Adam LackCourtesy photo Veronica Lack
Adam Michael Lack

Adam Michael Lack

A Dead Zone Death

Adam Michael Lack
33 YOA
Residence: Nora Springs, IA
Floyd County
Death Location: Highway 9
Mitchell County, IA
Date of Death: July 13, 2008

 

Case Summary compiled by Jody Ewing

UPDATE

October 15, 2016: From the updated report, “NFPI” – New preventative tool to protect Source Water Quality from CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers:

Within the United States, the State of Iowa is now testing at the highest levels of all states in Nitrogen fertilizer contamination of its Source Waters. Other states have identified continuing year over year increases as well. Obviously this a huge health concern for drinking water quality/safety as well as several other significant issues linked to it such as “the dead zones” downstream of the Mississippi River. Every day the issue of fertilizer contaminated Source Water is expanding and gaining greater awareness in the United States. While much work has been done to stem this tide, it is not enough. This is a call to action.

New Preventative Tool to Protect Source Water Quality from CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers
Adam Lack’s RUSLE3 (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation 2), which he submitted shortly before his July 2008 homicide, proposed software algorithms to protect the state’s “Source Water Quality” and potentially save thousands of Iowans’ lives.

President Barack Obama’s office responded Sept. 7, 2016, to the current design and usage of RUSLE2 (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation 2) and how it does not track fertilizer loss.

Adam Lack was killed in July 2008 shortly after submitting a request for mandated changes to RUSLE2. Lack wanted to expand the software program to incorporate additional inputs and calculations to adequately support the USDA/NRCS evaluation of CAFO and/or Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer application upon specific farm plots.

Could his software algorithms finally be realized and extended to include new laws that would save thousands of lives and protect Iowa’s “Source Water Quality?”

Adam Lack died trying to protect Iowa’s drinking water. Learn more about what needs to be done to “make safe” the nation’s worst drinking water.

Download the Document in Word or PDF format


There are 26 pictures documenting the time and repeated efforts it took to finally render Adam Michael Lack lifeless on Sunday, July 13, 2008.

The events leading up to the 33-year-old Brown University graduate’s death are well documented despite efforts to conceal them, including but not limited to the following:

  • The bullying from Mitchell County landowners over an ongoing pollution plume;
  • The manure-filled water coming from the Lack family’s and other area residents’ faucets;
  • What happens when farmers in a 2200-acre sinkhole swale with no legal outlet to drain their tile transcend to drains for 50,000 acres of run-off chemicals from nitrogen fertilizer;
  • The high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia, CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, Lead and Atrazine in the drinking water;
  • The poisoning of farm animals, pigs laden with tumors and rotting cattle carcasses;
  • The 2007 trial (Judge Bryan H. McKinley, presiding), where Adam Lack testified against upstream farmers – including the county sheriff and firemen – about the illegal flood channel they’d transitioned through the Lack family farm;
  • The death of Adam Lack’s father, Gary, and an Ivy-league educated son returning home to protect his mother and family homestead;
  • A Saturday night, July 12, 2008, finally becoming one too many evenings with a vehicle spotted in the dark near the end of the Lack family’s circular driveway at 11:30 p.m. — this time the tannish Chevy Impala again, its license plate concealed by a cloth — and Adam Lack arriving home just in time to catch them and give chase in his Dodge pickup;
  • Antemortem photos (taken approximately 8 hours after the Impala blocked the highway and Adam took the ditch rather than hitting the Impala) showing Adam’s head well above the ground while still upside down inside his overturned truck;
  • Antemortem photos showing Adam’s attempts to dig an airway through the dirt as the “drop and crush” efforts continued;
  • Antemortem photos showing Adam lying upside down inside the pickup truck, alone and unassisted, pushing his fist into the ground as several individuals chat near the vehicle’s front end;
  • Antemortem photos showing county officials and others (including Judge Bryan H. McKinley, Dr. Mark J. Haganman, and firemen against whom Lack testified in 2007) at the crime scene, timestamped prior to the final “drop and crush” (resulting in [the victim’s] fracture dislocation at the C2-3 vertebral body level);
  • Postmortem x-rays showing Adam’s stomach partially filled with dirt;
  • A postmortem history (x-rays, photos, reports on file) showing the C2-3 fracture/dislocations and soft tissue swelling that occurred after Adam’s “satisfactorily inflated lungs” were still able to suck in and swallow dirt, and finally;
  • Despite the postmortem report filed by pathologist Dr. Stephen A. Betz at Mercy Medical Center in Mason City, Iowa, the official Certificate of Death filed by Dr. Mark Haganman of Osage stating Adam Lack’s death was “Immediate” and checking off the Manner of Death as an “Accident.”

In another ironic twist, Dr. Haganman cites the “Hour of Death” on Adam’s death certificate as 0650 on July 13, 2008. This 6:50 a.m. time of death directly contradicts the doctor’s own words about the ‘Approximate Interval Between Onset and Death’ as Immediate, particularly since the accident took place sometime between 11:40 p.m. and 11:55 p.m. the previous evening, July 12. Additionally, photos snapped by a state patrol officer the following day – in broad daylight – show Lack still very much alive.

Note by writer Jody Ewing: As of January 19, 2017, the number of names on file in Adam Lack’s death – from immediate family to neighbors and witnesses and county officials and firemen and judges and physicians and others, some committed to justice, others committed to “just us” in profiteering from this specific ongoing pollution plume – is 157.

More than a half-million people live downstream in the Cedar River Watershed.


Veronica Lack had put in a new leach field that day despite a broken and swollen leg, and lay down on her sofa to put up her foot. ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ had just begun when she recognized the sound of her son Adam’s pickup slowing down. She knew the sound of that motor, and couldn’t wait to talk with him; he’d just been promoted at POET Biorefining where he worked as an ethanol plant operations supervisor.

She leaned over on the end table to look outside toward the driveway, and that’s when she saw a man’s figure, running away from the house and then jumping into the passenger side of the Chevy Impala. Adam hadn’t even fully pulled into the driveway, but she saw his pickup under the yard light as he turned around and began chasing the Impala down the road.

They were used to being harassed and seeing the silent vehicles — mostly the Impala — stalking them from the driveway in the dark, and this wasn’t the first time Adam had chased them away.

Twice before, they’d sneaked up to the house and cut Adam’s brake lines. During other occasions they’d inflicted thousands of dollars worth of damage on the Lack family’s three vehicles.

Gary and Veronica Lack Family Courtesy photo Veronica Lack
Gary and Veronica Lack with the six children they raised. In back (in black hat) is Anthony, and Gary. In second row, Veronica holds baby William; next to her is daughters Tanya and Heidi, son Ben, and in front, Adam.

All the Lacks wanted was to see the Clean Water Act and Iowa’s 16 drainage laws enforced and to stop the Point Source Pollution Plume that had killed their animals, severely damaged their health and claimed too many of their neighbors’ cancer-ridden lives.

Both Veronica and her husband, Gary Lack, had endured years of different types of cancers, gone through rounds of chemo and radiation treatments, only for another cancer to manifest and set in motion more rounds of treatments at the Mayo Clinic.

Gary already had outlived doctors’ expectations, but the polluters weren’t about to wait for him to eventually pass; if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) could turn a blind eye and deaf ear to all the illegally planned and drained flood channels, why couldn’t the Lacks? All their children were grown and gone, but they still needed Gary out of the way so they’d only have to deal with Veronica. After all, everybody in Mitchell County knew women had no business running farms and concerning themselves with water samples and things like Nitrate and Anhydrous Ammonia.

Indeed, it took two tries to get family patriarch Gary Lack — a father of six grown college-educated children — out of the way. But, they’d succeeded in January 2004, when Gary Lack succumbed to poisoning by a Haloperidol overdose after the Kayexalate powder hadn’t worked.

Timing suddenly became everything.

After Gary’s death, Veronica and her son Adam dressed him in his favorite Hawkeye sweats for his children and grandchildren. Two young men arrived with plans to take Gary to the Champion-Bucheit Funeral home in Osage, where Gary’s other family members, once back in Iowa, could stop by to say goodbye to the 58-year-old father, grandfather, and avid Hawkeye fan. Veronica wanted the kids to see him looking like his normal self.

Some time after leaving the Lack’s home and while on route to the Champion-Bucheit Funeral home, the two young funeral home employees received a call over the radio. Dr. Paul Royer, a Mercy Hospice doctor who’d never once met or seen Gary Lack — dead or alive — had called the mortuary with specific instructions: Take Lack’s body, immediately, to Mason City for cremation.

The two confused employees diverted their route and headed to Mason City. They knew no coroner or medical examiner had examined Mr. Lack after his death, let alone pronounced him dead or made any decision concerning an autopsy.

Not one single doctor examined Gary Lack after his death, and Mitchell County officials made sure none had time to step in and ask questions, let alone have the option of requesting an autopsy.

Neither Veronica Lack nor any of her children had signed any documents or given anyone permission to cremate Gary Lack, yet the cremation took place almost immediately without Mr. Lack ever being officially pronounced dead. Veronica was given no advance notice of the cremation and never even allowed to request her husband’s wedding ring before it burned along with his body.

Read more about Gary Lack’s unsolved homicide.

Four Years Later

Veronica watched her son Adam’s pickup trail down the road after the latest silent-night harassment. Would it ever stop? They’d gone through this far too many times, but she knew he’d be right back.

She fell asleep on the sofa waiting for him to return.

Mitchell County in Iowa

Mitchell County in Iowa

The Impala led Adam up to an unfamiliar area north of Highway 9 on a blacktop road with no shoulders and an “S” curve. Adam’s truck — which showed no “braking” marks on the pavement, didn’t make the second curve; the Impala sat parked in the middle of the roadway, and Adam took the ditch rather than hitting the other vehicle.

Though his pickup rolled, he’d been wearing his seatbelt and the airbag deployed. He survived the rollover intact, but found his feet pinned beneath the dashboard. He removed the keys from the ignition and waited for help.

The first 911 call to report Adam’s accident came in just minutes before midnight, but no medical personnel arrived.

Those who did respond to what they called a “single vehicle accident” — county officials and firemen against whom Lack had testified in court just one year earlier — began to grow faster than the number of EPA reports Lack’s family had filed in the preceding years.

