Editorial

Admittedly, we are not hydrologists, biologists or engineers. We are not even good anglers. We like to think of ourselves as informed skeptics. So we approach cautiously plans to clarify the lake from suspended sediment with means other than old-fashioned dredging. That said, we are greatly encouraged that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources set aside some $250,000 to hire a water resources engineering firm to investigate how to take Storm Lake’s water quality to the next level.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady last week called for better courthouse security throughout the state in the wake of a courthouse shooting in Jackson County. The Iowa State Bar Association made the same call in 2005 and again in 2007. Our own Judge John Duffy was talking about it well before then. But nothing happens, and we doubt anything will happen.

Amy Lopez wants to be a doctor. William Bui Tran is interested in biomedical engineering. Diew Tay wants to be an elementary teacher and coach. Mariah Mattson hopes to become an anesthesiologist. They are among seven Storm Lake High School graduates who are the first Storm Lake Scholars, first-generation collegians who are receiving full rides at the University of Iowa starting this year. The program was created within days of a meeting between UI President Sally Mason and The Storm Lake Times in the fall of 2013.

Sen. David Johnson surely knows better than us. The long-time Republican legislator from Ocheyedan — a strong and important supporter especially of protecting and restoring lakes — says he will introduce a bill to increase the sales tax by one cent, with 1/8th of it going to the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. It would create a protected annual revenue stream of about $150 million to be used cleaning up lakes, keeping nutrients and soil in place, and enhancing fish and wildlife.

The Des Moines Waterworks has spent millions of dollars removing nitrates from drinking water drawn from the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers. Recent surges in nitrogen in the water have required the utility to repeatedly fire up the largest nitrate removal system in North America. The waterworks has warned for years that unless improvements were made upstream, the utility would sue northern counties in the Raccoon River Watershed.

Several Iowa towns — Alexander, Mount Union and Luther among them — are considering disincorporation or even bankruptcy because they don’t have the money to install modern sewage treatment systems, we read over the weekend. We were saddened also to learn that the Walnut Bureau newspaper and the Danish Village Voice in Elk Horn folded for lack of a market. The Walnut Bureau was 130 years old.

The coming of 2015 could and probably should be the year that Storm Lake decides what to do with South School on Cayuga Street. The school board has declared that it will have no need for the stately building shrouded by trees once the high school renovation is completed. The board maintains that it will have no use for the auditorium or gym. We think the community will need that space, but we understand why the board wants to rid itself of a perceived liability and expense.

It may sound strange, but we should all breathe a sigh of relief that farmland values in Buena Vista County dropped by 13% this year. Land prices had been on a 10-year tear and there appeared to be no top in sight, which made us fairly nervous. We remember what happened in the early 1980s, when Iowa nearly fell apart at the seams from a catastrophic increase in interest rates and simultaneous drop in land values.

State legislators are right to engage in a debate on when school should start in the fall. Gov. Terry Branstad earlier told his education director not to automatically grant waivers to school districts wanting to start classes before Sept. 1. More than 300 districts are automatically granted the waivers every year, which indicates that school officials are at odds with the governor’s office.

This famous editorial, written by Francis P. Church, first appeared in The New York Sun on Sept. 21, 1897, in response to a letter to the editor from an eight-year-old girl. The Storm Lake Times reprints it annually at Christmas.

         “DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.