Pedley's Ponderings

I wouldn’t say my job offers many opportunities at humor. Save for a few stories each year about dumb criminals – or in 2019, an escaped cow – there aren’t many laughs to find in most things I cover. Council meetings, local elections and everything else on the community news beat don’t really make me chuckle.

Last week, however, I did find myself cracking up after receiving a press release from the Iowa DNR. The event didn’t occur in my coverage area or even in northwest Iowa, but I’m sharing it here nonetheless in case some of you could use a laugh.

As you’ll see, the press release’s headline really buried the lede.

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Wastewater release in Postville

POSTVILLE—Wednesday night, a pump at the Postville wastewater treatment plant was left on, causing wastewater sludge to overflow into Williams Creek on the northeast side of town.

After discovering the discharge about 9 p.m., the wastewater operator stopped the discharge, contacted downstream landowners and built a compost berm to help contain the sludge.

A minimum of 37,500 gallons discharged to the creek. However, two beaver dams contained most of it within 75 yards of the treatment plant. Wednesday night, city staff began pumping sludge from the stream above the dams. They continued pumping this morning and saw live fish above and below the beaver dams.

Williams Creek flows about eight or nine miles before entering the Yellow River in Allamakee County.

The DNR is monitoring cleanup today and will consider appropriate enforcement action.

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Leave it to the beavers to save the day!

This blip actually reminded me of a local angle. In February of 2020, the Clay County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution establishing a beaver bounty to help alleviate dam issues in local drainage districts. The world’s second-largest rodent had apparently become a worthy foe in the fight for adequate water drainage, and the supervisors were willing to pay $50 per dead beaver to straighten things out. I even saw that one astute trapper received $400 from the county in a single month for his eradication efforts.

I’m not sure the local supervisors, or anyone in Iowa for that matter, could have foreseen a day where beavers would become the hero, but every dog – err…water rat – has it’s day.

If I was the mayor of Postville, I’d be giving those beavers the key to the city.

• Hacking it

I broke out the links for the first time in two years last Saturday. I’m normally an annual golfer that gets in nine holes a year, but the pandemic and other obligations forced me to skip out on my “ritual” last year.

A group of us traveled to Dakota Dunes, S.D., to surprise a friend for his 30th birthday. We played 18 holes of best ball, and though the other team had a ringer, my team only lost by two or three strokes. I was only looking forward to the 19th hole after the previous 18 and wasn’t paying much attention to the score in the end.

I didn’t do horrible for a guy that uses his late grandma’s aqua blue golf bag from the 1970s and his dad’s hand-me-down clubs from the late 1990s or early 2000s. My team used several of my shots, and dare I say it, I had the best shot of the day among my foursome. Sometimes it pays to be lucky.

There’s a reason I only really ever play best ball, though. I can’t putt for nothing and my short game is worthless, so it’s better to leave that stuff up to the other guys and occassionally surprise them with a few good shots. I’ve found that nobody expects anything out of you when you never play, so when you do something good it’s worth twice what it normally is. I’m always playing one shot ahead!

I’d like to get out on the course more than I do, but any future tee times are competing with a mile-long to-do list, daddy duties and everything else that comes up. Plus, getting more experience would take away one of the very few things I have going for me out there – the element of surprise.

The PGA will have to wait.

Nick Pedley is the news editor of The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News.