Seven hours passed with no ambulance or other emergency medical services personnel in sight.

Lack’s non-life-threatening injuries wouldn’t matter at all; he’d be dead within a few more hours.

Stench, Sinkholes, and Standard Bullying Tactics

According to Veronica Lack, the deaths of her son Adam and husband Gary were related to a cover-up — an ongoing pollution plume from Mitchell County’s illegally planned drainage system — designed to drain Wetlands down sinkholes.

Adam Lack's Brown University graduate photo
Courtesy photo Veronica Lack
Adam Lack graduated from Brown University on an academic scholarship and was methodically killed in Mitchell County, Iowa, after his family endured years of victimization while fighting against a Point Source Pollution Plume that killed their animals and some downstream neighbors and Adam’s father, Gary.

In May 2005, Adam Lack’s environmental science paper, “The Effects of Poorly Educated Individuals Attempting to Drain Tracts of Land With No Outlet: A real-world environmental science issue in Southwestern Mitchell County, Iowa,” earned him an “A++” grade from University of Iowa Professor Frank Weirich.

Three years later, Adam, like his father before him, became another Mitchell County statistic. Download Adam’s paper in PDF format.

Farm animals died on a regular basis. Rural homeowners kept getting sick. Many died. Intimidation kept many folks — but not the Lacks — quiet about the stench, the sinkholes, the illnesses.

Bullying methods stepped up for the remaining Lacks. After all, Adam — a former high school valedictorian who’d received an academic scholarship to Brown University in Rhode Island where he’d earned his business economics degree — had stayed put in Iowa after his father’s death and seemed intent on protecting his mother and the Lack family’s farm.

The Impala, along with a pickup truck owned by Brad Johnson, began parking in their driveway in the night. Whenever the Lacks spotted them and turned off the lights in their home, the harassers would quickly take off. If Adam or Veronica went outside to confront the stalker(s), the driver would spin out, shooting rocks at the homeowners and the house.

The victimization hadn’t stopped there, either.

When Adam’s truck, Veronica’s Blazer and the family’s Trailblazer were vandalized — broken windshields, cut brake lines and numerous other damages — the Lacks had gone to Sheriff Curt Younker to file charges related to the vandalisms, but he’d told them he couldn’t do anything unless they provided a license plate number as proof of who’d vandalized their vehicles. Doing so proved nearly impossible, as the offenders shrouded the plates.

No Way Out

Adam tried time and again to get the stalkers’ license plate numbers, but found them always covered. Shortly before his death, he’d told his mother that the next time he found someone watching their home from the driveway, he’d go after them and make sure he got the license plate number.

In July 2008, he died trying.

On Saturday, July 12, neither he nor his mother could read the Chevy Impala’s plate number because the driver once again had veiled it with a cover.

Adam took the bait, and set out to catch up with the Impala’s driver in hopes of catching the back plate number with his headlights.

adam-lack-photo-22 Courtesy Veronica Lack
“Picture #22” of 26 photos shows Adam Lack, still alive, inside his Dodge pickup just moments before a final drop snapped his neck at the C-2 and C-3 vertebra. Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk used the photos to threaten Veronica Lack with the words, “You know you have five other children.”

Eight hours after his pickup rolled at the S-curve, Adam remained inside his vehicle, his ankles still trapped beneath the dash.

There would be no ambulance, no jaws of life to rescue him.

In a scathing July 2014 Des Moines Register multi-part investigative report with accompanying videos, Register writer Clark Kauffman addressed how broken emergency response systems endangered Iowans’ lives.

Under Iowa law, Kauffman reported, the state cannot disclose response-time data for individual ambulance services. And, data made public by the Bureau of EMS can be misleading, he said, because under the law, the bureau can only disclose countywide averages “for the 48 counties that have at least five EMS agencies.”

A Des Moines Register interactive map showed just some of the average response times, with many counties having response times of 10 minutes or longer. None reached anywhere near eight to 11 hours.

Adam Lack receives no helpCourtesy Veronica Lack
Adam Lack, center beneath truck, pushes his fist into the ground while rescue workers and other county officials visit.

Sometime after 7 a.m. July 13, 2008, St. Ansgar Fire and Rescue personnel strung chains across the ditch to Adam’s truck, and, according to 26 time-stamped photos taken at the crime scene, began to repeatedly lift Adam’s truck and then drop it back down on him. One of the first drops crushed Adam’s right arm. Another broke his femur (the bone between the hip and knee). Palas Graham continued to snap photos as the ongoing lifting and dropping mashed Adam’s trapped ankles and then smashed his already dislocated left arm.

Those present at the scene and captured in the documented photos included Deputy Hintz, Judge Bryan McKinley and County Coroner Dr. Haganman.

Nearly 10 hours after Adam found himself entrapped, the chain lifted and dropped his nearly crushed truck once again. This time, the drop immediately dislocated Adam’s neck at the C-2 and C-3 vertebra, killing him instantly.

“You know you have five other children”

Veronica lay sleeping on the sofa when Deputy Hintz knocked on her door Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Standing in the home’s kitchen, Hintz looked at all the Lack family photos surrounding him. He asked Veronica where all her children were.

Ben and his family were in Brazil, Veronica said. Heidi and Will were in Iowa City, and Tony and Tanya in Texas. Hintz told Veronica Adam was dead, and that she should call one of her kids to be with her.

“It wasn’t the mean one,” Hintz said, shaking his head. “It was just a big mistake.” He looked down at his boots and shook his head again, repeating, “A big mistake.”

What was a big mistake, Veronica wanted to know. That Adam was dead? Hintz wouldn’t answer, and when Veronica asked if he was going to investigate, she said he replied, “No.” (See MS Word document, Adam’s Voice.)

Veronica passed out and collapsed. Hintz returned to his vehicle and drove away.

In a comment to Iowa Cold Cases dated July 19, 2014, Veronica Lack said Dr. Haganman — one of several men shown at the scene in Graham’s photos — wrote on her son’s death certificate that Adam had died at 0650, or about 7 hours after Graham said the accident occurred.

The photos and radio reports told a different story. Seven hours after Adam’s truck rolled, Veronica Lack said, her son’s neck wasn’t yet dislocated and he hadn’t yet received the other injuries. Additionally, his blood — according to the time stamped photos — wasn’t yet sprayed all over the cab of his truck.

Veronica had been shown enlarged copies of the photos by County Attorney Mark Walk after she refused to sign off on the one-third share of the Mildred/Harold Lack farm Veronica had inherited from her husband, Gary.

As she’d stared numbly at the photos and realized just how long they’d tortured her son before killing him, Walk gave her a malevolent reminder.

“You know you have five other children,” he said.

A History of Violence and Harassment
Gary and Veronica Lack familyCourtesy photo Veronica Lack
Veronica and Gary Lack (far right) and their children fought hard against upstream point source polluters but found themselves no match for the number of high-ranking officials involved in illegally planned and drained flood channels. Gary, who developed hormone feeding tumors that spread to his colon and liver, was killed in his Mitchell County farm house on Jan. 14, 2004. Son Adam, shown here next to his mother, was killed four years later on July 13, 2008. Veronica continues to battle health problems and corruption within the Iowa DNR.

Gary and Veronica Lack raised six children, most of whom went on to graduate with advanced degrees from Harvard, Brown, and University of Iowa. The family fought hard against upstream polluters and contractors who routinely victimized and caused great harm to downstream farms like the one the Lacks owned.

Still, they found themselves no match for the sheer number of those involved in the county’s illegal drainage system.

Anhydrous ammonia, atrazine, and lead poured into their fields and their home’s drinking water while they poured tens of thousands of dollars into chlorinating wells and plumbing systems for their home and the animals, paid veterinarian bills and installed a whole house reverse osmosis filter system.

Pigs on the family farm had started getting sick by the mid-’90s, and by 1998 had developed tremendous masses and tumors. Worried about their safety for human consumption and still unable to stop upstream polluters, the Lacks quit raising pigs.

That same year, Gary also began developing hormone feeding tumors. Despite numerous trips to the Mayo Clinic, the tumors spread to his colon and liver. He was killed in January 2004 after a Hospice nurse (associated with other Mitchell County officials) overdosed him with an unprescribed medication she’d stolen from a recently deceased patient under her care.

The investigation into the Hospice nurse’s actions produced a 25-page list of citations; five more individuals died under her care before officials even completed their investigation.

After Gary Lack’s death Veronica also suffered many disorders from the poisonous water, but sheer grit and determination to hold those accountable gave her strength to keep pressing forward.

In 2005, Veronica once again placed a call to the Iowa DNR, asking them to test surface water flowing into the family farm from the west. The grass in the National Wetland was burned out by the rotten decomposing cattle flesh and bones that got into the Lack family’s aquifer via the sinkholes in the National Wetland.

She said that on August 5, 2005, DNR agent Dale Adams came out to the Lack farm, got his sample jars, and walked with her down into the National Wetland at the Lack’s west property line fence. Upon seeing the cattle hair and smelling the water flowing in, Lack said Adams told her, “You don’t want to take this test. You will get your neighbors in trouble.”

Veronica insisted she wanted the test done because it had burned her grass out in the Wetland, and she needed to keep the area “grassed” to stay in compliance with EPA regulations. Mr. Adams, Lack said, refused to do the test — nor would he provide the bottles to her so she could collect the samples. He put the test kit back into his trunk.

After he left, Mrs. Lack called the University of Iowa Hygienic Lab, who provided detailed instructions on how to collect separate surface water samples to send in for testing drinking water.

The test results came back, marked URGENT.

According to the reports, the drinking water levels included the following:

  • 40,000/100mL of E-Coli Bacteria
  • 4,800/100mL of Membrane Fecal Coliform Bacteria
  • Total Analyte Lead: 36 times the Quantitation Limit

More and more animals kept dying while downstream farmers and their families got sicker.

m1028DeadZone1
Courtesy Des Moines Register
REGISTER SPECIAL REPORT: RUNOFF FROM IOWA FARMS GROWING CONCERN IN GULF. Click here to see maps on how Iowa continues to be one of the two largest contributors to the Gulf’s Dead Zone. Information provided by environmental writer Perry Beeman. Hypoxia caused largely by runoff from farms in Iowa and the Upper Midwest are taking out large swaths of coastal wetlands and putting shrimpers’ livelihoods at risk.

