House rejects confined livestock bill
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (AP) — The Indiana House of Representatives has rejected a bill that would prohibit new confined livestock feeding operations from being built within two miles of a state park or reservoir.

The House voted 57-40 against the bill on Thursday. Proponents said the bill was needed to protect state parks and reservoirs from being polluted by manure spills from confined livestock operations.
Opponents said the bill was unnecessary because the state already regulates confined livestock operations.

Sheep attacked in northern Iowa
PLYMOUTH, Iowa (AP) — Authorities suspect dogs attacked a herd of sheep on a farm in northern Iowa, killing one and injuring several others.

The incident happened the night of Jan. 26 at Dean and Joan Goodale’s farm near Plymouth. It’s the fifth time in about a year the herd has been attacked.

Joan Goodale said they put up a higher fence, but whatever is attacking the sheep broke through. They also tried a baby monitor.
Ron Andrews of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said a dog, and not a coyote, is attacking the sheep, because of the nature of the wounds.

Cerro Gordo County Sheriff Kevin Pals said his department has not received any other reports of livestock attacks recently.

Former KGLO farm director Al Heinz dead
MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — Former Iowa broadcaster Al Heinz, the longtime farm director of KGLO radio and television in Mason City, has died at the age of 87. Station officials said Heinz died Jan. 24 at his summer home in Weslaco, Texas.

Heinz began KGLO’s farm department in 1947 and spent many years reporting on markets, farm news and farm-related weather. Memorial services are scheduled for Feb. 7 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Mason City.

UT’s Jersey herd staying in Lewisburg

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The University of Tennessee has decided to keep the Jersey herd at the school’s Institute of Agriculture Research and Education Center in Lewisburg.

The university had been considering moving it to save money. University officials told legislators that the center’s research focus, however, will be narrowed to issues related to production and reproductive physiology.

Federal stimulus funds had allowed a delay in moving the herd that would have occurred during the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2009.

Detroit Edison begins commercial wind farm
RICHLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — DTE Energy, Inc.’s Detroit Edison unit has launched commercial operation of a wind farm in northern Michigan, with a Traverse City company.

Detroit Edison said the facility, jointly operated with Heritage Sustainable Energy east of Cadillac in Missaukee County, is the utility’s largest such venture. It’s expected to supply enough electricity to power about 2,000 homes.

Detroit Edison said it’s also the utility’s first wind farm developed under the state’s energy law enacted in October 2008. It requires that 10 percent of Michigan’s power come from renewable sources by the end of 2015.

The seven large-scale wind turbines are capable of producing about 14 megawatts of renewable energy. Detroit Edison expects to add about 1,200 megawatts of renewable power, mainly from wind, by 2015.

National park battling infestation of hogs

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — National park biologists are trying to come to grips with a hog infestation in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In 2009, the park’s hog team removed 620 wild hogs, the third highest since the hog control program started in the late 1950s. Biologists said the hog population spiked last year because of a bountiful mast crop that enabled the sows to produce more than one litter.

Park biologist Bill Stiver told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that the introduction of wild, semi-domesticated hogs into the park has made hog control even more difficult. The wild hogs moved into the park by the 1940s and began to wreak havoc on the ecosystem by eating rare plants and salamanders, defecating in streams and turning up the ground.