There were several environment-related articles/editorials/LTEs in yesterday's The Des Moines Register.  Here are links to them.  Also, there was a two-page spread on "Iowa's Changing Climate."  It includes facts and figures, graphs and forecasts.  Unfortunately, it's not available on the web.  If you can get a hard copy, the article is in the Metro & Iowa section.
 
Guest column: Restore wetlands, shift to prairie for energy crops

ANDREW HUG is an advocate for Environment Iowa, www.environmentiowa.org.
After yet another series of tragic floods in Iowa, citizens and local and state governments are evaluating how to mitigate them in the future. Experts are proposing higher, stronger levees, restrictions on construction in flood plains, buyouts of properties that flood regularly and more.

The menu of remedies should include two land-use changes - restoration of wetlands and, when cellulosic biofuel production becomes feasible, conversion of corn and soybean fields to deep-rooted perennials.
 
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/OPINION01/806290311/1035/archive
 
---------
 
Guest column: Iowa needs to know more about its water

WILLIAM W. SIMPKINS is a professor of hydrogeology in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.

Floods. We know a lot about them in Iowa.

We spend large amounts of money and time trying to manage them: analyzing stream flow and precipitation data, supporting Doppler radar systems, delineating 100- and 500-year flood plains, building levees and reservoirs to protect property, measuring and predicting flood stages and mobilizing emergency services and volunteers for evacuation and sandbagging.

These activities benefit from the financial cooperation of a host of federal, state and local agencies.
 
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/OPINION01/806290312/1035/archive
 
---------
 
Article
 
Biofuels, Iowa get a scolding at forum in Switzerland

By MARK MICHELI
Register Correspondent

Geneva, Switzerland — They came from India, Brazil, the Marshall Islands, Togo and Canada. They shared stories of thinning ice, devastating cyclones, ruined economies and some things familiar to Iowans — rising waters and failed levees.

Together, at the first Global Humanitarian Forum, five youths meant to represent the human face of climate change sent a message to world leaders: The threat is real and we want solutions.
"I come from the Marshall Islands, and I'm angry right now," said James Bing III, 18, addressing more than 300 business and government leaders. "Rising sea levels have taken our sand, our beaches, our trees, our food and most importantly, our soil. Where is my soil, ladies and gentlemen? What have you done to it? I want my soil back."
 
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/NEWS/806290329/-1/archive

----------
 
LTE
 

Floods, biofuel mania create perfect storm

The record floods and the damage they've done to Iowa's crops have pushed the price of corn and beans even higher than the already remarkably high spring prices.

They have turned a brewing storm into the perfect storm. With reduced production all but a certainty, prices have already jumped to almost daily records. The response from politicians has been predictably shortsighted, but the response from Sen. Charles Grassley has been downright counterproductive.
Grassley has pushed to have restrictions on Conservation Reserve Program land lifted to allow farmers to plant these highly erodible areas. By promoting this, Grassley reveals a mindset that is more a part of the problem than part of the solution. Decades of government policies and subsidies that have encouraged Iowa's present corporate-owned fence-row-to-fence-row monoculture are what laid the groundwork for this year's disastrous floods and their subsequent cleanup costs. Iowa has lost 95 to 99 percent of its wetlands and prairies that at one time captured floodwaters like giant sponges, releasing the waters slowly into the streams and rivers.
As Iowa faces one of its biggest natural disasters in history, we deserve more from our political leaders.

- Joe Monahan, Ames


 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubsribe from the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask] Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp