Home Care In Deep River, IA

Wind energy was responsible for 58 percent of Iowa’s electricity in 2021 — the highest share for any state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It powered about 9 percent of the nation’s utility-scale electricity generation.

But the 60,000-plus wind turbines scattered across the country have a shelf life: about 20 years, depending on damage and maintenance. Repowering turbines — when they are retrofitted with updated technology — also creates waste.

Traditionally, decommissioned turbine blades have been sent to landfills. But in recent years, recycling the often hundred-plus-foot-long blades has become a new, more sustainable disposal method among companies in Iowa and the Midwest.

The most recent addition to recycling options comes from REGEN Fiber, a new Iowa business born from the Alliant Energy subsidiary Travero, which last week announced its new mechanical method for re-purposing turbine blades. Its forthcoming Fairfax facility should be able to recycle more than 30,000 tons of shredded blade materials annually once it’s operational later this year.

REGEN Fiber touts its patent-pending process as eco-friendly. Although many of the details are still under wraps, some experts say the company’s announcement is a step in the right direction for making wind energy more green by re-purposing its waste stream without using chemicals or heat.

“It's proprietary. All we can do is guess as to what it is they're doing,” said Steve Guyer, the Iowa Environmental Council’s energy and climate policy specialist. “But I hope that it is up to the billing. I think it's great that they're having a facility like that in Iowa.”

Mechanical process confidential

Representatives of Travero, a logistics company that doesn’t impact Alliant operations or customer bills, wouldn’t share many specifics about their blade recycling methods with The Gazette as they await a patent.

But they did say it’s a mechanical process that chews up decommissioned blades and blade manufacturing scrap materials and spits out shredded “virgin fibers,” those of similar quality as fibers made from manufacturers.

“(This is) a solution for both ends of the life cycle of a wind turbine blade,” said Thushan Hemachandra, Travero’s lead of marketing.

The technologies used in the process bridge several different industries, including recycling, forestry and agricultural segments. They also remove wood and foam that’s manufactured into blades and turn them into a coal fly ash replacement that stabilizes soil for construction projects.

REGEN Fiber started piloting the process in 2021 at a Des Moines facility, ensuring the fibers met performance standards for the concrete industry. The company is upgrading to a manufacturing facility in Alliant Energy’s Big Cedar Industrial Center — the largest industrial site in Iowa — next to a Travero warehouse in Fairfax.

The recycled end products can be used to reinforce materials like concrete and asphalt.

Years ago, Sri Sritharan, an Iowa State University structural engineer and Wind Energy Initiative lead, and his colleagues researched how to deconstruct turbine blades for use in concrete. A 2016 thesis from one of his students found that fibers from the blades could come at high costs and compromise the strength and durability of concrete.

Sritharan said he is pleased to see a company making more headway in the field.

“It just comes down to how cost effectively you can extract the fiber … so maybe they have figured out how to do it,” he said. “I think it's a good pathway forward.”

Comparing other recycling processes

Wind turbine blades can be recycled with heat, chemical and mechanical means, and end products vary depending on the process.

Veolia — a French company that manages water, waste and energy — recycles blades at its Louisiana, Miss., facility using heat. The structures are ground up and thrown into a cement kiln, the process emitting 27 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional cement production, according to reporting by the St. Louis-Post Dispatch.

Vestas, an Oregon-based wind turbine company, has a facility in Marengo that also co-processes blade materials with cement. The company processed more than 2,000 tons of recycled materials in 2022, said Grady Howell, the company’s program manager of blade recycling.

Other facilities use chemicals to recycle their turbine blades — which could be dangerous. Jeff Woods, Travero’s director of business development, referenced the December blast at C6-Zero, a Marengo facility that says it recycles shingles, that injured up to 15 people and forced an evacuation of nearby homes.

“It's a separate industry … but that process that happened down there was chemically based,” Woods said. “Not saying our competitors, if you will, or others in the space would run into that. But they're using a similar chemical-based process.”

REGEN Fiber’s recycling process doesn’t release thermal emissions or carbon into the atmosphere like combustion does, nor does it require the use of potentially dangerous chemicals. Thus, Travero representatives call it eco-friendly.