In 2013, Veronica Lack sent a 39-page document — “Adam’s Voice” — to Iowa media outlets and a number of university experts. Painful as it was to write, she spared no details … naming names of local landowners, county and state officials … providing exact dates and times of verbal threats and intimidation methods used against the family … and boldly documented the facts surrounding her son Adam’s photographed, prolonged torture and eventual death.

On Oct. 28, 2012, the Des Moines Register’s Perry Beeman published an exposé about how the runoff from Iowa farms was becoming a growing concern in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a U.S. Geological survey, Iowa is one of nine states that combine to deliver over 75 percent of all nitrogen and phosphorous to the Gulf’s “Dead Zone.” Of the 75%, over 11% comes from Iowa, making it and Illinois the country’s two largest polluters.

Among the Register’s findings:

Some of Iowa’s neighboring states — Minnesota and Wisconsin among them — limit how much nitrogen or phosphorus can enter waterways. Iowa’s political leaders, farm organizations and many individual farmers have opposed similar restrictions.

On July 1, 2013, the Register published a Page One article addressing the multiple problems Iowa’s downstream farmers continue to face.

Veronica Lack with 6 kids at Will's weddingCourtesy photo Veronica Lack
Veronica Lack with her six children. After husband Gary and son Adam (far right) were killed and Veronica was pressured to sell land to members of a group that wanted to drain their Wetlands through her home and a 200-acre farm, she was further threatened when one member told her, “You know you have five other children.”

Adam Lack’s obituary — widely published — began with what family members had been led to believe in the initial days following his death: that he’d been killed in a “single vehicle auto accident” in rural Mitchell County. Only later would they learn the truth about the bold move upstream polluters made in taking time to photograph a homicide in progress; they wanted her property but didn’t want to pay for its value, and the photos served as a grisly reminder that she indeed still had five other children.

“Adam’s Voice” is the 39-page narrative written by Veronica Lack in attempts to call national attention to point source polluting and a state agency that, despite deadly results, she says looks the other way.

Download “Adam’s Voice” in MS Word
Download “Adam’s Voice” in PDF Format

In December 2012, Mitchell County Sheriff Curt Younker retired after spending five decades in law enforcement. In a Mason City Globe-Gazette article dated Dec. 21, 2012, Younker recalled the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s, which he cited as a very exciting time to be a young deputy. He remained undaunted by the dangers and tragic scenes he witnessed over the years.

“An older, wiser sheriff once told me, ‘Curt, the real danger in law enforcement does not come from knives, bullets or car wrecks — the real danger comes from seeing too many things that are not good for you to see,’ ” Younker told the Globe-Gazette. “I have found that to be true.”

Read Veronica Lack’s “NE Iowa Private Well Water Quality Warning” (Download in MS Word or PDF format) directed to public and private well owners or users of source water, flowing in aquifers downstream from southwest Mitchell County, Iowa’s Cedar (W) Township (the “Plume”).

About Adam Michael Lack

Adam Michael Lack was born May 13, 1975, at Mason City, the son of Gary (deceased) and Veronica (Naumann) Lack. Adam spent his childhood in several towns in northern Iowa including Rockford, Cedar Falls, and Mason City before moving to Buffalo, Wyo. during his freshman year of high school.

Adam Lack's gravestone Courtesy photo Veronica Lack
Adam Lack’s gravestone monument also represents his father’s death: two tree trunks cut down in their prime and the huge environmental footprint they left behind.

He was a remarkably gifted wrestler, becoming an AAU national champion at the age of 9 and four-time high school state place winner in Wyoming.

He was valedictorian of his class at Buffalo High School, received an academic scholarship to Brown University and received his degree in business economics from Brown University in Providence, R.I. He had formerly owned and operated the Floyd Y restaurant in Floyd, and more recently operated the Eagle’s Nest bar in Nora Springs.

Until the time of his death he worked as an ethanol plant operations supervisor at POET Biorefining.

He enjoyed reading, writing and fishing in his spare time. Adam’s life was one of caring for others, including his mother, nieces and nephews. He was deeply thoughtful and protective of his loved ones. After his father’s death in 2004, Adam remained at home to help his mother with managing the family farm while pursuing his business ventures and working at the ethanol plant.

One of Adam’s best college friends, Ray Rocha, died on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center attacks. Another dear friend, Dimitri Gavriel, was later killed in action in Iraq after joining the Marine Corps. Regarding the friends he had lost, Adam wrote, “I wish I could fish with Dimitri once more, and do anything with Ray.”

Adam may best be described in his own writing. In relation to his love of family and friends, he’d written: “One of my favorite occasional occurrences is being awoken early by my giggling nieces, Gabriella and Erica. Time spent with friends, preferably laughing, is a priority for me.” In relation to his quest for answers: “I like thunderstorms and truth, because they answer to no one. Somewhere there’s always an equation I’m working on in my mind that haunts me; but I’ll always break it.”

veronica-lack-jan-2015Courtesy photo Veronica Lack
Veronica Lack, shown here in January 2015, continues to fight for Iowans’ health and has filed a Civil Rights lawsuit in efforts to get the state to protect and warn the half-million Iowans at risk in this Point Source Pollution Plume.

He described his heroes as “all those who swim against the tide or care for the less fortunate.”

Survivors included his mother, Veronica Lack of Nora Springs; five siblings, Anthony Lack of Baytown, TX, Tanya (Shawn) Hamilton of Dallas, TX, Heidi (Robert) Thunhorst of Iowa City, Benjamin (Fernanda DeCollo) Lack of Des Moines, and William (Brandi Moon) Lack of Iowa City; and nieces and nephews, Gustav Thunhorst, Erica Lack, Gabriella Lack, and Catherina Lack.

He was preceded in death by his grandparents and his father, Gary Lack.

A funeral Mass was held at 10:30 a.m. Friday, July 18, 2008, at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Charles City, Iowa, with Rev. Carl Ries officiating and inurnment scheduled for a later date.

Memorials were to be directed to the Lack Educational Fund of the Knights of Columbus, 1475 325th Street, Nora Springs, IA 50458.

Information Needed

If you have any information about Adam Lack’s 2008 unsolved homicide or his father Gary Lack’s 2004 homicide, please contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the Washington, DC, office at (202) 278-2000, or fax related documents to (202) 278-2478. You may also email washington.field@ic.fbi.gov or send information via the FBI Tips and Public Leads online form.

The Iowa/Nebraska FBI office may be reached at (402) 493-8688 or by email at Omaha@ic.fbi.gov.

You may send information to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us or call (515) 725-6010.

Sources and References:

 

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390 Responses to Adam Lack

  1. Gary D Eggers says:

    These dirty Sheriffs Dept Set me Up Dumped Tires in My Noryh Field Prosucted me Huge fire Jail time I. 66 Tears old with Health Problems Had a Stroke inside Jail denied Hospital. Starved Me in Kail yet No one will listen We Called Iowa Civil Rights No Help denied. No Justice. I’m forced to leave my Home. Sherriff Yelling at Me telling me to shut my mouth stop talking to FBI They won’t do anything any how.i hate The State of Iowa CORRUPTION right down through their Courts system Police Judges They came stole our children Waz Terrible. When doctors te me I’m dying I’m going after a few. That did this too me. Left out was Beatened Up by Mitchall County Seriiffs Office Told to get out of Iowa Your not wanted Here. Deputy Jackson Beat me while I was Handcuffed Denied Attorney for Court too. Judge says You don’t need a Attorney. I was in a wheel chair Sick Couldn’t walk. Went from jail when I was released to Austin Medical Center I Life saving surgery I was minutes from death had lost 85 lbs. Too. Yet I had no health Issues.oh Sherrif Denoed me My Heart meds 7 days too.

  2. BOZO THE PIG HATER says:

    WHY IS THIS A COLD CASE?! THERE NEEDS TO BE. BOOTS ON THE GROUND CITIZENS ROUNDING UP ALL THESE DIRTY COPS SO THEY CAN PAY THE PRICE FOR WHAT THEY’VE DONE, F#CKING COWARD ASS SISSY PIGS

  3. Veronica Lack says:

    Please support the Reinstatement of Adam Lack’s “RUSLE3” in 2020, Adam’s work was his gift to the US in 2008, before he was Lynched, in Mitchell County, IA. You could give Adam a 45th year Birthday gift by voting very BLUE in 2020. Obama era USDA-NRCS and EPA and Secretary of AG – DC employees had installed Adam’s Revised Universal Soil Loss Equations that limited contamination of US Source Waters and Soils with AG fertilizers (Big Oil’s -KOCH’s) and (the 597 Chemical Corps in Trump’s Combined BAYER, CHEMCHINA, CORTIVA AGRISCIENCE, & LIMAGRAIN/VILMORIN-MIKADO) Chemical Conglomerates’ products.

    Quid Pro Quo

    Trump’s Republican Administration REDACTED access to the EPA and NRCS Data utilized by Adam’s “RUSLE3” in February of 2017, when Trump started removing “SCIENCE” from our federal government agencies. This covered-up/hid Big Oil and AG Chemical Conglomerates products’ test results of their contamination of US Water and Soils. The hidden test data included Anhydrous Ammonia and Inorganic Arsenic Herbicides and Pesticide and Insecticide DATA, now these tests are at higher levels in US Tap Water in 2020. It may be to late for some American’s/Iowan’s health as some of these long-lasting, inorganic, non-biological chemicals are building up and testing over the MCL’s for these nitrite chemicals in more of US Source Waters/well’s water and even Des Moines, Urbandale, and Waukee’s Iowa’s Tap Water as even the best Water Plants are not as able to safely treat or filter these NITRITES from our drinking water.

    • Mika says:

      Have you contacted Great Plains Action Society?

    • Maggie says:

      This makes me so sick to my stomach. I’ve lived in Iowa my whole life and I never have heard this story until today when I found this website. I’m so sorry for your losses. This should be national news and also made into a movie.

  4. Veronica Lack says:

    In the 2020 Democratic Caucus’, please consider supporting Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders. I have vetted them well, and Cory and Elizabeth are the best at listening to me, Adam’s Mom, who was elected in 2018, as a Dallas County Soil and Water Conservation Commissioner to protect US Soils and Water Quality by promoting the reinstallation of Adam’s USDA-NRCS Revised Universal Soil Loss Equations Version Three. Which limited Point Source Contamination of US Soils and Source Waters with large Foreign and Domestic Conglomerates’ AG Chemicals.

