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IowaPolitics.com: Iowa CCI rally over manure bill turns confrontational
2/22/2010

By Lynn Campbell
IowaPolitics.com

An Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement rally at the Capitol advocating for clean water and protesting a bill about animal manure turned confrontational today when the group of about 75 vocal residents marched upstairs into the House majority leader's office.

The outspoken group carried colorful signs and demanded defeat of House File 2324, a bill that would exempt many farmers from having to have adequate storage for animal manure over the winter months. Iowa CCI members said the bill would gut last year's legislation by essentially allowing nearly 5,500 factory farms to dump manure on frozen and snow-covered ground.

"What we are demanding today is very simple: Kill House File 2324," said Vern Tigges, Iowa CCI's board president, who's a family farmer and electronics repairman from Carroll.

"I talked to (Gov. Chet) Culver; he personally told me that if it passed he would veto it, but we've got to hold him to that," said Rosie Partridge, a small business owner from Wall Lake.

Following a rally in the Capitol rotunda, the group marched up the Capitol's north stairway to the House majority leader's office. Efforts by the House sergeant at arms and state troopers to stop the group were unsuccessful and even led to some pushing and shoving.

Next came Rep. Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, who's both the sponsor and chairman of the bill. He attempted to weave his way through the group in the hallway behind the Iowa House chamber, talk to them and prevent them from going into the majority leader's office, to no avail.

"If you guys would talk to me directly, maybe we can get something done," Zirkelbach told Iowa CCI's policy organizing director, Adam Mason. "It doesn't do anything you're saying."

Zirkelbach, who was also the manager of last year's bill prohibiting the spreading of manure on frozen or snow-covered ground, said this year's bill is intended to clear up the intent of last year's legislation.

"I'm the drafter of the bill," Zirkelbach said in an interview with IowaPolitics.com. "I don't understand why they wouldn't want to talk to me. I've seen 'em down there protesting and telling the wrong information, and they just turned me away."

Zirkelbach acknowledged that a provision in the legislation would help struggling dairy farmers, but maintained that House File 2324 wouldn't cause manure to be put in Iowa's waterways.

"Basically I was told that the governor's going to veto it no matter what ... if it came to his desk, which I'm trying to sit down with him and make it better to save the dairy industry, and they just don't want to," Zirkelbach said. "The matter of the fact is, if manure reaches water, they're in trouble. That's it."


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Listen to Iowa CCI rally
Listen to interview with Zirkelbach


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