The company’s mechanical methods also capture dust created during the process, which will be used for soil stabilization projects. Additionally, they require “reasonably low energy use” compared with other industrial processes, Woods said, sporting smaller motors. It’s unclear exactly how much energy the process requires.

“How much energy is it going to take to actually separate these fibers? I don't know,” Guyer said. “But anytime someone goes down that path, I always go back to … if we envision a 100 percent renewable future, then (not using chemical and heat) is eco-friendly.”

More recycling in the future?

Before recycling methods were an option, spent turbine blades around the country were sent to landfills. Since turbine blades are made to be durable, they’re hard to break apart and don’t compact well, which makes them take up more capacity.

A 2021 study projected that Iowa’s turbine fleets would be responsible for just under 140,000 metric tons of decommissioned blades by 2050.

MidAmerican Energy used to landfill its decommissioned blades but now recycles or re-purposes them. Although none of Alliant’s turbines have reached the end of their life span, the company said REGEN Fiber provides an option for Alliant Energy to recycle its wind blades when the time comes.

It’s unclear how many of Iowa’s landfills have taken turbine blades in the past. Des Moines’ Metro Waste Authority, which operates the biggest landfill in the state, doesn’t accept them. Neither does the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency’s landfill in Marion.

The Newton Sanitary Landfill in Central Iowa has accepted about a dozen decommissioned turbines blades in the last 10 years, said Jody Rhone, Newton’s public works director.

But piles of the parts remain around Jasper County after Global Fiberglass Solutions Inc., a company focused on fiber glass waste, fell back on its promise to recycle a combined 1,300 blades. The blades scattered around his county make Rhone skeptical of more blade recycling attempts, although he is optimistic that a company — like REGEN Fiber — could crack the code.

“I've just seen so many of these (attempts) … that never came to fruition,” he said. “I want to see it proven, done, working, have a market for the byproduct or the product — all of that before I make judgment on that.”

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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In this Nov. 5, 2019, photo, workers maneuver an old turbine hub being lowered to the ground in Walnut, Iowa. MidAmerican Energy's wind farm in Walnut was repowering turbines, some of which had their original blades since 2004. Blades can weigh up to 11,500 pounds. (Olivia Sun/Des Moines Register via AP)

DAVENPORT, Iowa — After rising for days, the Mississippi River crested at Davenport midday Monday, peaking slightly lower than forecast but still high enough to test the city's flood defenses and to keep officials on guard.

The rising river in southeast Iowa and northwest Illinois was caused by a surge of water from melting snowfall to the north. The peak levels this spring will likely rank in the top ten of all time in many places, but the National Weather Service still said river levels will generally remain well below past records.

That should help most towns along the river withstand the floodwaters, though officials will be checking their floodwalls and sandbag barriers closely in the next few days.

National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Wilson said the river crested at Davenport on Monday at 21.4 feet. That's slightly lower than the 21.6 feet predicted for the Quad-Cities area, where several neighboring cities sit along the Iowa-Illinois line.

Some roads and parks near the river are closed. The record at that spot is 22.7 feet. Flood stage at that part of the river is 15 feet.

Officials in towns along the river have said they are optimistic they will escape severe flooding this year, thanks to improved floodwalls and other prevention measures.

"Everybody's plan along the river has been put to the test and everybody is passing right now," Wilson said.

Two minor levee breaks were reported over the weekend near a wildlife refuge south of Bellevue, Iowa, and in Camanche, Iowa, that covered a couple streets with water, but Wilson said no homes were damaged, and officials were able to build a new sandbag barrier in Camanche to bring that flooding under control.

The river peaked in the Dubuque area Saturday at 23.03 feet — well below the 25.7 feet record — but officials there were grateful to have the floodwall in place that the city built 50 years ago.

Without that floodwall, the city would be facing significant problems, said Deron Muehring, a civil engineer for the city of Dubuque.

"The floodwaters would be up to 6 feet deep in the Port of Dubuque and more than 7 feet deep in the south port," Muehring told the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald.

Once the river crests in an area, it may take up to two weeks for the floodwaters to fully recede.