  5. Carrie A Arends says:

    This Is An extreme problem Which continues On! How Sad

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Yes. Can’t filter out the growing contaminants their decontaminants, and very carcinogenic cyanotoxins.

  6. twood says:

    what really disturbs me is he is in that vehicle obviously stressed out and no one is near him talking to him and if you look to the left the firefighters are sitting there bullshitting and smiling. I mean wtf

  7. Adam Lack says:

    Veronica Lack is searching for an attorney to represent Iowans Right to know what is causing the Iowa DNR to repeatedly condemn their wells and newer wells they have drilled to try to have safe drinking water. Her just filed Appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court of Iowa needs an attorney the Appellate case number is 17-1933. Please help her find Representation. Call 319-430-3957

  8. Amanda says:

    I currently live in Osage and appalled but not surprised that there are people in this area who are unjust. I cannot believe…. Actually there are so many parts that I cannot get past. How do people get away with this!!! Wow just wow ?

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Whenever an election for County Attorney or Sheriff or Assessor or County Trustees or County Soil and Water Conservation Board Members if you see and smell too many crooks or CAFO’s consider running for the Board as too many building contractors or developers do run for that Soil and Water Conservation Board and get elected just by getting their name on the ballot, no position on CAFO’s given until they get on the Board that issues CAFO Building Permits. Iowans, get involved, Protect our Water. Veronica Lack

  9. Veronica Lack says:

    Anyone interested in Justice for Iowans and Gary and Adam Lack (who were murdered, Adam just the day after he asked his Mom to get copies of her well tests, that the Iowa DNR agents and Mitchell County authorities were hiding from her) please come to the Polk County Courthouse at 8:30 am on Wednesday, July 19th, 2017, at 500 Mulberry Street, Des Moines, IA.

    Veronica Lack filed a Civil Rights case CVCV046761 in 2010 to try to get copies of the list of contaminants being Illegally Point Source Drained down the huge Sinkholes in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa’s Aquifer Recharge Area after the Iowa DNR had charged her with Blockage of Water and allowed the huge Flood Channel to be dug through her farm, digging away 42 acres of her 90.36 CSR topsoil without her permission and with no reimbursement or use of Eminent Domain Laws — just theft and trespass.

    Veronica Lack could give them no access since the legal 404 drainage permit for her farm would not allow her to add even 10 acres more of her own farm’s Drainage to the Designated National Wetland’s Sinkholes. The IDNR had Discriminated against Veronica in not requiring the polluting farmers and their contractors to obey both the Iowa Drainage laws and the Clean Water Acts Anti-Degradation Laws as were strictly enforced on Veronica. Veronica still is trying to get access to the list of contaminants she tried to filter from her new deeper well that was causing the miscellaneous masses and tumors in farm animals and the cancers and asthma, COPD, neurological effects, tremors, skin and eye damage, erosions to throats and intestines.

    Her family, extended family, and neighbors and friends in Floyd County and Downstream in the eight counties this Plume of Contaminants is effecting are being exposed to this building and on-going contamination of the Cedar Valley Group Aquifers. If Veronica and the well owners Downstream could get the list of contaminants that are testing positive around their wells/in the aquifer their well draws from, they could maybe filter them out or drill to a yet safe aquifer, if they have that option, to protect their health as 7,000 Cerro Gordo County Residents were given the options to protect their health from high levels of Arsenic.

    Big IDNR data files of well test reports, both at the IDNR and at the U. of Iowa’s 3 Hygienic Labs could be downloaded into the 3D GIS Arc Desktop Application used at the beginning of 2016 by the Board of Health, Iowa DNR, and U. of Iowa 3-D GIS Arc Software mapped the well test reports of the contaminant Arsenic in only one Iowa County, Cerro Gordo. Iowans access to the contaminants the Iowa DNR had condemned her first farm well for in 2004 and then after Adam asked her to get the copies of her old and new wells test reports to find out what the IDNR had condemned her wells for as she has wanted to complete the job Adam had requested of her on 7/12/2008. Veronica Lack

  10. Veronica Lack says:

    Please, if you know of anyone that could sit and support me, Adam’s Mom, at the Polk County Courthouse on July 19, 2017 or march with signs supporting Clean Safe Drinking Water for Iowans, tell them I could use the support call me at 319-430-3957 to make sure the time, location, and date don’t get changed. Veronica Lack

  11. Joe says:

    What the fuck if you have any information I would say there’s plenty of information right there fucking government nothing gets done because they’re all fucking crooks and murders for them to think they need more information about this case is just simply a cover-up

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Joe,

      At court on June28th, 2017 only one person, who I did not know, sat in the back as the Attorney General’s attorney David Stewart represented the State of Iowa and the Iowa DNR as the defendants in my Civil Rights charge CVCV046761. My attorney Erik Fisk sat beside me agreeing to most of the assertions of David Stewart, and I was not allowed to speak. I did get a copy of the transcript before I responded as they had wanted me to agree to no warning of the well owners of the contaminants that caused our tumors and cancers and tremors, neurological effects, asthma, skin rashes, throat erosions, damaged intestinal linings, scaring of our eyes, and other health effects. Judge Jeanie K. Vaudt seemed to read through their pretense however and asked if the DNR just maintains a repository and they never put information into it.

      The millions in our tax dollars over the years that the IDNR has spent collecting water samples and storing the data with no feasible access to the positive Contaminant well test data, after citizens and private and public well owners have tried to test for what is killing their animals and a request made by a well owner (public or private) and the IDNR only says to test for Nitrates and Bacteria and tells us to Chlorinate when the Bacteria levels are up. There are 600-700 contaminants to test for especially in this Ag state where Iowa’s Source Waters test at the highest levels in the Nation for Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO (Bacteria) Nitrogen fertilizers and Iowa’s DNR does not tell us to test for NITRITES, Ammonia Nitrogen as N or even Cyanobacteria before we Chlorinate.

      Please if you know of anyone who would sit quietly in court on July 19, 2017 in the Polk County Courthouse,500 Mulberry Street, Des Moines, Iowa (June’s hearing was in Courtroom 404 by 8:20am to support my suit to try to get Adam’s USDA-NRCS RUSLE3 utilized and first get Iowan’s warned in the Plume from Cedar (W) Township’s illegally built Flood Drainage of about 50,000 acres of Farm fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides down the Sinkholes in the Aquifer Recharge Area of the Designated National Wetland. This contaminates the well water for 1/2 million Iowans Downstream especially along the west side of the Cedar River through Floyd, Butler, Bremer, Black Hawk, Benton, Lynn, and Johnson Counties. Don’t bring any weapons, just stand with me when the Judge enters. We want to know what is killing our animals in high numbers, and what is damaging the health of so many Iowans unless they can afford to drill a much deeper well or have a series of very costly filters, if its possible to treat their water safely. We need to know what contaminants we are drinking to protect our and our loved ones health.

      Veronica Lack

      • Anti bars association says:

        Bars association members are as dirty as you get. All lawyers are actors for the govt. Never trust a dirty lawyer ………. We need to put these people behind bars. It’s us we the people that need to go get them an put them behind bars.

  12. Kim says:

    I’m sorry for your loss of your family members. It’s too bad it couldn’t have gone to another county or prosecutor in another jurisdiction to get justice for your family and neighbors who have suffered from this evil.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Kim,
      I tried, but when the District Judge was Judge Bryan McKinley he even refused to Recuse himself in the Floyd County Court House in the first of 4 hearings, to try to get an investigation into Adam’s being killed, by the group of Tea Party Republicans including Judge Bryan McKinley. I paid for those 4 hearings to be transcribed where McKinley admits they breathalyzed Adam and that he was at the scene before Adam was killed, but lied and said he was only there about 10 minutes, and that he never entered the bean field. One of the court recorders identified Judge McKinley in one of Palas Graham’s 26 pictures taken over an hour after the St. Ansgar crew had arrived and over 8 hours after Adam rolled his truck to avoid hitting the ’04 Chevy Impala. My eyes were affected by the Chloramines and other decontaminants, so her identifying Judge McKinley scared my attorney, and even though he asked Judge McKinley to recuse himself he backed down when McKinley refused.
      Veronica Lack

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Kim, the transcripts of those 4 hearings the first one was on 11/29/2010 and the last on 5/2/2011 to get Adam’s death investigated. This was after, I had filed my Civil Rights charge against the State of Iowa and the Iowa DNR for their part in Charging me with Blockage of Water in 2004 to allow the group of murdering Tea Party Republicans to build the huge flood channel through my farm, to drain farm fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides like Atrazine into our wells Source Water Downstream. Then the IDNR continued to hide the Ammonia Nitrogen as N levels and Chloramines and Trihalomethanes and advised the polluters to dump extra Bleach into our aquifer in Section 10 upstream of my well. That scared my eyes, which I’ve had laser surgery to repair at Mayo and in West Des Moines. In the last hearing’s transcription there are exhibits including the information (a list of questions still refused to be answered, and copies of the 26 pictures of Judge McKinley and the others before they killed Adam and other information) I was able to collect. Also subpoenas for even Adam’s autopsy report, Poet’s exposure patch, (that Adam is wearing in the Highway Patrolman’s pictures), and the names of Judge Bryan McKinley and other Tea Party Republicans killing Adam in those 26 pictures have still been refused to be answered, even though they were ordered by the Floyd County Court, Mitchell County’s Property and Liability Attorney Rourick, refused to answer those subpoenas saying, Veronica would sue Mitchell County, if he answered the court ordered subpoenas. This blocked any further investigation or justice for Adam or the 1/2 million drinking the on-going pollution Downstream. Veronica Lack

    • Veronica Lack says:

      We tried.

  13. Kim says:

    Did all those involved with Adam’s death get any kind of prison time?

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Kim,

      The Tea Party Republican’s in Mitchell County that killed my husband Gary and my son Adam, blackmailed me with the 26 pictures taken by Palas Graham a Iowa Highway Patrolman as they murdered Adam. I was threatened by Mark Walk Mitchell County Attorney that if I didn’t sign off on my 1/3 share of my husband’s 200 acre family farm and my 200 acre farm at 1/2 their value by his threat, “You know, you have five other children!”

