Auction To Sell More Than 100 John Deere Tractors
(Le Mars) — If you have an interest in old agricultural nostalgia, you may want to attend an auction scheduled for Saturday morning, at the Dave Hawkins farm, north of Le Mars.
Auctioneer Bruce Brock says this is not your typical farm estate auction.
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Brock says the late Dave Hawkins collected John Deere tractors and other farm equipment that would represent each model from each year.
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Brock anticipates the auction will attract people from across the nation and even from Canada.
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That auction will begin at 10:00 a.m. and will be located at the Dave Hawkins Farm located at 10313 Nature Avenue, just off of County Road C-12.
Iowa Agriculture Department To Expand Water Quality Program
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — State agriculture officials say they are providing $1 million in funds to help farmers reduce runoff of fertilizer and manure from their fields and pastures.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey says the department has received overwhelming
response to a program that shares the cost of installing systems designed to reduce erosion
and runoff.
The $1 million announced Thursday brings the total funds for the program allocated to
farmers this year to $2.8 million. The department received $3 million in one-time funding
to support statewide water quality practices over the next five years.
Practices eligible for funding include cover crops that hold nitrogen in fields and no-till
or strip-till practices that reduce erosion.
So far more than 700 Iowa farmers have applied to participate in the program.
Wastewater Runs Into Saylorville Lake
POLK CITY, Iowa (AP) — An unknown amount of wastewater has been released into the backwaters of Saylorville Lake in central Iowa.
The state Department of Natural Resources says a pressurized sewer force main in Polk City
sprang a leak, affecting the Polk City Wildlife Refuge. The break was reported Wednesday night after liquid was seen bubbling up through a roadbed.
City officials, who later shut off the main, believe the discharge ran for about three hours. It flowed into a road ditch and then to backwaters of Saylorville Lake north of the marina.
DNR spokesman Bill Gibbons says a barrier dam may have limited the wastewater discharge. He
says the wastewater would have been very dilute because it entered the backwaters about a
quarter mile north of the barrier.
Iowa Receives $40 Million In Mortgage Settlement
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A report by the country’s five largest mortgage providers says Iowa homeowners have received nearly $40 million in relief through a national settlement.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller says in a Thursday news release that the report by an
independent monitor shows more than 1,100 homeowners in the state have received money under
the national mortgage settlement.
The average amount of assistance for an Iowa borrower is about $33,200, which was received
between March and June of this year.
The report says 240 Iowa homeowners have refinanced their mortgages, with an average rate
reduction of nearly 3.5 percent.
More than 640,000 borrowers nationally have received more than $51 billion in mortgage
relief through the settlement.
Court Upholds Decision For U of I Employee To Be Dismissed
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld University of Iowa President Sally Mason’s decision to fire the school’s longtime dean of students for mishandling a high-profile sexual assault case.
The court on Friday rejected claims by Phillip Jones that he was wrongly terminated and defamed by Mason and an outside law firm that investigated the assault and sharply criticized his response.Justice Bruce Zager says that Jones was terminated in 2008 because Mason had lost confidence in his abilities. He says the evidence shows Jones responded inadequately to secure the rights and safety of a female athlete who was assaulted by two football players in 2007 in a dorm room. Zager says that was a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for Mason to fire him. A judge had dismissed the lawsuit last year.
Iowa City Police Warn Students They Will Be Watching
(Iowa City) — Weeks after the University of Iowa was named the nation’s top party school, authorities delivered a sober warning to students arriving on campus for fall semester: We’ll be
watching you.
The Iowa City Police Department announced Thursday that it will be sending out teams of
officers on “party patrols” on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
They’ll be ready to crash disruptive house parties, root out disorderly behavior in university neighborhoods and intervene when parties may be getting out of control. Police said the goal was to prevent the problems that come with huge parties and binge drinking. The Princeton Review announced earlier this month that students consider Iowa the top party school, based on a nationwide survey of 126,000 college students.