The flooding is expected to ease as the spring surge of water from melting snow works its way further down the 2,300-mile length of the river on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the tributaries in Iowa, Illinois and other Midwest states are running lower than usual, so they won't exacerbate the flooding by dumping large amounts of water into the river.

The flooding woes come as Florida and Virginia residents are cleaning up from weekend tornadoes.

On Saturday, a tornado touched down in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with winds of 100 mph, while a tornado moved through the City of Virginia Beach on Sunday, damaging dozens of homes, downing trees and causing gas leaks.

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - 2020 has been a stressful year and an Iowa couple chose a Florida trip to get away from it all. But how they’re traveling is quite unusual.

Running aground and nearly sinking ‘The Wasn’t’ the plan for the couple aboard the Wasn’t Me.

“We go on Facebook and there are the supportive people but yeah there’s a lot of comments about Gilligan’s Island,” said Stephanie Parker, the boat owner.

Both in their mid-forties Stephanie Parker and partner Johnny Pippin from Sioux City bought the 40-year-old cabin cruiser in July and chartered a course to a Florida marina.

“Who wouldn’t want to take off down the river like Huck Finn and live and adventure,” said Pippin.

But a month ago cruising down the Missouri past Omaha, trouble stuck.

“We got stuck on a sandbar and got a leak. It scares me I can’t help it I get a little scared of it,” said Parker.

The couple maneuvered their 34-foot Sea Ray to shore.

A few days ago, ‘Wasn’t Me’ almost wasn’t a-float but the couple got off, took a cab, and bought a heavy-duty pump. They’ve been using that to keep it from capsizing.

But with unexpected expenses rising the purchase almost sunk their bank account.

Spent the last of what we had and bought this pump.

While ankle-deep river water makes the cabin, unlivable colder weather hinders camping.

So, the couple crashes at a friend’s apartment and they say a group called Omaha River Rats is providing land transportation while helping plan repairs.

“People’s generosity toward somebody they don’t know. There’s still a lot of good people out here,” said Pippin.

The couple is anxious to weigh anchor and despite sleepless nights will continue a dream adventure to a beach far from Omaha.

“Yesterday as I’m putting on coveralls instead of a bikini, I said yeah this is not the plan,” said Parker.

The couple has been hit by land pirates. They say while at breakfast recently thieves took tools and valuables off their boat. The adventurers hope to get underway next week either downriver or to a dry dock.

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North Carolina developer emerges as supervisors discuss possible regulations

WASHINGTON — A work session on proposed county ordinances regulating wind energy took a turn Tuesday morning, when a company representative confirmed Duke Energy’s very tentative plans to develop turbines in the area. The Fortune 150 business headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, describes itself as “one of America’s largest energy holding companies.”

Eric Briones, the owner of energy consultant firm Sustainable Power Partners, spoke on behalf of the prospective developer. He said the goal, for now, was to suss things out in Washington County.

“When we’re interested in developing a utility-scale wind power project, one of the very first things we do is reach out to the leadership, the county leadership, and see if it’s something that there’s an appetite for, or if it is not something that’s welcome in the county,” Briones said. “We don’t have any leases in the county, we haven’t begun reaching out to land owners. It is a prospective idea.”

The company has worked in Iowa before, building the 207-Megawatt Ledyard Windpower project in Kossuth County through one of its brands: Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions. The corporation said in a news release that the facility went online in January, 2023.

Briones said that project took roughly six years of planning and work on his part, and promised that any potential development in Washington County wouldn’t happen overnight either.

“It will take many years to come together,” he said. “We worked with Kossuth County when they were considering a wind ordinance … that was a long and thorough process, we held a lot of open houses, provided a lot of feedback, provided a lot of the studies that the county was requesting.”

While he offered no guesses on the size of a potential turbine array, Briones said the company estimated enough local transmission capacity for a roughly 200 MW project, enough to power “thousands of homes.” He said a single turbine could generate between 2 MW and 4 MW, depending on its size.

County historically divided on wind energy

Empirically, the renewable resource is a touchy subject for the people of Washington County.

Supervisors spent months discussing two ordinances on the matter in 2021. The first would have governed property assessments for land with wind turbines, while the latter dealt with rules for the turbines’ operations. Both were prompted by development plans from a company called Invenergy.