      No, no prison time, and no justice in Mitchell County or even the Enforcement of our Drainage Laws in Cedar (W) Township by the IDNR. Those Tea Party Republicans did not have to get 404 or 401 Iowa DNR permits for their digging away my farm’s CRP contracted and NRCS Conservation practices, that were compliance measures to my 404 Permit with the Corps of Engineer’s for very limited Legal Drainage. They now have polluted wells in that Township and Downstream in Floyd, Butler, Bremer, Black Hawk, and Benton, Lynn, and Johnson Counties. Waterloo lost the use of one well to the Nitrogen fertilizers.

      Iowa City’s University Water System had to issue a warning letter on 2/9/2017 that their water has tested above the MCL’s for Trihalomethanes for over a year and if they could get the Regents to fund a Reverse Osmosis System it would be over 18 months even to get that working. When the U of IA Chlorinates for the CAFO bacteria they create the Trihalomethanes as the levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen or the Ammonia Nitrogen as N reacts with the Chlorine. Kidney, liver and neurological effects and cancers are the result, I advise drinking bottled water if you don’t have very good filters.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      No, no justice, blackmail and lies, and Republicans still cover up their on-going contamination of 1/2 million Iowan’s drinking water.

  14. kelli says:

    THIS IS SOME SERIOUS SHIT, Veronica iam deeply sorry for your family and neighbors that we’re slowly murdered . You keep fighting y’all need a class action lawsuit. Where’s Michael Moore he really needs to hear about this.

  15. Stacie Riley says:

    Mrs. Lack.. I am truly sorry for your loss and I hope and pray you find justice for your family and the many people you have fought so hard to protect.. I am deeply saddened by this miscarriage of justice and my heart goes out to you..

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Thanks, Stacie and Kelli, I’m hoping for support at the October 16th 2017 court date for Civil Rights case CVCV046761 if anyone could assemble and protest the on-going pollution of Iowa’s Source Waters with Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides. If you can’t be in Des Moines for that make a sign and carry at local protests or parades, etc. as we all in Iowa need safe drinking water and justice for all. Thanks,
      Veronica Lack

      • Kassidy Eggers says:

        Ms. Veronica Lack, My parents have been telling me about Adam’s story for years, I didn’t quite understand it up until now. I just read this and It’s sad. I’ve always thought Mark and the rest of the guys were nice until I read this, and now I understand completely what You, Adam and the rest of your family had to go through. Excuse my french but that’s pure Bullshit what they did to your son. They deserve to be prosecuted. Mitchell County officials are steady worrying about the crime that young teens and young adults are doing, but the people we’re suppose to go to for help are the real criminals. Everyone involved in the murder of Adam need to be sentenced to life in prison, this whole thing was totally uncalled for. And it’s pretty shitty of someone to make a joke out of Adam being dead. @ Mark Walk “You know you have five other children” I really hope that You and your family get some real Justice instead of some bullshit apologies. Charges NEED to be PRESSED against all of those officials involved in this. My family and myself will be here to help you out whenever you need it! Take care Veronica & Family.

        -Kassidy Eggers

  16. This election is so important as the Big Ag Corps, Farm Bureau, the Corn and Soybean Corps and Ag Chemical Corps have funded the fight against Bill Stowe’s suit to Protect our Iowa Source Waters from the Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers that caused the green slime’s Cyanobacteria, he found in Des Moines, Waukee, Urbandale’s Raccoon River Source Water and had to switch to the Des Moines River last month, (even though the Des Moines River is higher in Nitrate levels) to try to protect us.

    Governor Branstad and Senator Grassley are not allowing access to Iowans or our Board of Health or the EPA to the Hygienic Labs big Data Bases of Contaminant well test data. That is why I filed the Iowa Civil Rights Charge number

    The EPA can’t even set a MCL for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer or other newer herbicides and pesticides without access to Iowans well test data especially of all the contaminants.

    County Boards of Health can’t warn citizens to test for the contaminants that are known to be in our Source Waters, because the Attorney General’s Office agreed at the end of my June 2015 Deposition, (Branstad and Grassley) and other legislators are hiding the access to well test data of contaminants in our water and not warning Iowan’s, and then the Asst. Attorney General stated it’s to POLITICAL to say Iowans are drinking ANHYDROUS AMMONIA NITROGEN fertilizer as that particular fertilizer is only used to grow Corn, not lawns. So Cities are not at fault for it growing, with the CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer the Green Slime on our Source Waters.

    Please vote out all Republicans who have denied us access to well test data, and continue to do so, President Obama has written the Chief of NRCS in DC, to have both of those Nitrogen fertilizers covered in my son Adam Lack’s 2008 Newer RUSLE III equation to evaluate farms before that farm is given a IDNR permit for application of those two highly water soluble Nitrogen fertilizers. Democrats have been the Party that has better protected our Natural Resources, but Iowa Republicans took away the IDNR’s enforcement funds, and encourage Point Source Polluters (French Drains, illegal AG Drainage wells, and Channels to outlet down sinkholes, or into Aquifer Recharge Areas.)

    Vote for other than any Republican candidate in Iowa, since we are all needing less Green Slime and safe Source Water for our drinking water. I’m voting for almost straight ticket Democrat (except for one Local Tea Partier) that didn’t get vetted properly. Get as much info as you can, but don’t accept Propaganda/Trump-isms.

  17. Veronica Lack says:

    Russ Tell, (and his County Sanitarians with the IDNR, quoted in D. Ellers Des Moines Register Sunday 8/28/2016 article), repeatedly since 1993, has only told well owners to test for Nitrates and Bacteria. Until this year now he suggests we should have been testing for Arsenic. Which most well owners in Iowa have repeatedly done the suggested Nitrates and Bacteria tests, maybe not yearly as I had.

    December 2009 IDNR notices sent out to the well owners Downstream in Floyd County from Mitchell County’s Pollution Plume, claimed in Jeff Sherman’s warning letter, the well owners Nitrates tests had been testing high for Nitrates (in the 40’s), but a six month old infant could safely drink that water. They did not warn those well owners to test for Anhydrous Ammonia or Arsenic or the Cadmium, Lead, or high levels of Atrazine, and they had been telling them to install Chlorinators for the bacteria. The increasing levels of Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers can draw Arsenic from some geological bedrock formations and the corrosive ammonias also draw Lead into our drinking water from pipes or distribution lines.

    Russ Tell has agreed that the Nitrogen fertilizers are a growing issue but has refused to warn well owners to test for Ammonia Nitrogen as N before a well owner installs a Chlorinator or is told to shock their well for Bacteria. Because the IDNR and State of Iowa are hiding access to the Hygienic Labs well test data on the contaminants, we Iowans, that have paid to have tests done other than Nitrates and Bacteria, we want the well owners Downstream to be warned sooner than we were, so Iowans Downstream won’t have to suffer some of our same health effects.

    Sandy Davis complained to the Cerro Gordo County Board of Health in 2004. It wasn’t until this year that our whole state was warned to test for Arsenic. Did that warning get all well owners to do the free testing, no as the article, Danger Lurks in Iowa Wells did not stressed as a Statewide concern. Or did not get read and did not list any of the other contaminants that are proven Carcinogens that are contaminating even some wells in Cerro Gordo County.

    I, Adam’s Mom, had complained to the Mitchell County Board of Health in 2004. In that meeting the Mitchell County Sanitarian handed a well test report from a Hygienic Lab on my well. Dr. Ross the then Mitchell County Board of Health Director, refused to print a warning letter saying, “It would Scare the People”.

    Still to this day the IDNR hides the levels in this Plume that was tracked back to Rock Creek or Meroa in 1998 after a fish kill in the Mississippi. But meanwhile we in the growing Plume were not told to test for the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer (Ammonia Nitrogen as N), Atrazine, Cadmium, Lead, but we were told to install Chlorinators for the increasing levels of CAFO Bacteria. Unfortunately for us that followed the IDNR direction as they hide our well tests from me at least, we, and well owners Upstream that installed Chlorinators or those that shock Chlorinated with Bleach, caused Trihalomethanes to burn our skin inside and out.

    The new Cerro Gordo County 3D GIS IDNR mapping of our aquifers, should allow access to Iowan’s of all the contaminants, as they are already hiding data in the Hygienic Labs on what contaminants are in each aquifer and each county or even which Township that Cadmium Lead is a contaminant. Russ Tell should not just say test for Nitrates and Bacteria especially in the Plume from Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County that has taken out some wells Downstream through 4 counties, and now 20 years late the IDNR tells Sandy Davis and Iowans you need to also test for only one other of the over 600+ contaminants, but still not the Anhydrous Ammonia that draws Arsenic and Lead into our Source Waters. Data has been hidden except we can access published 1990’s data from Paul Johnson a former IDNR Director and more recently published well test contaminant data of Robert Libra, once published it can’t be deleted, even if it’s not accessible to Iowans on the IDNR web site. This contaminant data needs to be accessible and included in 3D GIS IDNR for every county and every contaminant not just the ones with MCL levels set by the EPA.

  18. Veronica Lack says:

    Did you read the long almost 3 page article by Donnelle Eller, starting on the Front page of the 8/28/2016 Sunday Des Moines Register? One county, Cerro Gordo, got the use of the IDNR’s new 3D GIS system (which I was promised by the Attorney from the Attorney General’s Office, but I am still being denied for Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and Black Hawk Counties) with access to well test data for only one contaminant Arsenic well test data (from our Hygienic Labs big data files) and 7000 people had to be warned about their drinking water. Where is the data for the Cadmium and Lead that the EPA tracked in about 1998 to Meroa or Rock Creek, from the Mississippi fish kill Downstream?

