Viewpoints

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

by Steve and Robin Oden

To the Editor:
I would like to call attention to the public on hog confinements. Wake up and take notice. Maybe now you don’t have one next to your place, but I promise you, you will if these are not strictly regulated. Your governor and Iowa congress make the laws for the DNR who will pass the matrix for anywhere and anything goes. They will pollute our streams and rivers with bacteria and nitrogen-laden run-off. The air will be toxified due to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions and the DNR told me twice there are no regulations for that. All factories have regulations, why don’t these? The buildings increase asthma in our children and other respiratory illnesses from breathing the air. The confinements have become breeding grounds for lethal MRSA and people living near these have a higher incidence of MRSA contamination in their bodies.

by State Representative Patti Ruff

by State Senator Mike Breitbach

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

by Rev. Tom Buresh

To the Editor:
During the past several weeks, 56th Iowa House District Representative Ruff has been editorializing in the Waukon Standard about the lack of progress on a bill that is stalled in the State House to fund Iowa schools.
In early January Ruff reported that she had proposed an amendment that would have increased spending for Iowa schools by 6 percent. She also told us it was defeated on a party line vote. That implies that the Republicans are responsible for not passing legislation for school funding. What Ruff did not tell us was how she planned to pay for that 6 percent increase. It was a not too subtle effort at pandering to the education vote, but with the clear understanding that our representative is not really seeking a practical solution since she offered no way to fund her own proposal and has offered no fiscally sound solutions for resolving the issue.

by State Representative Patti Ruff

I received the final update on the CWD sample collection that went on in Allamakee. More than 100 deer were collected as part of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources surveillance effort looking for chronic wasting disease near Harpers Ferry in late February and early March.
Tissue samples from 85 of the adult deer collected were sent to the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames for testing and all 85 samples came back as not detected. All collectors have been notified of the results.
Although the number of samples collected was less than the goal of 200, the results are encouraging and suggest that CWD may not be established at a significant level.
The DNR has scheduled a public meeting in the Harpers Ferry Community Center, 238 North Fourth Street, at 6:30 p.m. this Thursday,  April 16th to solicit input and begin planning for continued surveillance this summer and fall.

by State Senator Mike Breitbach