Lawrence Journal-World 10-08-11

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Ex-MagnaGro employee files suit over deadly incident By George Diepenbrock gdiepenbrock@ljworld.com

A Eudora woman who was injured and is also the sister of a man who died in an April 2010 industrial accident in Lawrence has filed a lawsuit against MagnaGro Corp. and

Sawyer

More sun

High: 86

its owner Raymond Sawyer. “It was absolutely tragic, pointless and completely preventable,” said Sally Kelsey, a Lawrence attorney representing Rowena Hillebert. According to the suit filed recently in Douglas County District Court, Hillebert, a for-

mer MagnaGro employee, was injured April 1, 2010, when she tried to rescue her brother, Roy Hillebert, 51, from a large tank he fell into and became asphyxiated. “Specifically, she attempted to reach into a hole that another employee had cut into the side

of the tank and pull him out, but nearly asphyxiated in the attempt, and fell backwards,” Kelsey and attorney Donald Strole alleged in the suit. Authorities have said Roy Hillebert and Brandon Price, 25, died after they were overcome by fumes from a material be-

ing mixed at MagnaGro’s fertilizer operation, 600 E. 22nd St. Sawyer and his company have had much legal trouble before and since the accident, and he is serving the final weeks of a ninemonth prison sentence in Oklahoma City.

Rainfall 36 percent less than normal

Low: 57

Today’s forecast, page 10A

INSIDE

Please see LAWSUIT, page 2A

Search for Mo. baby leads to landfill By Maria Sudekum Fisher Associated Press

LHS wins big in homecoming game The Lawrence High football team easily took care of the Shawnee Mission South, 42-17, at its homecoming game Friday night. Page 1B Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo

QUOTABLE

I feel very much that we are possibly going to be putting a lot of our patients at risk by sending out the message that you just don’t need to do a PSA screening.”

— Dr. Brant Thrasher, chairman of the urology department at Kansas University Cancer Center. A group of Lawrence urologists oppose a new recommendation released Friday by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force regarding a screening test for prostate cancer. Page 6A

COMING SUNDAY We talk with a woman who tried to end her life in the Kansas River.

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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Faith Forum Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Sports Television Vol.153/No.281

10A 1C-8C 9A 2A 10A, 2B 9B 7C 5A 8A 7C 1B-6B 5A, 2B, 7C 28 pages

Energy smart: The Journal-World makes the most of renewable resources. www.b-e-f.org

KENT MORGISON, GREENS SUPERINTENDENT at Alvamar Golf Course, waters some dry grass around a green on Thursday. The city of Lawrence has received just 20.5 inches of rain so far this year, about 36 percent less than normal.

Lawrence area’s thirst worsens By Mark Fagan mfagan@ljworld.com

ONLINE: See the video at LJWorld.com

Grass seed needs a fine mix of soil, sun and moisture to grow. Too bad Mother Nature is being stingy these days with the wet stuff. “I’m hoping I get rain — obviously,” said Rex Huston, soaking his lawn along Harvard Road one evening, following six previous evenings of soakings and lamenting the likelihood of at least 14 more dry days to come. “All I’m doing is watering.” Welcome to the club. Throughout Lawrence, surrounding communities and adjoining rural areas, the parched earth is thirsting for moisture. How much? Consider this: The city of Lawrence has received just 20.5 inches of rain so far this year, about 36 percent less than normal.

Recent months especially dry In Lawrence, rainfall totals have been below normal in seven of the first nine months of 2011. Taken together, rainfall in those months fell about 11 inches short of normal. Only two months — February and May — produced a surplus: a total of 0.49 inch. Recent months have been especially dry in Lawrence: !"August: 1.78 inches (average: 5.12 inches). !" September: 1.17 inches (average: 3.39 inches). With no rain so far in October, Lawrence already is 0.73 inch behind That missing moisture — about 11 inches, spread out across 34.7 square miles — means that the community has missed out on 67.7 trillion gallons of water.