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Iowans Downstream from Cedar (W) Township only could learn about the Cadmium Lead, bad well tests from me, so the IDNR’s Mason City employees labeled me a grieving wife and mother and a crazy environmentalist, after Gary and Adam were murdered, to discredit my warnings, and the letters they sent out stated wells Downstream had tested high before in Nitrates, so the wells could be tested again, but a six month old infants could drink bottles with 45 ppml of high Nitrate contaminanted water, and they were only sending out the letters because of one woman’s concern about her neighbors work around a sinkhole. (So the IDNR was saying spend money on tests you have already done that showed high Nitrate levels, but a six month old infant can safely drink it, so people went on drinking highly contaminated water. But their Water may contain a list of contaminants, and they were not told to test for some and are still not being told to test for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and Cadmium Lead and Trihalomethanes and etc. that are contaminating wells around them that use the same aquifer or Source Water.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        And oh yes, the 80 times the MCL for Atrazine, that was one of the expensive tests I did in 2004 before I drilled a new well at my own expense. But Russ Tell gave me a copy of, Paul Johnson, former IDNR director’s published research, in 2008. That 2000 report on contaminant well test data in Floyd County, where I grew up, gave me clues on what I should be testing my well’s water for now. Ammonia Nitrogen as N was first on his list of contaminants.

  19. Veronica Lack says:

    At my Deposition for my Civil Rights Case in the middle of June 2015, after my testimony, I was promised, that within 45 days, (by the Attorney General’s Office), that the IDNR would set up a Web site, so Iowans could have access to the list of contaminants that were testing positive in wells or Source Water surrounding their wells. So they would know what to test for, out of the over 600+ contaminants. However it is over a year now and only one County has gotten access to one set of contaminant Arsenic data in Cerro Gordo County on the IDNR’s new 3D GIS web site, with Arsenic Data supplied by the Hygienic Labs.

    As a result 7000 people were notified, like Sandy Davis who had complained to the Cerro Gordo Board of Health in 2004. I had complained to the Mitchell County Board of Health in 2004 (Dr. Ross was the director then) and I had been refused well test reports or even the names of contaminants, I was trying to warn people to test our water for. In that 2004 meeting by Dr. Ross stated that he could not warn Iowans to test for the high Cadmium Lead in my well’s water as, it would SCARE the PEOPLE. After being discouraged about testing for the high Lead, Cadmium, Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, Atrazine, Arsenic, even after the IDNR condemned my well and over 10 wells in Cedar (W) Township the IDNR employees refused to inform us of what the contaminants were when they condemned my well. I spent thousands on guesses from a huge list of contaminants. Then I drilled a well to a deeper aquifer, but the IDNR refused to tell me that that new deeper aquifer was also polluted. I had it tested by Shawvers for Nitrates and Bacteria and by the IDNR and by my own testing done at the Hygienic Lab but they did not tell us what else I should have been testing my new Source Water for. So again I was drinking contaminated water in the effort to hide the On-Going pollution Plume from Mitchell County Cedar (W) Townships Aquifer Recharge Area Sinkholes, being used as a drain for about 50,000 acres of farm Nitrogen fertilizer run-off and chemicals (herbicides and pesticides).

  20. Veronica Lack says:

    My blood just tested at 0.2 ng/mL on 5/27/2016 for Cadmium after 12 years of drinking “safe” water since I drilled a new well at my own expense. But the people Downstream were never warned to test for Cadmium or Lead except in my Letter to the Editor in 2004. Why is the IDNR still hiding the well test data?

    Why was it so important to the Mitchell County authorities, that harassed us to go on hiding Brad Johnson’s, the Mitchell County Soil and Water Conservation Chair’s threat that he had gotten back at me by dumping a truck load of batteries down the sinkhole (just up stream from my well). Others further Downstream like Ruth Morische and Mrs. Dean Johnson have passed away from their health issues that could have been attributed to Cadmium Lead from those batteries. And more could still be exposed.

  21. Laura Feeley says:

    Thank you for sharing your story. I believe every word of it. Justice must be done, some way, some how. You will prevail, I truly believe it! Every single person who lives, and breaths, need to be concerned about our environment! As for the naysayers…were you born yesterday? Or just hiding out in some hole? Obviously, those who have left cruel, heartless remarks are out of touch with reality. God help us all. Thank you Veronica

    • Adam Lack says:

      Laura, thank you for reading, the truth in my notes of my husband, Gary, and son Adam’s Cold Case files, it is hopeless, but I’m still hoping and praying yet to get Iowans Downstream notified about the on-going pollution before they have to suffer the health effects my family suffered. Veronica Lack

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Justice is hopeless for my family, but some that did this, and are still profiting with higher yields, from draining their farm fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides into our Source Water, may care enough to think of those Downstream, and stop their polluting.

        • Jody Ewing says:

          Veronica, I’m sorry but justice is absolutely NOT hopeless for either Adam or Gary. You’ve got a pretty high profile production company and director wanting to tell this story so badly, and if you look at their track record, they’ve made some pretty awesome films (some which nearly all of us has seen). I’ve even hear some refer to it as the Erin Brockovich meets Veronica Lack film. I’m not mentioning the producers/directors here because I don’t want to cause any trouble for them as they’re lining things up, but this is not the time to think justice is hopeless. Adam’s words and dreams and attempts to fight polluters will once again be heard, even if by an actor.

          I think the perfect one to play Adam would be Mark Ruffalo. He’s a huge advocate for clean water and is very involved in some of the same work you’re doing. And, he’s just a hellu’va nice and decent man who actually shares a resemblance to Adam. He embraces the same values Adam embraced. And, Mark wouldn’t just play the role, He’d put his whole heart and soul into it because he believes in the kind of work you’re doing. You can almost bet he’d be hauling in teams to document and film just how illegally everything is rigged up there.

          Mark has also been active in the Detroit water problem. If this crew could get him on board with this film, what really happened to Adam and Gary would no longer be just words on page about environmental issues many don’t understand. If Julia Roberts could “become” Erin Brockovich in that role, Mark Ruffalo can certainly ensure what happened to Adam is NEVER forgotten. Changes would finally get made.

          It’s sad it often takes a film (or an exposé news piece that goes viral nationwide) to bring about change, but there are times that’s exactly what it takes to make the greater population aware of the atrocities taking place while certain elected officials look the other way.

          If I had my say, you’d be played by Meryl Streep. Just hang on and wait for the calls from Bill, Michael and Diane, and let them run with the truth. You will definitely be in good hands with them!

      • Laura Feeley says:

        I didn’t mention that I feel so bad for you, having to go thru this nightmare. Unbelievable, how strong of a woman you are. Unbelievable also, is that this conspiracy has been allowed to continue! I pray that one day, it all comes to a head, and those responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law, and hopefully serve lengthy sentences being incarcerated. I also see a huge settlement to those who have suffered at their hands. Mitchell county is almost at my back door, so this hits close to home. All citizens really do need to be concerned. Take care

  22. Adam Lack says:

    Gary, Yes, I found this out the very hardest way. My Civil Rights suit is against the State of Iowa and the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources filed in 2010 and after I finally received the Letter of Right to Sue I was given about two years to find an attorney and paid for or was given one hour meetings to try to get an attorney to take my case. I finally was given a lead on a firm in Des Moines large enough that had a heart, and that took on my case.

    Did you see what happened in Michigan today? Six Michigan state employees, (and I hope eventually more state employees and Governor Branstad here in Iowa), were charged because of the coverup and subsequent exposure of Flint citizens and their children to Lead and other corrosive chemicals.

    The EPA says Iowans drinking water in this Plume from Cedar (W) Township are being exposed to pollutants worse than Flints’. But the Big Corps have gotten the EPA’s funds cut just a few days ago, so if Trump gets in and the big Oil Corps, Big industrial Ag Corps, that make and promote the Anhydrous Ammonia that tests so high in this Plume and the levels of Arsenic and Lead that Anhydrous Ammonia pulls into our drinking water are probably going to get Branstad, Grassley, Ernst, and the cone-hat King to continue to block the EPA access to the Big Databases in the three Hygienic Labs of well test data. Without 20 years of that data the EPA cannot set a MCL for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer or Ammonia Nitrogen as N.

    Iowans need to vote all Republicans that have fed off the Big Corps out of Office and are now still hiding the state’s taxpayer Big Databases info from Iowans so that we cannot protect our families from pollutants in our drinking water.

    Veronica Lack (I’m also posting on Adam’s old Facebook page)

  23. Gary Eggers says:

    JUST A HEADS UP YOU PROBALLY CANT TRUST A FLOYD COUNTY ATTORNEY EITHER.THEY ARE ALL IN BED TOGETHER. ATTORNEYS WILL LIE TO PROTECT THE OTHER. IM PRETTY SURE WHY NOTHING IS BEING DONE. IVE SEEN A FEW OF THESE ASSHOLE DO NOTHING ATTORNEYS OUT OF FLOYD COUNTY MITCHELL EVEN MASON CITY NORTH IOWA SMALL TOWN ATTORNEYS HAVE THE GOOD IL BOY NETWORK. GO SHOP AROUND WATERLOO CEDAR RAPIDS AREA.NOTHING FAIR IN COURTS UP HERE. JUDGES ARE VERY CORRUPT APPEALS COURT CORRUPT. I GOT THIS FROM A ATTORNEY SAYS WHOLE DAM IOWA COURTS SYSTEM IS RIGGED. NO ONE HARDLY GETS A FAIR HEARING. ID SUE MITCHELL COUNTY FOR WRONGFUL DEATH IN FEDERAL COURT. MAYBE TRY A CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY. SO MANY DUMB PEOPLE DONG RELIZE WHAT CRIMINAL PEOPLE THEY HAVE ELECTED INTO OFFICE.I TELL THE TRUTH.I JUST HAD A HEART ATTACK I HAVENT ANY REASON TO LIE. WHEN YOU HAVE COUNTY ATTORNEYS AND JUDGES COVERING UP MURDER. THERE IS NO JUSTICE.

  24. Adam Lack says:

    Adam was left to die after he was trapped in his truck, when the 911 call by the people harassing us was received in the Osage call center they did not respond until over 7 hours later to allow the Judge and Dr. Haganman and some of the polluters and their contractors to gather and proceed to breathalyze Adam after finding out he was still alive and they proceeded to torture and crush his limbs further and then when he didn’t die after they refused to help him they twisted his neck dislocating his neck at the C-2 and C-3 vertebra. They had to shut him up so Adam’s USDA-NRCS RUSLE III version equation could not limit their on-going pollution. Veronica Lack

  25. Money is everything and people’s life’s come last. Thus needs to be investigated deeper.

  26. Veronica Lack says:

    Anti-Discrimination Laws, Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws, and Iowa’s Property Rights did not stop the farmers and investors (like Judge McKinley) that own the 50,000 acres being drained illegally down the Sinkholes in the National Designated Wetland’s Aquifer Recharge Area. My Charge against the USDA-NRCS in February of 2007 that Adam helped me file did not even get answered the Remediation was put on Hold and Adam was murdered two weeks later, after I refused to take two million for the damages to my farm by their illegal digging and channeling of Flood Drainage over roads and through homes and farms.

