Two oft-quoted experts on weather, water retiring
PERRY BEEMAN Mar 21, 2018 | 9:05 pm
1 min read time
290 wordsAll Latest News, Energy, Government Policy and Law, On the MoveSame goes for Susan Heathcote, who has been one of the state’s top water-quality authorities for more than 22 years.
Both oft-quoted experts are retiring this week. But we promise to keep their phone numbers handy nevertheless.
Hillaker will retire Thursday after three decades of helping farmers, other businesses and reporters make sense of droughts, floods, severe storms and tornadoes, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported.
Now 61, he took the job in 1988, and was only the second person to hold the position in the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Among the big events about which he fielded questions: the drought of 1988 and the floods of 1993 and 2008.
Perhaps the most severe events in that time, in terms of fatalities, were the Little Sioux and Parkersburg tornadoes of 2008.
Hillaker expects his replacement to be hired within a few months.
A geologist, she has been in the center of debates over water standards, monitoring, hog confinement regulations and conservation efforts, advocating for both voluntary efforts and more regulation to improve Iowa’s waterways. She often has found herself negotiating with farm interests whose views varied from hers.
Heathcote considers her work on closing farm drainage wells, improving water quality standards, increasing state spending on water quality monitoring and protecting waterways from manure runoff among the highlights of her work. The council has
begun its search for her successor.Trending News