the monthly pace of 3.22 inches. And don’t expect much relief, as the average rainfall for November is 1.32 inches and for December it is 1.1 inches. It’s enough for Mary Knapp, state climatologist, to reconsider her landscaping approach. She’s been giving her trees and shrubs in Manhattan some deep soakings. “I usually tend to be in survivalist mode: My trees have to deal with what Mother Nature has given them,” Knapp said. “But this year I have gone out and watered … so they can make it through the winter.” “That’s a ridiculous amount of water,” conceded Matt Bond, the city’s stormwater engineer, who regularly calculates capacities for drainage basins,

flow rates and other drainage data. Talk about ridiculous: To catch up, Mother Nature would need to fill a watering can the size of Clinton Lake and pour it over the city. Then she’d need to do it again, provided she could pull back and hold a little of the water — OK, 9.9 trillion gallons — in reserve for the coming months. Dry weather has a way of turning moist soil into hard ground. “Unless it falls in a gentle fashion, it’ll run off just like it’s hitting asphalt,” Bond said. “We hope that’s not the case.” Farmers are hoping it rains soon. They have lost half of their corn crop, and soybeans look to suffer the same fate. Alfalfa and brome grasses may not get enough moisture to make it through the winter, and hard red winter wheat will struggle to get out of the ground and survive into the Please see DRY, page 2A

KANSAS CITY, MO. — FBI agents searched a Kansas landfill on Friday in connection with the disappearance of a 10-month-old Missouri girl, just hours after the child’s mother said police accused her of being involved. Agents and Kansas City police spent about two hours at the Deffenbaugh Industries landfill in the suburb of Shawnee, FBI spokesw o m a n Bridget Patton said. She wouldn’t discuss details but confirmed the activity was related Lisa Irwin to the search for Lisa Irwin, whose parents said was snatched from her crib in the middle of the night. Patton said it was the second time the FBI had been at the landfill, which investigators also searched Tuesday — the same day the baby was reported missing — and it wasn’t uncommon to search an area several times. Police said agents also went back to the family’s home and used metal detectors to search the yard. Lisa’s mother, Deborah Bradley, said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier Thursday that police told her she failed a lie detector test and accused her of being involved in her baby’s disappearance. Bradley said police never showed her the test results and she denied knowing anything about what happened to her daughter. She and Lisa’s father, Jeremy Irwin, said their daughter was abducted sometime late Monday night Please see BABY, page 5A

City to consider $1.3M in incentives, improvements to Poehler developer By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com

Richard Gwin/Journal-World File Photo

KANSAS CITY-AREA DEVELOPER TONY KRSNICH has the Poehler Mercantile Co. building under contract. He plans to convert it into nearly 49 apartment units, with all but three of the apartments being entered into a rent-controlled affordable housing program. His group also has purchased the adjacent Kansas Fruit Vinegar Co. building, 810 Pa., to convert into about 40 artist studios, a gallery space and an outdoor exhibition and reception area.

Saving a piece of the past will take more than a little bit of public money in the here and now. City commissioners at their meeting Tuesday will consider authorizing more than $1.3 million worth of incentives and public improvements to help a Kansas City developer rehabilitate the former Poehler Mercantile Co. building and an adjacent 1880s structure near Eighth and Delaware streets. City officials are touting the proposed development

— which will add affordable apartments and artists studios — as a way to CITY spark a reviCOMMISSION talization of a significant portion of east Lawrence. “We feel like this really is a reinvestment in our infrastructure in an important part of our community,” said Diane Stoddard, an assistant city manager who has been working on the project. “The benefits for our community will be to save a re-

ally important district in our city’s history, and to save an important structure that is in some real jeopardy.”

Redevelopment plan The Poehler Mercantile building is a 1904, four-story brick building that once was the centerpiece of the east Lawrence industrial district that runs along the railroad tracks and parts of Delaware and Pennsylvania streets. But the grocery warehouse company vacated the building in 1957, and the building has had a large amount of Please see CITY, page 2A


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