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By Michaela Kendall The Grundy Register GRUNDY CENTER – The Grundy Center water department will soon see required updates on the city’s wastewater treatment system after a decision from the Grundy Center city council on Monday night, which approved a bid for the installation of a new UV disinfection wastewater treatment system. The new system will be installed by WRH Inc., a general construction contracting company based out of Amana, Iowa. WRH specializes in waste water treatment, water treatment plant, and heavy civil construction. WHR will purchase and install the UV system for the city of Grundy Center at an estimated price of around $504,000, which is lower than initially expected by about $300,000, though still a hefty amount of money. The notice for the required upgrade came in 2014, after the Iowa Department of Natural Resources imposed new e-coli bacteria standards on many waste water treatment plants in Iowa, including Grundy Center’s. The standards are aimed at preventing e-coli from entering waterways by killing the bacteria while it’s being processed at a waste water facility. In Grundy Center’s case, the bacteria will be killed with a UV radiation disinfection system; which many wastewater treatment facilities in Iowa have moved to using. Unlike other disinfectants such as chlorine, there is no corrosion due to chemicals at the facility, no de-chlorination process required, low safety risks, and relatively low operating costs. The equipment itself consists of a stainless steel box with a total of 140 UV bulbs, which use UV light radiation to safely and effectively kill bacteria. According to Lance Aldrich, a representative form Fox Engineering Services who has been advising the city through the process of upgrading their system, each bulb costs between $70 to $100 and has a lifespan of roughly 12,000 hours. The UV system itself has an indefinite lifespan, Aldrich said, though he added that he knows of cities that had UV systems installed in the mid-80’s that are just now finding it hard to find replacement parts; so about 30 years before the parts are obsolete. Though many cities switched to UV disinfection systems before the DNR’s new initiative, the required completion date for the system upgrade is January 1, 2017. Grundy Center Public Works Director Dan Bangasser said he doesn’t have a concrete date for when installation of the UV system will begin, though it may not be until November. He said that once WRH gets the UV equipment to Grundy Center, it shouldn’t take long to install it and put the new equipment to work.
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City accepts bid for UV disinfection wastewater system
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Thursday, August 25, 2016 Volume 92 - Number 34
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Look for the Grundy County Fair Tab inside today’s edition.
Grundy Center, Iowa $1 Newsstand Price
Local man serves up “World’s Best Steak” By Michaela Kendall The Grundy Register DES MOINES – One local chef, Phil Dicks of Grundy Center, ‘steaked’ his claim as one of Iowa’s best chefs after he won first place in two different cooking competitions at the Iowa State Fair this year. Dicks demonstrated his culinary expertise when he first place, and a $300 cash award, in the Des Moines Register’s Hog (and Corn) Heaven Competition. For this competition, contestants were tasked with creating a dish using both pork and corn as the main ingredients. Dicks beat out the other entries to win the competition with his mouthwatering four-layer roulade of rolled pork and corn. The first layer consisted of a basket weave of bacon; the second was a layer of freshly ground pork topped with tri-colored sweet peppers in cornbread and fresh corn stuffing; the third was a layer of cooked pork Italian sausage and roasted corn silks; and the fourth was a layer of BBQ pulled pork. Between each layer was a coating of original honey-mustard sauce to add to the flavor. But that wasn’t the only prize that Dicks took home during this year’s Iowa State Fair; he also managed to bag the blue ribbon, and the $500 cash award, during the Neubrand’s World’s Greatest Steak Contest. Dicks said he was surprised, and a bit overwhelmed to win the
Shown at left is Phil with his award winning steak, which took home the blue ribbon at this year’s Neubrand’s World’s Greatest Steak Contest. At bottom is his winning dish from the Des Moines Register’s Hog (and Corn) Heaven competition. (Courtesy photos)
See Dicks page 3
