Des Moines Register
The state s top environmental leader rejected a request to review a controversial animal feeding project in northeast Iowa that critics say threatens one of Iowa s outstanding waterways.
Kayla Lyon, Iowa s Department of Natural Resources director, said she lacks the authority to review the Supreme Beef project, an 11,600-head cattle operation near Monona in Clayton County.
The open-lot feeding operation sits near the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek, a cold- water trout stream that s among 34 waterways and lakes designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters.
The Sierra Club Iowa Chapter, representing nearly 50 individuals, state lawmakers and organizations, wrote to Lyon last week, asking her to order a departmental review of the Supreme Beef project under an administrative code rule that gives the director discretion to evaluate animal feeding operations in environmentally exceptional areas.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has approved the nutrient management plan of an 11,600-head open cattle feedlot near Monona.
Supreme Beef, owned by Mike Walz, Dean Walz and Jared Walz, now may complete the project started in 2017 but stalled by environmental violations, opposition from neighbors and legal wrangling with two former business partners.
Environmental groups were not happy with the decision.
“If IDNR can approve this facility, which is located in sensitive karst topography, in the watershed of an Outstanding Iowa Water and important cold water trout streams, then current Iowa laws and regulations provide no protection of the public interest and exist solely to rubber stamp livestock industry interests,” Ingrid Gronstal, water program director for the Iowa Environmental Council, said in a prepared statement.
ABOUT Letters to the editor are the opinion of the author, and include both facts and the individuals personal perspective. Community members are encouraged to submit letters up to 250 words for consideration. Sat., February 27, 2021 Wally Taylor
In Rod Boshart’s Gazette article on Feb. 19 regarding the Iowa Senate subcommittee discussing revising the Bottle Bill, he reported the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ken Rozenboom, took umbrage at Jess Mazour of the Iowa Sierra Club stating that the proposed legislation would gut the bottle bill. But that is, in fact, what it would do.
Rozenboom’s bill would allow retailers, who have opposed the bottle bill for years, to refuse to participate in taking bottle and can returns and force consumers to travel 40 miles round trip to a redemption center to return the containers. But the bill provides no incentive to encourage more conveniently located redemption centers. It does not raise the nickel deposit, nor increase the