By March of that year, the board planned to vote on the first ordinance, but pushed the decision back as members signaled opinions amounting to a 2-2 split. The delay was meant to allow District three Supervisor Marcus Fedler’s swearing-in, fresh from the special election that put him in office, to break the tie.

But 30 minutes before that vote was scheduled the following week, Invenergy called then Board Chair Richard Young, telling him they were backing out of the county with no explanation. The announcement led to the proposed ordinances’ indefinite tabling.

The board’s makeup has not changed since that late-winter day in 2021. Supervisors Jack Seward Jr. and Bob Yoder both argued against the ordinance at that time, while Supervisors Stan Stoops and Young were in favor of it. Fedler never had a chance to publicly take a side, and in fact voted against tabling the issue, saying, “I would've like to have talked about it and vote on it.”

Based on comments made in Tuesday’s meeting, mixed feelings on wind power have hardly gone away in the intervening years.

Seward said he was skeptical of tax breaks sometimes afforded to renewable energy projects.

“Mid-American Energy didn’t put a dime in, they were doing it on the backs of the taxpayers,” he said, referring to tax rebates for that company’s push to install wind energy in the state. “That’s always had a bad, bad taste in my mouth. I don’t know what the situation is going to be here with your subsidies or your tax breaks or whatever it is, but I am not convinced that wind power is a net positive for everybody.”

Fedler said he didn’t “prefer them,” but believed turbine installation should be up to property owners, adding, “That’s for them to answer, not for this board.”

Still, Brione encouraged the board to consider potential upsides.

“If you develop these projects responsibly, if you develop them with the community, with the land owners, they can be a net-positive,” he said. “They can add additional revenue to century-old farms.”

Item on the agenda, with more to come

Briones said he hoped to work with Washington County’s decision-makers, but that the coming talks on ordinance specifics would be decisive factors for a potential Duke Energy wind farm.

“This potential project, to sell energy from the power plant, will be competing with all other projects in the area,” he said. “The counties that have incentives for these types of power plants … will be able to sell electricity at a more competitive rate, putting those projects at a better cost to providers, a better cost to utilities, a better cost to their customers.”

Supervisors said they would start discussions on wind turbine rules as early as their regular meeting next week. After that, the county could begin the series of public hearings needed to change its code.

Seward suggested breaking the changes down into two parts to vote on separately, as the county had planned to do in 2021. The first would deal with tax valuations for land with wind turbines. The second would deal with the construction and operation of the windmills themselves.

“I fully agree that we need to do something, but I would suggest that the very first thing we do is to look at this, basically, two-page ordinance regarding setting the assessment,” he said. “That’s the very first step, and I think it’s the easiest one to do.”

Thanks to a change in 2022, Iowa state law allows counties to enact tax assessment rules specific to “wind energy conversion property,” based on the generators’ “net acquisition cost,” essentially the total cost to bring a windmill online.

If counties do so, the assessment value depends on how long a turbine stays in operation. The line starts at 0% of net acquisition cost for the first year, an annual increase of 5% after that, and caps at a maximum of 30% after the seventh year.

Alternatively, the county could opt not to give wind energy a separate assessment process. In that case, the assessment value would come down to a handful of other state code sections governing property taxes for energy generation sites.

While the assessment amounts are already set by state code, the law does not stop local governments from setting their own rules about reporting requirements. Washington County’s proposed 2021 ordinance would have required wind energy companies to provide their operations’ asset ledger sheets, contact information, engineering breakdowns and other information to the local government every year.

Big questions focus on small details

The various supervisors expressed different opinions on what a wind energy operation ordinance should — or shouldn’t — entail.

The version proposed in 2021 spelled out nine pages of requirements for wind farms, on everything from construction precautions to permit approvals to the minimum distance from public parks.

Many of those concerns remain top-of-mind for members of Washington County’s decision-making body. Supervisors said they wanted to see precautions against interference with emergency management communications.

"Even if it’s just the blade cutting through that microwave path, it would degrade it,“ Seward said. ”This is why we want to make sure that we take into consideration where you plan on putting it … that’s got to be one of the requirements that we have.“

Fedler pitched a handful of ideas about dispute resolution and neighbors’ input on wind-powered generators. He said the right policy would balance the property rights of land owners with the concerns of neighbors before construction begins.