    I refused to take that pay off for the new channel they built illegally through my farm without my permission and without their even getting an Environmental Impact Study done first or even a 401 Permit or a 404 Permit that I a woman farmer was required to get and keep in compliance with.

    The IDNR and the USDA-NRCS are hiding the on-going pollution and are not warning well owners Downstream of the Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers polluting our drinking water in Iowa. When the levels increase the Anhydrous Ammonia pulls Arsenic and Lead into our drinking water. And when the IDNR tells us to Chlorinate for the CAFO bacteria the Anhydrous Ammonia can develop Trihalomethanes and we private well owners are not being told to test for that deadly contaminant either.

    Steve King says he was defending “white men when he claimed they had contributed more to Western Civilization than other “sub-groups” as far as I see, the “white men/Good Old Boys” group I had to fight against and lost family and animals and our pet to were like Steve King.

    King fosters hate and discrimination and an ‘us against them” attitude with his support of Non-Enforcement of our Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act. More Big Oil Corps are owned by rich white men and we are drinking their unlimited chemical (Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer) that their profits have built up in our drinking water. He is correct on more White Men like the Koch Brothers have profited from the polluting of Iowa’s source waters with both Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, but because of that contribution I developed cancer and other health issues.

    Now the last excuse for the IDNR not disclosing drinking-water data to the EPA or the Iowans drinking it is the “DNR says it doesn’t want to harm property values in disclosing drinking water-data”. Monday, July 18th, 2016 after the EPA was concerned about Iowa not informing Iowans about high Lead tests on their drinking water.

    What if Baron was drinking lead from his gold faucet’s water, wouldn’t it be important?
    It was heart breaking for me to find out too late, that I had given that Arsenic/Lead/Atrazine/Ammonia Nitrogen as N/CAFO Bacteria/Trihalomethane contaminated water to my family because the IDNR had denied me access to my wells tests data.

  27. All about protecting innocent people.

  28. Sounds like they already know who did it.

  29. Kcci someone needs to share this

  30. This case should truly be put upfront in the media,tv,newspapers..this affects all in Iowa

  31. How can someone live with themselves after taking a life!
    R.I.P. my friend.

  32. This is the strangest Cold Case I have ever read about. This is something from an episode of 48 Hours, hard to believe true life story!!! WOW!!

  33. Becky Walker says:

    Love you, Adam. And I miss you every day.

  34. Veronica Lack says:

    Soon another July 13th will follow the 8th year anniversary of Adam’s July 12th accident, after he chased the two people harassing me, someone called 911, before midnight, but left him trapped and injured but alive. Mitchell County EMS left him for about 7 hours before some of the group (including Judge Bryan McKinley), that were in court in 2007, came and killed Adam after first slowly smashing his legs and arms, before taking his head off at the C-2 and C-3 vertebra. Adam had testified against them for their illegally built flood channel to drain over 3000 acres of farm chemical and fertilizer runoff to illegally drain Wetland down sinkholes in a Designated National Wetland Aquifer Recharge Area.

    In October of 2015, the Plume from this Aquifer Recharge Area, contaminated new wells in Mitchell County in Cedar (W) Township, and Downstream in Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and Black Hawk Counties, taking out one of the City of Waterloo’s wells in October of 2015.

    Farmers illegally draining their farm chemicals from 50,000 acres of Wetland into the Source Water for 1/2 million Downstream benefit greatly from increased yields and income. But leave Iowans health at risk and the Iowa DNR has still not warned those exposed in this on-going Plume to test their Source Water for Ammonia Nitrogen as N (Anhydrous Ammonia) before they Chlorinate for the CAFO bacteria. The combination caused Trihalomethanes to develop and it kills animals and affects the health of those Downstream from the Point Source Polluters. Plus Anhydrous Ammonia or Ammonia Nitrogen as N pulls Arsenic and Lead into our Source Water, two known Carcinogens, some wells in this Plume were showing up to be contaminated with from 2004.

    Farmers and city and townspeople Downstream would have benefited from Adam’s Version III equation of the NRCS-RUSLE II equation as it would have put limits on where those two Nitrogen fertilizers could be applied (especially not on the 50,000 acres drained illegally down sinkholes in that Aquifer Recharge Area). Adam was trying to get the IDNR and USDA-NRCS to limit the increase in contamination of our drinking water by those two very water soluble CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers that only some farmers improperly apply while draining their farms illegally into our drinking water. Instead the group he had testified in court against in July of 2007 brutally murdered him on July 13th the day after he was trapped.

    Downstream the Farm Bureau and Big AG Corps and Big Oil and Chemical Corps and the Koch Brothers don’t want Iowans to know we are drinking their products. Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO bacteria that cause the towns and cities and individual well owners to Chlorinate have further health issues from the Trihalomethanes. Downstream well owners (private and public) need to pay for drilling deeper wells and then when those new wells are contaminated with Ammonia Nitrogen as N, Bacteria, high Nitrates like Atrazine, and Arsenic and Lead, we need to again drill to yet deeper aquifers, while the 50,000 acre land owners get richer, except the ones who actually follow our Drainage Laws and have their farmland illegally taken from them by the polluters in Mitchell County.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Adam helped me file a Discrimination on Farm Program Water and Soil Loss Conservation agreements and other Conservation Program benefits in February of 2007. That February 23, 2007 Charge against the USDA-NRCS, was assigned number 08-1022. The polluters were helped by the NRCS in surveys and other work to plan a drainage of 50,000 acres to be able to drain their Wetland. Ray Frana later claimed to have taken a copy of the SW corner of the map up on Jim Hyde’s Office wall for the illegal appropriation of those 42 acres. My farm was illegally downgraded at the Mitchell County Assessors Office of 42 acres of my farm for the building of a huge Flood Channel to build an illegal drain to the Designated National Wetland’s Sinkholes in an Aquifer Recharge Area. No legal action was done to even reimburse or notify me before or after this was done on 4/15/2003. This was the same day I had to charge Dean Kleckner the former head of the Farm Bureau with theft and trespass.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Just before Adam was killed our USDA-NRCS case number 08-1022, was put on hold, when I refused to take $2,000,000 for the damages including the 2008 flood damage their illegal channel caused, without them agreeing to stop the On-going flooding and increased farm chemicals being drained into our aquifers.

        Adam worked on developing the USDA-NRCS RUSLE III equation to cover both highly water soluble (Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen) fertilizers and added criteria since the only thing that the older equation was checking for in the RUSLE II was HEL or NHEL soils. So he added (for the farmland a farmer was applying for an IDNR application permit) three other criteria: I. Legal tile and surface water drainage outlets, 2. Buffer application distances from sinkholes,swales, ponds, lakes, farm through waterways, streams and rivers, 3. Minimum soil depth above tile draining land.

        I could not sign for accepting payment for the allowing of this Point Source Pollution Plume to continue to pollute more wells Downstream, so others would have to suffer the multiple cancers we had to deal with and my 404 Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for Drainage for that Farm would not allow me to add even 10 more acres of drainage to the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland in that Aquifer Recharge Area.

  35. Happy birthday, Mrs. Lack

  36. Happy Birthday Mrs. Lack, I pray for justice.

  37. Adam Lack says:

    Adam’s NRCS-RUSLE III equation that would have limited the on-going channeling to sinkholes of farm chemical run-off in Mitchell and Worth Counties to a Aquifer Recharge Area in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa that now drains about 50,000 acres of farm chemicals, into our Source Water Downstream is still being ignored. It was easier to kill him and stop our message from getting out as my voice is so damaged, and Ray Frana, NRCS, and Dale Adams and other IDNR personnel labeled me just a crazy, old, environmentalist, grieving wife and then grieving mother who can’t speak clearly. I am an Iowa Farmer who is a woman who has spent over $150,000 trying to stay in Compliance with my legal Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for Drainage and who did follow the Iowa Drainage Laws and that is why I spent the $150,000. But those in the group killing Adam were laughing as they killed him as they knew one woman would not stop them. In fact nothing would be done to stop them from polluting the wells Downstream with Big Oil Corps Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer so they could make so much money.

  38. Twila Riessen this one?

  39. Dana Canfield…click on Adam lack picture and read this

  40. Happy day of birth to a unbelievably strong woman. May all those who have wronged you and your family burn in hell. I just bawled when I read this story about you and the family. Those involved are cowards who will get theirs. God bless you.

  41. Happy birthday, and my thoughts and prayers are with you.

  42. Happy Birthday Mrs. Lack! I read your story and my heart aches for you! God Bless and I hope they put away those who are responsible!!!!!

  43. Happy Birthday Mrs Lack!! You are one strong determined lady and pray you get justice for all the wrong done to you and your family.

  44. Happy Birthday Mrs. Lack.

  45. Happy Birthday Mrs Lack. I read your story years ago. Thank you for FIGHTING ON!

  46. Best wishes for a Happy Birthday!!

  47. Happy birthday Mrs Lack, have read ur story u really are a tremendous woman ❤

  48. Sara Shafer says:

    I just spent what feels like forever reading about her husband and son. Oh how my heart aches.

  49. Happy Birthday! Your story has touched me so deeply. May you and your family have justice soon.

  50. Happy Birthday Mrs. Lack!
    I pray that those involved are brought to justice.

  51. Happy birthday, Mrs. Lack, and may God bless you!!!

  52. Marj Bensley says:

    Happy Birthday, Mrs. Lack. From the moment I read the acount of your family’s misfortune, I knew there was a deep, evil corruption behind the deaths. My heart goes out to you, and I constantly pray for justice.

  53. Happy birthday Mrs Lack. May God bless you.

    • Adam Lack says:

      Penny,

      My son, Adam’s equation that he was promoting in 2008 before he was murdered to get the USDA-NRCS and IDNR to use to enforce Iowa’s Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act was to be Version III of the RUSLE II equation that the NRCS does for the IDNR most water soluble Nitrogen fertilizer Application Permits.

