the younger audience members.

Although Richardson was a little late to the interview, he made amends by overstaying the scheduled event by 30 minutes. One could sense that he genuinely wanted to answer everyone’s question before he left. Meanwhile, Richardson’s handlers did everything they could, short of leading him by the ear, to encourage him to head to his next scheduled job interview. Feeding off one of his running gag lines during the interview, “When you’re at 13 percent in the polls, this is what you have to do,” Richardson shook hands with as many people as possible as he parted the overflow crowd gathered in the library.

Assessing his interview performance, Joan Johnson gave Richardson high marks. “I would love to see a Richardson landslide,” said Johnson, an Iowa native who has been living in Colorado Springs the last 20 years. Johnson was even more impressed by the interview process. “This doesn’t happen in Colorado,” said Johnson. “There’s a passion here in Iowa that many people take for granted. I’m so impressed with the intelligent, down-to-earth, grass-roots politics in Iowa”

It turns out Johnson is no stranger to Iowa politics. She disclosed that her father is the late Donald Johnson, who ran against Gov. Bob Ray in 1968. “My family entire family has always been hardball Republicans. My brothers campaigned for Bush in 2000,” Johnson confessed. “But I’m the Democrat of the family.”

Johnson is not only ready to hire Richardson for the presidential opening but said she was going back to Colorado Springs to pack up her bags, move back to Iowa and campaign for Richardson.