News Center newsletter

To the Editor:

According to an article in The Standard dated August 3, 2022 (page 7, column 5) dealing with the Crazy Days of August 5 and 6, it is my opinion that the City is now accepting the responsibility and liability for the sloping sidewalks.

I have not read the Americans with Disabilities Act, but when I see that Act referenced in the same sentence with sloping sidewalks, it gives me pause. When merchants get a permit from the City to use the flat portion of the sidewalk to hawk their wares, or wears, and relegate the slope to the disabled, that does not appear to me to be the spirit of the referenced act.

Someone once said that every idea is not a good idea, nor is every idea a bad idea. But sloping sidewalks were never a good idea! Parking meters are long gone, but when they were installed, they were on flat sidewalks!

Respectfully,
Herb Larkin
Waukon
 

Upcoming Deadlines/Dates
September 1: Dairy Margin Coverage Premiums Due
October 31: Organic Certification Cost-Share and Transition/Education Certification Program

Late Summer Pasture Seeding
by Jacob Hawes, NRCS Area Grazing Specialist
The late summer seeding window begins in August for pasture and hay plantings, and although it is not as popular as the spring seeding option, it can still be a great opportunity to get cool season pastures established this year. There are several advantages to seeding late summer versus the spring, that may ease some apprehensions about seeding during this timeframe.

Water quality improvements often happen in fields and underground – places that can be hard to see up close and in one setting.

But thanks to the aid of computer monitors, visual demonstrations and printed material, the water quality team with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach is planning to make water quality improvement very visual during this year’s Farm Progress Show, Aug. 30-Sept. 1 in Boone.

Kay Stefanik, assistant director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State University, said this year’s exhibit will include a video on the water quality benefits of wetlands, specifically related to nitrogen reduction.

The Conservation Station trailer, developed by Iowa Learning Farms, will show visitors what saturated buffers and bioreactors look like and how they function.

Conservation planning is entering a new era of precision problem-solving with the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF), and its just-released Financial and Nutrient Reduction Tool (FiNRT).

“ACPF itself is a non-prescriptive conservation planning framework supported by high-resolution geospatial data and an ArcGIS toolbox,” said Emily Zimmerman, assistant professor in Iowa State’s Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management. “These elements are used to allow conservation planners and landowners to identify and evaluate conservation opportunities at different scales, from the field to the watershed.”

“With the recent addition of the ACPF-compatible FiNRT (pronounced fine-art) toolbox that incorporates financial information with environmental benefits, ACPF will be of even greater interest to stakeholders looking for information on the tradeoffs of implementing best management practices,” she said.

The Waukon Corn Days celebration this past weekend kicked off with two main events Thursday evening, August 4. Pictured above, a sizable crowd filled both food stands at the Allamakee County Fairgrounds in Waukon for the traditional sweet corn meal, with an abundance of other activities available for all ages to help celebrate the annual Corn Days event. The annual Corn Days parade through Waukon followed the meal, with numerous people lining the parade route throughout the community. Friday and Saturday, August 5 and 6 continued the draw to Waukon with Crazy Days specials at local businesses, coinciding with the annual tax free weekend observed in the state of Iowa. Additional photos from Thursday’s Waukon Corn Days events appear on Page 13 inside the Wednesday, August 10, 2022 print edition and e-edition of The Standard, and can also be found in the Photo Galleries link on this webpage.

The Harpers Ferry Fireflies traveled to Kansas City, MO to play in the National Granny Basketball Tournament July 30-31. Twenty teams participated in this year’s tournament, including six from Iowa, seven from Kansas, two from Louisiana, two from Oklahoma, two from Texas and one from Missouri.

During Saturday, July 30 pool play, the Fireflies played the Oklahoma Rockers of Jones, OK and won, 65-55. They then defeated Sugar and Spice of Wichita, KS, 50-20, and in the final game of the day defeated the Classic Roadrunners out of Des Moines, 55-37. Advancing to the championship bracket of the Sunday, July 31 single elimination tournament games, the Fireflies made their way to the tournament’s championship game by defeating the Oklahoma Rockers again, 57-41, and the Late Bloomers out of Norway, IA, 40-35.

The Heytman’s Landing boat ramp, south of Lansing, on Pool 9 of the Mississippi River is scheduled to be closed until September 23 this fall. The closure is taking place to accommodate the replacement of the railroad bridge that spans the boat channel along the river’s edge at that boat ramp site.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) encourages boaters to seek other ramps in the area during the Heytman’s Landing closure, including Village Creek on the south edge of Lansing and New Albin Army Road, located north of Lansing. There are also many ramps on the Wisconsin side of the river. The Big Slough and Winneshiek Slough landings are available along Hwy. 82 (locally known as the dike road) in Wisconsin after crossing Lansing’s Black Hawk Bridge. The Blackhawk Park area near De Soto, WI has multiple ramps and the Dairyland Power access south of Genoa, WI has plenty of parking.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is hosting informational meetings on Chronic Wasting Disease in northeastern Iowa. A pair of such meetings are scheduled for Wednesday, August 24 at Johnson’s Hall and Restaurant in Elkader from 6:30-7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, August 31 at the Waukon Banquet Center from 6:30-7:30 p.m. The DNR invites everyone who is interested in learning more about what Iowans can do to help slow the spread of the disease.

Hazard risks can be natural or man-made, and cover a variety of things, such as storms and flooding, hazardous materials, infrastructure, terrorism, human disease and more. The public is invited to be involved in Allamakee County Hazard Mitigation Planning Committee (HMPC) meetings to identify hazard risks and discuss ways communities can prevent, or mitigate, these risks in the future.

Planning committee members require no previous experience to be involved. The planning process will provide the data, materials and questions necessary to engage stakeholders in thinking about hazard mitigation needs for their community.

Planning committee members will attend up to five meetings over the course of the coming year. The initial planning meeting will be held from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, August 31 at Waukon City Hall, located at 101 Allamakee Street in Waukon.

Waukon area native Joe Byrnes, a 1971 graduate of Waukon High School, was honored with a Governor’s Service Award through the State of Wisconsin earlier this summer. Byrnes was bestowed the Volunteer of the Year Award for Southwest Wisconsin for his work with Goodwill of South Central Wisconsin’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program.

The Governor’s Service Awards are described as honoring “outstanding national service members, volunteers and programs that have helped to address serious social needs in their communities. Those honored by these awards will have made significant contributions to the state of Wisconsin through their service efforts, with their generous service impacting the lives of countless Wisconsinites.” The 2022 Governor’s Service Awards ceremony took place May 26 of this year at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI.