This is what’s left of a 2,200 acre field near Carlisle, Iowa, belonging to Howard Goodhue and another farmer. Goodhue owns the half of the field nearest the river, and the other farmer owns this roughly 1/3 acre of ground that is not under water.
The entire field has been fertilized, treated with a pre herbicide and planted. Now it’s part of the Red Rock Reservoir, which lies south of Des Moines on the Des Moines River and part of the more than 1 million acres Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey says has been lost to either prevented planting or floods. Carlisle is about 10 miles southeast of downtown Des Moines, or about 45 miles north of the Red Rock Dam. The reservoir is still about 5-feet below the record flood stage set in 1993.
Farmers like Goodhue and his son Corey (above) and other residents throughout Iowa are critical of the Army Corps of Engineers for its management of the flood waters in the Des Moines River basin. Because this field is in the reservoir boundaries, Goodhue does not qualify for crop insurance, and he has not been eligible for disaster payments in the past. He still doesn’t know about this year.
