A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper
The City of Storm Lake has formed a water study committee to help determine how to manage increasing water demand with a faltering treatment system. Its most useful work should be to sort out what is equitable among consumers, residential and industrial. Big rate increases are upon us as the city council tries to implement some $100 million in system upgrades.
Meatpacking consumes nearly three million gallons of water a day in Storm Lake, accounting for about half of the water system’s consumption. Tyson’s rate is 72% of the residential rate. They should be the same. The city signed a water rate agreement in 2023 that establishes the discount.
Storm Lake’s pocket of its main underground water source, the Dakota Aquifer, cannot sustain increased pumping. Tyson alone accounted for a 12% annual increase in the past two years.
Citizens who can barely afford rent have a hard time keeping up with double-digit water and sewer rate increases. They are subsidizing industry by paying higher rates and fees. The city buys their job protection with cheap water.
It would appear that we have little choice but to continue squandering our water supply for the sake of meat exports.
The committee will have other tasks for a set of January recommendations to the city council, including whether to build an entirely new water plant and whether a different treatment method (such as reverse osmosis) should replace lime. These are big and difficult questions, but none are bigger than fairness and sustainability. Addressing those two key factors may be foreclosed by contract, but all the issues deserve a hearing.
The discussion could prompt innovation and conservation that saves money for industry and protects livelihoods. Water is only going to get scarcer, and new guzzlers in the form of computing data centers are coming online. We are seeing it happen as both the Dakota and Jordan aquifers decline. We must get to the discussion of ongoing conservation and protection of our water. Rates are an incentive to conservation if applied properly.
State Rep. Mike Sexton, a Calhoun County farmer, has been named state rural development director for USDA by the Trump Administration. Sexton is well familiar with Storm Lake by proximity and the importance of food processing and ethanol to the economy. He should help Storm Lake lessen the load of a new water plant.
We have begged help for several years from state and federal authorities something like this: Storm Lake needs water because of ethanol and food processing. An inordinate burden is placed on the residents of the city to expand wells, the treatment plant and improve the distribution system.
This is not something off in the distance. It is a present emergency.
We appeal for help from Sexton. We have been told in the past that the USDA can only offer loans. We don’t need debt. We need rate relief. We are providing water to provide food and fuel for the nation at relatively low wages. Because of grain and oilseed processing, and livestock feeding, we are drinking down the aquifers. Our wells must go deeper. Tyson is paying for a new water tower. We need a lot more than that.
This is a blue-collar town of limited means. Former City Manager Patti Moore was able to wrangle federal emergency funds for infrastructure expansion. Declining sources and hotter weather combine to make an emergency. It surely is an emergency when hard-working people are hit with double-digit rate increases year after year.
If USDA cannot help, Sexton could direct us to the proper source for funding. We hope he can act as an advocate for a neighbor. This is an ag processing center that deserves state and federal support. We trust Sexton will do everything he can to help.
That nobody filed nomination papers to run for mayor of Storm Lake says something about the job. Mayor Mike Porsch decided to retire after eight years, and long service on the city council before that. We are grateful to him for being a fine ambassador for The City Beautiful.
That’s what the job has become under the council-manager form of government. The mayor’s position is largely ceremonial. The mayor presides over city council meetings, has a limited pocket veto power, and can play an informal political role as an interlocutor among the council members. Otherwise, the job entails attending ribbon cuttings and swearing in police officers.
A mayor can expand his or her influence informally by shaping the agenda and discussion.
People direct their frustration at the mayor because he or she is the titular leader of the city. The pay is bad. There isn’t a lot of upside in the job, unless you like being an ambassador for city hall.
Years ago, the mayor could hire and fire the police chief and the fire chief. That sort of power could draw people to the position. Distribution of power is generally a good thing. We are stuck with the manager form of government for the time being.
As it stands, a few write-in votes could elect the next mayor. Porsch said he is not certain he would accept another term if his name were written in. We couldn’t blame him. If someone wants the job, please let us know. It can be gratifying to the right kind of person who likes soft leadership. That sort of person obviously is in short supply.
The city council races feature four candidates for three seats. Incumbent Maggie Martinez will seek re-election and deserves it. The other three candidates are Don Piercy, Dalton Walker and Richard Riner. We thank them for stepping up to keep our community strong and make it better. It takes some courage.
All hail the Beavers who worked for five straight years of enrollment growth at Buena Vista University. This is remarkable, and a huge credit to the faculty and staff in a most hostile environment for higher education generally and small, private colleges in particular.
President Brian Lenzmeier, himself a virologist by education, led the university through the pandemic with skill and knowledge. The university was well positioned coming out of it. New residential and athletic facilities have sprung up. Fundraising is healthy. Investment in science education is paying off.
Lenzmeier understands that you can grow enrollment and go broke doing it. He understands that you can’t give it away, and is constantly on the prowl for donors to make up for tuition gaps. So far, so good. The formula appears to be working.
Private schools in rural areas are closing left and right, and those that remain are struggling. State legislators are not friendly to academic inquiry. The limited support that the state offers is constantly under threat. The Trump Administration has stayed busy suing higher education.
All of those factors make Buena Vista’s story all the more remarkable. BVU needs all the support it can get. It is the most important economic and cultural institution in Storm Lake or even the region. We worry it could go the way of Westmar or Iowa Wesleyan. We can set those worries aside for the time being. Go Beavers.
Believing that political violence is spawned by left-wingers does not make it so. Belief can be taken as fact when we mix politics with religious dogma. Fact is, we noted last week, the United States has a long history of political violence that is not confined to one ideology. The main common denominator has been easy access to guns, and madness.
NBC News reported that federal authorities have not found a link between Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin and left-wing groups. Family members said he had expressed left-wing political ideas recently. He had no evident connections to any political groups.
Seventy percent of extremist attacks and domestic terror plots since 2002 originated from the right wing, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
It is deceitful and dangerous to suggest that most political violence comes from the left. Politicians are using Kirk’s murder to call for retribution against their adversaries. The path leads to dark places.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here