“If the farmer or landowner or whatever case wants to go into a contract with wind energy, they ought to be able to do it,” he said. “But their neighbors have to have a say in that, I believe. Just like putting up a hog confinement or something else.”

The above are just a few examples of the concerns mentioned at Tuesday’s work session. Yoder brought up concerns with disposal of the turbines after their decommissioning, while Young said the county needed to spell out setback requirements. Supervisors also discussed precautions to protect county roads from the oversized construction materials, and rules to prevent flickering shadows on nearby residences.

A 2021 ordinance draft contains plenty of other food for thought, spelling out rules for the color and finish of turbines, the required amount of signage and lighting, and acceptable sizes for the generators.

Briones said the energy company was used to working with such rules.

“You all raise some very good questions, make some very good points during y’all’s conversation, and I would like to provide some more insight, some more answers,” he said. “Duke Energy would take on a lot of those issues for decommissioning … we do microwaving path communication tower studies to make sure there is no interference.”

Supervisors said they planned to tread carefully.

While Duke Energy reports positive reception from its project in Kossuth County, Seward said the electoral stakes were high in Southeast Iowa.

“Iowa County had gone through quite a controversy, and their Board of Supervisors suffered some losses in elections because of the decisions they made that were not popular with regular people,” he said, referring to debates in Washington’s neighbor to the northwest. “We’ve got that to look at also.”

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The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday stopped a lawsuit that claimed the state has failed to adequately protect the public’s interest in the Raccoon River, a major water source for the Des Moines metro.

In a 4-3 decision, the court’s majority said the suit raised political questions that lawmakers, not the justices, should decide.

"We … leave this dispute where it stands at present: with the branches of our government whose duty it is to represent the public," Justice Edward Mansfield wrote in the opinion. "In the end, we believe it would exceed our institutional role to 'hold the state accountable to the public.'"

It was a significant setback for the environmental groups, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Food & Water Watch. They have sought to force state regulatory oversight of farm runoff, which could set a precedent for growers across the nation.

The environmental groups said they were "considering all options moving forward" but declined to specify what they might entail.

The groups said state lawmakers have failed to "protect Iowans’ right to clean water as provided by the Iowa Constitution."

"Until further action is taken, industrial agricultural runoff will continue to pollute the river unimpeded, and Iowans’ right to clean water will remain a right without a remedy," the groups said in statement. "We speak for many people across the state of Iowa when we say that we are deeply disappointed.”

The Iowa Attorney General's office declined to comment Friday, referring questions to the state agencies named in the lawsuit. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources also declined to comment on the ruling, saying it speaks for itself.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said the Supreme Court "got it right," adding that the lawsuit was "unwarranted" and did nothing to advance the state's water efforts. Its primary program is the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, which encourages farmers to voluntarily adopt conservation practices that reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from their operations.

"The best way to achieve the goals outlined in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is to work alongside farmers, landowners and our public and private partners to add science-based soil health and water quality practices to the landscape," Naig said in a statement.

The environmental groups filed the suit in 2019 against the state, several state agencies, boards and officials, saying the strategy has failed to improve the state's water quality and that more forceful action is needed. They contended that the state had abdicated its responsibility to protect residents' right to clean water.

The lawsuit focused on the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 residents in Des Moines and a dozen more cities, towns and rural areas. American Rivers, an influential Washington, D.C., environmental advocacy nonprofit, recently named the Raccoon one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the nation.

More:Agricultural runoff puts Iowa's Raccoon River on list of 10 most endangered nationally, group says

A 2019 district court ruling turned back a challenge to the lawsuit and allowed it to proceed. The state, represented by the Iowa Attorney General's Office, appealed to the Supreme Court. Friday's ruling reversed the lower court's decision, saying the environmental groups lacked standing in the case.

"That's kind of a tough one to swallow," said Neil Hamilton, a Drake University professor emeritus of law. "If these groups with thousands of members who live in Des Moines and along the Raccoon River don't have standing, then who does?"

