MUSEUM EXCAVATION
Volunteers were both touring and digging around on the grounds of the Sioux City Railroad Museum Wednesday. Museum spokesman Larry Obermeyer says decade ago, workers lived on the grounds located near the Big Sioux River, and built 22 railroad structures, including a roundhouse and turntable. He says the archaeology field day is designed to find artifacts buried over 100 years ago from the early days of the railroad in Sioux City.
Obermeyer says a past dig turned up a few items like medicine bottles and tent pieces from the workers who were there about the time of World War I..
The State Historic Preservation Office and the Sioux City Historic Preservation Commission promoted the event and helped recruit volunteers. Heather Gibb is the Deputy State Historical Preservation Officer with the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.
The volunteers digging including local students and adults from the Siouxland area with an interest in the site. The event was a pre-conference training session for the Preserve Iowa Summit being hosted in Sioux City later this week at the Warrior Hotel.
PLANTING SEASON
Plymouth County farmers have completed planting corn and soybean crops for this year. Area Agronomist Leah Ten Napel says there remains some field work.
This usually happens when a stand of soybeans isn’t emerging as the producer expects.
Some of this damage was due to a heavy rain received a couple of weeks ago.
Midwest Drought Monitor now says Iowa is facing a drought this year, with 57% of Iowa currently covered with abnormally dry conditions. Ten Napel says we’re between climate patterns
Ten Napel says the dry conditions have created some plant stress in places
Tillage has been kept at a minimum this spring .
The Midwest Drought Monitor indicates it will be another dry season before the next climate pattern, El Nino, establishes itself across the midwest.
RAILROAD THEFT
Two Sibley residents were arrested by Sioux County authorities on theft charges. The Sioux County Sheriffs Office says they arrested 46 year old David Case and 33 year old Margaret Jakobson. They were arrested after the Sheriffs Office received a report of the two entering BNSF Railway property and stealing scrap metal. It is alleged the two stole railroad tie plates and steel stakes, and were trying to sell them as scrap iron at a salvage yard. Case and Jakobson were transported to the Sioux County Jail and were charged with second degree theft. This is a joint investigation of the Sioux County Sheriff’s Office and Osceola Sheriff’s Office.
DEBT CEILING
The U-S House voted late Wednesday to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. All four members of Iowa’s House delegation voted in favor. Fourth district Congressman Randy Feenstra of Hull said in his statement that the bill avoids financial ruin for farmers, families and Main Street businesses, while setting up long-term federal spending controls. The bill is likely to be voted upon in the U.S. Senate today. Iowa’s senior senator is still on the fence about the legislation. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says as important bills go, this one is at least relatively concise.
Grassley says he has done some research on the bill and isn’t entirely thrilled with it.
The measure was crafted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy working with President Biden and it would suspend the debt ceiling until January 1st of 2025. Grassley says one of the keys to politics is the art of give-and-take. In addition to raising the debt ceiling, the measure also promises to set certain limits on federal spending.
PRESERVE IOWA SUMMIT
Iowans who are passionate about preserving their communities’ history and historic buildings are meeting today Thursday in Sioux City for the start of three-day Preserve Iowa Summit. Jeff Morgan, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, says the meeting is held in different Iowa cities each year and it features expert presentations, workshops and tours, teaching participants new ways to preserve Iowa’s past — for the future. Morgan calls the summit the premier convening of people who are involved in historic preservation projects, issues and policies throughout the state. It gathers architects, developers and historic preservation professionals. The summit is being held in the newly-renovated Warrior Hotel, which first opened in 1930. Tour destinations include the Sioux City Railroad Museum, the Fourth Street Historic District, and the Woodbury County Courthouse, a national landmark.
ESA APPLICATIONS
Some Iowa parents may begin applying for 76-hundred dollars in state funding to cover private school tuition for their children Wednesday. The plan for state-funded Educational Savings Accounts was the number one legislative priority for Governor Kim Reynolds. She released a video message this Wednesday morning.
Not all parents are eligible this year, however, as only parents with an annual household income at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty line may apply. In year three, every parent of a private school student becomes eligible.
Reynolds says. A New York company is managing the online portal where Iowans apply for the state funding and the company makes the tuition payments to private schools. If there’s money remaining, it may be used for other approved expenses, like tutoring or school books.
The application period for low-income parents who enroll their kids in private schools opened at 8 a.m. today (Wednesday) and closes June 30th. Some private schools have raised tuitioby double digits. Bishop Heelan Catholic High School in Sioux City raised tuition by 24 percent.
IOWA ASTRONAUT RETURNS
After a ten-day mission to the International Space Station, retired NASA astronaut and Iowa native Peggy Whitson is back on Earth after she and three crewmates splashed down Tuesday night off the Florida coast in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Whitson, who grew up in Beaconsfield, was commander of the mission, the first private space mission in history commanded by a woman.
CARBON PIPELINE MORATORIUM
Opponents of carbon pipelines are asking federal officials to issue a moratorium on new construction. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is holding a two-day public hearing in Des Moines. Kim Junker, a Grundy County farmer, says the federal agency should at least adopt new safety standards for the operation of pipelines — and the response to ruptures. Three people from Mississippi are in Iowa, testifying about a carbon pipeline rupture three years ago near a small town called Satartia (suh-TAR-shuh). A first responder who rescued unconscious people from a car that couldn’t run because of the carbon dioxide plume says he’d be protesting if a carbon pipeline was proposed on or near his property in Mississippi.