Flower shop blooms out of home-based business By Michaela Kendall The Grundy Register HOLLAND – Four years after quitting her career in finance to pursue her own greenhouse business, Amy Launstein’s home-based business (Holland Hill Blooms) has blossomed, and next week she will be opening her own flower shop. In addition to selling flowers, shrubs, trees and other plants from her greenhouse on 215th Street in Holland, she will now be selling cut flower arrangements for all occasions, all year round. “I’ve been asked by a lot of people if I could ever do cut flowers,” Launstein said. “Cut flowers is actually a lot different than having a greenhouse; a lot of people associate the two, but even though they are so different, selling them together seems to mesh really well.” Launstein said that in fact, her greenhouses will be one thing that make her different than other floral
See Launstein page 3
Amy Launstein is expanding her greenhouse business, and will be opening her own flower shop next week. (Michaela Kendall/The Grundy Register photo)
Supervisors receive bids for bridge project
By ROB MAHARRY The Grundy Register GRUNDY CENTER- A total of six bids were received for the replacement of bridge D5 in the northwest corner of Grundy County during Monday morning’s regular meeting of the board of supervisors. The bridge is located just east of T13 in German township north of Wellsburg, and the bids received were as follows: $196,750 from Boulder Contracting of Grundy Center (pre-cast only), $116,976 from Iowa Bridge and Culvert of Washington, IA (cast in place), $120,250 from PCI of Reinbeck (pre-cast box culvert only), $114,449 from Gus Construction of Casey (cast in place), $134,553 from K Construction of Elkader (cast in place) and $135,146.30 from McCulley Culvert of Barnes City. No action was taken on the bids after county engineer Gary Mauer opened them and read them aloud, and a motion to table them passed 3-0 (Jim Ross and Mark Schildroth were absent). A speaker attended the meeting to inform the board of her plans to read from the Bible on the courthouse lawn after Governor Terry Branstad signed a proclamation encouraging such practices in May. So far, 50 counties have participated, and the speaker said that it would go on for six days from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. She inquired about using the gazebo, but board chairwoman Barb Smith informed her that it is actually the property of the Grundy Center Chamber of Commerce and would need to be cleared with that group. County Nurse Wendy Monaghan addressed the board on a host of current issues, including changes that will come with the construction of the new annex building. She reported that there have been four cases of salmonella, two of e. coli and three of mumps in the county, adding that there have been 13 cases of the Zika virus total in Iowa, but none in Grundy County. All of those who have been effected had traveled outside of the United States. IN OTHER BUSINESS, the board: • Approved a liquor license renewal for Oak Leaf Country Club. • Approved an RFP from King Construction and authorized the chairperson to sign the same.
Kuhls receive Century Farm recognition at state fair BY ROB MAHARRY The Grundy Register DES MOINES- Louis and Amelia Kuhl first moved from a home between Garwin and Gladbrook to purchase a farm north of Beaman in 1914, and over 100 years and four generations later, the land remains in the family. The Kuhls recently received Century Farm recognition during the state fair in Des Moines last week. Over the years, the farm was passed down to Elmer and Hildegard, then Thomas and Audrey Kuhl and eventually to its current owners and operators, Dave and Linda Kuhl, who still live on the farmhouse outside of Beaman that has been occupied by all four generations of Kuhls. It hasn’t always been easy— they’ve endured the Great Depres-
sion, the 1980’s farm crisis, the floods of the early 1990’s and the current downturn in the agricultural market—but carrying on the family farm for over a century has made it all worth it. Dave and Linda first took over the operations in 1989 and moved into the house in 1991, and Mrs. Kuhl joked that she can remember standing outside waiting for rain amidst the heavy drought of the late 80’s. “(The forecast) would call for a shower, and Dave would stand down on the porch and say, ‘it just can’t rain,’” Linda said. “So we lived through that, and we lived through the floods of ’93.” Agriculture is a huge part of everyday life for the Kuhls: in addition See Kuhls page 3
Members of the Kuhl family pose for a photo with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey (right) after receiving Century Farm recognition during the state fair last week. (Contributed photo)
The Grundy Register, P.O. Box 245, Grundy Center, IA 50638 Phone: (319) 824-6958 • Fax: (319) 824-6288 • E-mail: grundypublisher@midamericapub.com, grundyoffice@midamericapub.com, grundyeditor@midamericapub.com