Court: Plaintiffs sought to entangle courts in 'overseeing the political branches of government'

The environmental groups claimed the state has violated the public trust doctrine — based on the idea that the state is the steward of Iowa's natural resources — and that the court should direct the state to "protect the public’s recreational and drinking water use."

Des Moines Water Works, which draws much of its water from the Raccoon, said in a filing that agricultural pollution has "created serious public health and water treatment challenges."

Given increased harmful algal blooms resulting from the nutrients leaching into the river, the utility is considering developing alternative sources of water — an undertaking it said will cost "tens of millions of dollars" for central Iowa residents.

The environmental groups asked the court to require the state to create a "mandatory remedial plan" that would reduce the flow into the river of nitrogen and phosphorous from animal feeding operations. They also sought a moratorium on new animal feeding operations in the Raccoon River watershed until the plan was implemented.

But Mansfield, joined in his opinion by Chief Justice Susan Christensen and Justices Thomas Waterman and Matthew McDermott, wrote that the groups failed to establish that the state had caused them and their members a "concrete injury" that a favorable court decision was likely to redress.

It's "speculative that a favorable court decision in this litigation would lead to a more aesthetically pleasing Raccoon River, better swimming and kayaking on the river, and lower water rates in the Des Moines metropolitan area," the court said. "Such general declarations do not provide any assurance of concrete results, although they do herald long-term judicial involvement."

The opinion said the groups' request to "hold the state responsible" — using the environmentalists' words — goes "beyond the accepted role of courts" and "would entangle us in overseeing the political branches of government."

Justices Brent Appel, Christopher McDonald and Dana Oxley each wrote a dissenting opinion.

Hamilton, the Drake law professor, said that while the court's majority wanted to avoid additional litigation, the dissenting justices agreed the "case should move forward, in large part because the state had conceded" the groups had standing and "the merits of the public trust doctrine were not in question."

Footnote cites 'real environmental problem'

In an unusual footnote, the Supreme Court said the majority agreed that the lawsuit "describes a real environmental problem, both in Iowa and nationally."

From 2019:Groups sue Iowa, claim farm fertilizer runoff hurting Raccoon River, Des Moines drinking water

The environmental groups say the state has allowed for the rapid expansion of hog farms and placed few restrictions on pollution from agricultural operations, allowing bacteria, nitrates and phosphorous from manure and fertilizer to pollute the river.

It's resulted in a water-quality crisis, the groups say. This year marks the third in a row that the Des Moines River has experienced harmful algae blooms that can create a toxin, called microcystins, that poses a particular hazard, in drinking water, to babies and toddlers.

Des Moines Water Works has limited ability to treat microcystins, meaning that at times it has had to forgo drawing water from the Des Moines. At the same time, it and other public water utilities are struggling with high demand and reduced river levels due to the deepening drought.

State officials have said that improving water quality takes time. A bill signed into law three years ago provides $282 million over 12 years for water quality initiatives. It was extended this year, providing a total of $320 million through 2039. Altogether, $331 million will go to conservation practices over two decades.

More: Polk County has an aggressive plan to clean up its water. Could it work for the rest of Iowa?

But the state has avoided direct regulation of farm runoff. In December, Iowa Solicitor General Jeffrey Thompson, representing the state in oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the case, said that "agriculture is the bedrock of who we are and what we are as a state, historically, culturally and economically.

"The regulation of agriculture is one of the most important and also one of the most difficult challenges faced by the state," he said.

Brent Newell, an attorney representing the environmental groups, said in his argument that the public trust doctrine is not limited to protecting recreational uses such as fishing or boating, and invests the state with the power to ensure water quality. Courts, he said, have found its definition is "broad and unbound."

"And that's what we're seeking really here," Newell told the justices. "We're seeking relief for the public's use of the Raccoon River."

The suit is not the first to address the issue. In 2015, the Des Moines Water Works unsuccessfully sued drainage districts in northwest Iowa, seeking regulations that would curb the nitrogen and phosphorus runoff that's funneled from farm fields through underground drainage into Iowa's waterways.

More:With drought concerns growing, Des Moines Water Works asks its 500,000 customers to cut back on watering lawns

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at [email protected] or 515-284-8457.