NAVIGATOR CANCELS PIPELINE
Navigator CO2 announced today that they are cancelling their plans for a CO2 pipeline after nearly two years of planning, negotiating easements and hearings before the Iowa Utilities Board.
The pipeline was to extend from northeast NE to south of Sioux City, then through southeast Plymouth County, northwest Cherokee County to a junction at Hartley in O’Brien County.
Another pipeline company, Summit Carbon Solutions, plans a pipeline network in Iowa, including Plymouth County. Their plans are still alive, but their application for a permit in South Dakota was rejected. They are going to reapply for a permit.
Wolf Carbon Solutions plans a line in eastern Iowa.
The greatest objection to the pipeline is the potential use of eminent domain, which would force landowners to sign easement agreements with the pipeline companies.
U OF IOWA HIRES MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR FOR VETERANS
The University of Iowa has hired a mental health counselor to work with students who are military veterans. Counselor Chuck Xander is also a veteran and says veterans coming from active duty on a rigid schedule can struggle with the pace of university life. And he says if they have other diagnoses that probably need to be addressed, you have to have somebody that you can trust to divulge that stuff to whether it is P-T-S-D, drug and alcohol addiction” Xander says the U-I hopes to create a program that can be a model for other schools. The University of Iowa has more than 22 hundred students who are veterans or military-connected, such as active duty Iowa National Guard members. And it says they are the first Big 10 school to hire a mental health counselor specifically dedicated to working with student veterans.
DRIVER IN FATAL SIOUX CITY CRASH IDENTIFIED
Sioux City Police have identified the driver of an SUV that was involved in a crash last Friday night that claimed the lives of two people, including a Le Mars resident. Police say the driver of the Ford Expedition was 30-year-old Wesley Louis Staten of Sioux City.
Investigators say the Expedition was traveling westbound on 6th Street at a high rate of speed. It ran a red light and struck a northbound sedan in the intersection of 6th and Wesley Parkway. The occupants of the Fusion, 51-year-old Terry Alan Frisbie of Sioux City and 50-year-old Judith Lee Jordan of Le Mars died from injuries suffered in the crash.
Staten left the scene of the crash on foot but voluntarily came to the police department on Saturday. Police say he has cooperated with officers in the investigation of the accident, which remains ongoing.
MUSEUM OPENS NATIVE AMERICAN ROOM
There’s a new exhibit opening soon at the Plymouth County Historical Museum in Le Mars. A new Native American room will open Sunday, October 29. The exhibit is six years in the making. A grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Plymouth County helped finance construction of the exhibit. That work was completed this spring. Another grant, from the Gilchrist Foundation of Sioux City, funded the creation of a mural now being painted by several Native American artists from Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago, Nebraska. The room will open at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 29th, on the fourth floor of the museum.
IOWA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE INCHES UP
Iowa’s unemployment rate inched up one-tenth of a percent to three percent in September, while the labor participation rate dropped by one-tenth of a percent. Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson, Jesse Dougherty, says the slight change is seasonal.
Dougherty says they are the same workers that made an impact on employment earlier in the year.
He says some of the students will get part-time jobs while at college, but many won’t be in the workforce again until school is out. Dougherty says there were some areas that saw increases.
He says the national economy continues to cause apprehension in some other industries, with banking and finance, losing 800 jobs and professional business services, lost one-thousand jobs. Dougherty says those industries try to keep a good handle on costs.
Mortgage rates recently went up, and that’s another issue that can have an impact on businesses.
The uptick in the unemployment rate still leaves it below the three-point-one percent rate from last September. The U-S unemployment rate remained at three-point-eight (3.8) percent in September.
NOAA WINTER WEATHER FORECAST
The National Weather Service says Iowa has a higher potential for above normal temperatures this winter, and normal precipitation. The agency’s December through February outlook shows an above normal potential for warmer temperatures from the west coast through the northern Rockies and Plains state, across the Great Lakes into the Mid-Atlantic to New England. Below normal precipitation is projected from the northern Rockies across North Dakota into Michigan. Above normal precip could occur from California to Colorado, into the southern half of the Plains to the Gulf Coast and Mid-Atlantic. The seasonal drought outlook from now through the end of January indicate all of Iowa will continue in drought conditions, particularly the northwest third of Iowa. The presence of El Nino, a warming of Pacific waters at the equator, will drive the weather patterns across the US for the first time in four years.
ERNST URGES AID TO ISRAEL
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says the U-S needs to ensure humanitarian aid for Gaza goes directly to the people who need it and not into the hands of Hamas terrorists.
Ernst, in a speech on the Senate floor, talked about her recent trip to the Middle East. She says during a meeting in Jordan, the couutry’s kind expressed his concern that Iran would capitalize on the chaos in Gaza and escalate the conflict.
Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, compares Hamas to ISIS and she says they deserve nothing less than destruction. The top Democrat in the U-S Senate says lawmakers and the Biden Administration are working on a plan that would provide a surge of military aid to Israel as well as humanitarian aid for civilians trapped in Gaza without food, water or electricity. U-S officials say they’ve so far confirmed 31 Americans were killed in this month’s Hamas attack in Israel.
