Connie Mutel Interview: Part 1

Earlier you said that “the 2008 floods can serve as our wake-up call, prompting us to take steps that will reduce future flood damage.” What steps have been taken? What remains to be done?

A Watershed Year was the impetus of about a dozen community flood forums held across the state in 2010. But thankfully we’ve gone beyond just talking. The Rebuild Iowa Office reports that some progress has been made on all 12 of its flood-mitigation legislative initiatives, which ranged from establishing support for flooded individuals to initiating regional watershed plans. Some cities have made tremendous advances. Cedar Falls is the poster child here: it passed legislation in 2009 that discourages building in the city’s 500-year floodplain, and it also has installed rain gardens, permeable pavement, and other structures that reduce runoff into the flood-prone Cedar River.

When it comes to future floods, you’ve said, “Don’t try to return to business as usual.” Yet when it’s not actually pouring rain, most people seem to be doing just that. Where can we go for information to help us make better decisions about flood prevention and control?

The Iowa Flood Center (see next question) is a tremendous asset. The Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division is another information source, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has people who work with communities on flood-sensitive development plans.

Tell us more about the Iowa Flood Center.

This is an exciting new center at the University of Iowa. The IFC is the nation’s first academic research and training center devoted solely to flood research. It is a unique resource for Iowans and already has a number of products available on its website. For example, anyone can access current stream-level data from the IFC’s statewide network of 50 stream sensors. The web-based “Iowa Flood Information System” allows Iowans to view maps of watersheds upstream from their communities and overlay other data on these maps, such as current precipitation, river stage data, and water travel times throughout the watershed. This is an example of a powerful new tool that will help Iowans better understand flood risk and prepare for imminent floods. I’d encourage readers to look up their community and bookmark the website (www.iowafloodcenter.org).

—Cornelia F. Mutel, editor, A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 

Gardening in July

Friday, July 1

I kept to my course, gazing at everything along the way, from the recently opened pink and rose hollyhocks in front of our neighbor's peeling white shed, to the yellow Hyperion day lilies just beginning to open behind the currant bushes, to all the summery colors and shapes on display in Kate's perennial border, now at the climax of its third bloom phase. The tall fuchsia spikes of the lythrum, the sky blue of the stirrup-flowered delphiniums, the navy blue of the salvia spikes, the violet blue of the veronica spikes, the orange and pink and white of the tiger lilies, the yellow of the yarrow, the white of the small-petaled feverfew. So many colors and shapes so carefully arrayed from back to front, from one end to the other, I was momentarily transfixed by the spectacle.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of the Growing Season