From the website http://www.bleedingheartland.comRepublican budget would
eliminate Iowa Flood Center
- Tuesday, Apr 11 2017
The Republican education budget proposal would eliminate $1.5 million in
state funding for the Iowa Flood Center <http://iowafloodcenter.org> at the
University of Iowa. According to an e-mail from Professors Witold Krajewski
and Larry J. Weber, enclosed in full below, the cut “will have a
devastating impact on the Flood Center’s ability to continue to provide
flood prevention and real-time flood support to communities, businesses,
emergency managers, public works professionals and citizens.”
In addition to ending the Iowa Flood Information System
<http://ifis.iowafloodcenter.org/ifis/en/>, zeroing out the flood center’s
budget would “jeopardize Iowa’s $96 million dollar federal Iowa Watershed
Approach HUD [Housing and Urban Development] grant and the Center’s ability
to continue to implement projects in nine Iowa watersheds.”
Republican lawmakers have been negotiating behind closed doors on
appropriations bills that will likely be approved in quick succession
during the next two weeks.
On Tuesday the Education Appropriations Subcommittee
<https://www.legis.iowa.gov/committees/committee?groupID=675&ga=87>
discussed the GOP-agreed budget numbers. Iowans should urgently contact
Republicans who serve on that subcommittee: State Senators Tim Kraayenbrink
(chair), Craig Johnson (vice chair), and Jason Schultz, and State
Representatives Cecil Dolecheck (chair), Tom Moore (vice chair), Dean
Fisher, Gary Mohr, and Walt Rogers. UPDATE: Barbara Rodriguez of the
Associated Press published photos of the proposed education budget: page 1
<https://twitter.com/bcrodriguez/status/851875753146929153>, page 2
<https://twitter.com/bcrodriguez/status/851875753146929153>, and page 3
<https://twitter.com/bcrodriguez/status/851875753146929153>.
Iowa lawmakers created the country’s <http://iowafloodcenter.org/about/>
“first academic center devoted to the study of floods” in 2009, following
the previous year’s devastating natural disaster
<http://iowafloodcenter.org/about/background/>.
The IFC is now actively engaged in flood projects in several Iowa
communities and employs several graduate and undergraduate students
participating in flood-related research. IFC researchers have designed a
cost-efficient sensor network to better monitor stream flow in the state;
have developed a library of flood-inundation maps for several Iowa
communities; and are working on a large project to develop new floodplain
map for 85 of Iowa’s 99 counties.
UPDATE: A number of readers have speculated that Republicans may want to
shut down the flood center to disrupt a major watersheds project
<http://iowafloodcenter.org/projects/watershed-projects/>, which might
influence public discourse on land-use policies or climate-change impacts
in Iowa.
Also, I learned this morning that Democratic State Senator Joe Bolkcom is
the outreach and community education director
<http://iowafloodcenter.org/people/type/staff/> for the flood center, as
well as doing the same work <https://cgrer.uiowa.edu/people/cgrer-staff>
for the University of Iowa’s Center for Global & Regional Environmental
Research. Bolkcom is the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations
Committee
<http://www.bleedingheartland.com/2017/01/09/whos-who-in-the-iowa-senate-for-2017/>
and has been a relentless critic of GOP budget policies this year.
SECOND UPDATE: GOP State Representative David Maxwell copied me on his
e-mail to Professor Larry Weber, saying, “Not all of us are in favor of
defunding the Iowa Flood Center. I will not have the final say, but I will
make my thoughts known to someone who will have an effect on the bill.”
Keep contacting House and Senate Republicans. A reader told me that
bringing up the threat to Iowa’s $96 million dollar federal HUD grant may
be a particularly effective talking point.
- See more at:
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/2017/04/11/republican-budget-would-eliminate-iowa-flood-center/#sthash.5T51t3Oa.dpuf
--
*Fish have to swim, birds have to nest, tell the Corps to do their best*
*Debbie Neustadt *
*Des Moines, Iowa*
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