      I have not been able to get attention to his work and now after the increased point source pollution supported by our Republican state governor and representatives not allowing the enforcement of our Iowa Drainage Laws or the Clean Water Act we are increasingly drinking levels of the Nitrogen fertilizers that pull the known carcinegens Arsenic and Lead into our drinking water.

      Do share this message, as I’ve been branded as a grieving wife and mother and worse a crazy environmentalist for even asking that people Downstream in this Plume test their water for the Anhydrous Ammonia (Ammonia Nitrogen as N) before they Chlorinate for the CAFO Bacteria and cause the Trihalomethanes, that buned my skin, eyes, throat, celia out of my colon in the last shower in my Mitchell County IA farm’s home.

      I’m taking Adam’s proposed revised NRCS-RUSLE III equation to the Iowa Democratic Convention on June 18th, 2016, I’ve failed him, in getting the last thing, Adam asked me, the 12th of July the day before he was murdered to get access to the IDNR Big Data files of the list of contaminants that were causing the IDNR to condemn our wells repeatedly.

      Veronica Lack

  54. Bonita Ames says:

    Roni, I cannot imagine how difficult all this has been for you. You are always in my thoughts and prayers. Bonnie

    • Bonnie and Al,

      Thank you both for being in court those four days that Adam and I testified in 2007. Gary’s and Adam’s friends and family have been my strength, to try to get Iowans Downstream warned about the contaminants in our wells Downstream after the group with NRCS and IDNR and FSA help dug through my home farm to use it to channel the pollution to the Designated National Wetlands Sinkholes. But I have not gotten that job done and have lost so much. Roni

      • Adam’s Birthday again and the only birthday present I could think of is to get the IDNR to notify a well owner and surrounding well owners, when they condemn a private or public well of all the contaminants in the condemned well. So we could test for those listed contaminants first, instead of starting out with a list of over 600 possible expensive tests.

        When Adam’s Dad was killed in January of 2004 and our well wasn’t condemned until later that fall, we were not told what the contaminants were, so I spent thousands on well tests that showed High Cadmium Lead, High Atrazine, Very High Nitrates, and high Bacteria when the sinkholes were taking farm run-off water.

        The test for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer was never mentioned to me but the IDNR had been testing for it as Ammonia Nitrogen as N (Nitrogen). The Hygienic Labs in Coralville and Ankeny and the other IDNR Lab have the Big Databases of well test data and we pay the State of Iowa about $125.00 when drill a new well for a permit.

        The 3D GIS System that unearthed the Arsenic in Iowa’s Cerro Gordo County aquifers could be used for all contaminants and all 99 counties so the Public Health Department of Iowa could notify surrounding well owners to test for contaminants that show up in one well. About 7,000 or 15% of Cerro Gordo’s population are effected. Sandy Davis was the first to notify the CG Dept. of Public Health, and I was the first, that I know of, to warn the Mitchell County Dept. of Public Health in a Board of Health Meeting on September 23rd, 2004 of the high cadmium Lead test on my drinking water. Doctor Ross the then Chair said he couldn’t write a warning letter as it would scare the people.

        It’s not right that Iowa or DNR big data files of well tests are hidden or deleted after years of people searching for the contaminants that are causing neurological problems and cancers for themselves, their children, parents, and grandparents. Well owners are only being told to test for Nitrates and Bacteria while the most water soluble Nitrogen fertilizers are building up in concentration in our Source Waters.

        The EPA needs this data to set MCL’s for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer. The only thing the agents say is, It’s not supposed to be in our water at all, but we need 20 years of data.

        Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer draws both Arsenic and Lead into our Source Waters. We should be stopping Point Source Pollution by some farmers who have Built huge flood drains to drain their Wetland down sinkholes in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa as Waterloo lost the use of one well in October of 2015.

        Call or email Sophia Walsh, GIS coordinator and environmental health specialist with the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health, at swalsh@cghealth.com or (641) 421-9318. Please ask if the Department of Public Health will expand this 3D GIS system to all 99 counties as Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer and Black Hawk Counties also are in immediate need for this new 3D GIS system and a possible alert system to warn well owners using the data collected over 30 years.

  55. Gary Eggers says:

    NOT SLANDER WHEN ALL SAID IS TRUE. MAYBE TRUTH HURTS. SOME PEOPLE. I’M NOT GONNA LET THEM GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. FEDS ARE WATCHING.SOME OF THESE PLAYERS MIGHT FIND THEMSELVES DOING SOME TIME IN PRISON.REAL SOON.

  56. Martin says:

    This whole case is very sad. Not only the original incident but the people who read all of this and instantly accept it all as fact. I live in Mitchell and know many of the people and places named here. Of course pollution is a problem and some of the officials are shady (or used to be.) But to say that ems, police, and firefighters from several town’s were involved in an 8 hr murder effort is ridiculous.

    After reading the article and many posts, there are a few glaring issues that were not addressed. One, Adam gave chase to the impala for close to 20 miles without brakes? Then the police gave him a breathalyzer while he was pinned in/under his truck? And when that came back positive it was blamed on ethanol plant fumes. Anyone inhaling enough fumes to record a bac is dead, not driving.

    Don’t blindly accept everything you read as fact.

    • Martin,

      I didn’t believe Sheriff Younker, that Adam had caused his own death by drinking, as I was with Adam from about 10/10:30am on 7/12/2008 when he got back home from working a long night of several weeks spreading the heat from one firm to another to keep the plant from a burnout. But he wasn’t done, as he got that demand for the Poet Operating Procedures from the Headquarters. He worked at my dining room table even though I asked him to go to the doctor. His asthma inhaler in hand. His face was swollen and he seemed dizzy, he had said they told him to sleep it off, but he was wanting to get the POP’s done, and they called and promoted him but demanded he do another set of POP’s to vent the warped tank so it would be safe for workers to go into it and do repairs on Monday. He kept working and was rechecking his calculations even digging out his old Calculus books and checking on how the humidity affected the venting time and then he emailed those off. But he was a little dizzy even when he came out and helped me plant some bulbs. He told me he was not sure about the piece of equipment that measured the fumes as it had not been calibrated.
      We went in and had sandwiches, it was dark, and I was showering and he left a little note that I still carry in my purse. “Went To Plant For A Little While.” And he left his Poet computer running and opened to monitoring plant operations. Which was odd he never left it running before when he left.

      Judge McKinley claimed in court in the transcript of the first of 4 hearings that Adam had tested positive for alcohol and insinuated Adam had caused his own death, just like Sheriff Younker told Adam’s ING Insurance Company. I had already been given the Pathologists copy of Adam’s Blood Work by ING and had gotten copies of the horrible x-rays, even though Mitchell County’s Liability attorney Rourick refused to answer the Court Ordered Subpoenas for his Poet Exposure Patch, Adam’s clothes, Adam’s Autopsy Report, that was done by Doctor Haganman, and the breathalyzer report was also refused that was done around 8am, so about 8 hours after the first 911 call report had been recorded in Osage and this first 911 call probably was made by the two men in the about 2004 Tannish/Gold Chevy Impala that Adam chased. But the Osage 911 call was not answered to protect the two that had probably cut his brake lines at Nora Springs where he stopped to check on the broken apartment window that he measured or at the Poet Plant, before he drove back to our home, the other times the brakes were cut he had been going to work or coming home and it was a small cut so until he used the brakes a few times he didn’t lose control until more of the fluid leaked out.

      Adam was alive eight hours after that first 911 call, but trapped, as the 26 pictures Pallas Graham the young Highway Patrolman took at the scene and they gave Adam no aide but put on gloves to do the Breathalyzer test after Pallas must have been the one who discovered Adam wasn’t under the truck when he leaned in the back window and took the picture of Adam with his seatbelt on and the deployed airbag, Adam had been protected by the cab of his Dodge truck, except for Adam’s trapped ankles and feet and left arm that was dislocated and out the window with the truck’s weight smashing it for those 8 hours..

      I gave a copy of the pictures Pallas took to an accident investigator and he claimed there was no way Adam sustained that type of neck dislocation in the cab of his truck unless his neck was twisted off after the 26 pictures taken by Pallas.

      If you look at Adam’s death certificate that has the falsified time of death, and the actual cause of death severe dislocation at C-2 and C-3. Adam does not show that or other injuries that are listed after these pictures on the accident report as noted as clearly visible at the time of his accident that the Highway Patrol had reported to have happened on Saturday night 7/12/2008 before Midnight to the news media. He had not sustained the dislocated neck, the smashed right arm and hand or the badly broken femur, and gushed feet and severe head cuts and the arterial spray was not all over in the pictures yet, like later in the cab of his truck.

      Why hasn’t the Highway Patrol shown those 26 pictures they were only given to me as a group of digital files, given to me copied on a CD. Would they be afraid of some people? I know some of the people like Judge McKinley in the pictures standing around when they decided not to give Adam any Aide as they wrote on the Accident Report that they later filed in Des Moines.

      I had not known the route or miles Adam drove before he lost control and had to take the ditch to avoid hitting the Impala, so where did you get this information?

  57. LuAnn says:

    Really Denard…So your saying you are PERFECT?? U need to shut your BIG MOUTH & Get Off This Site..Grow up!!!! EVERYONE makes Mistakes….

    • LuAnn,

      In Mitchell County since Adam was charged with assault or resistance to the polluters, because we couldn’t give Cedar (W) Township farmers permission to dig a huge illegal flood channel to a line of Designated and documented Sinkholes to drain their surface water with AG chemicals and highly water soluble CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers down into our aquifers or Source Water, he was jailed twice. When the polluters illegally trespassed with bulldozers and excavators and later Scrapers and did over $500,000.00 in damage, I had to charge Dean Kleckner the former Director of Farm Bureau with Trespass and theft of topsoil. Deputy Hintz took eight months to respond to the second set of excavation and trespass charges in 2005 against the group that got the IDNR to charge me with Blockage of Water in 2004. They dug away 42 acres on my farm to build a 320 foot wide by 6 1/2 foot deep Flood Channel to illegally drain their farms down those Designated National Wetland Sinkholes. Ray Frana USDA-NRCS trespassed on my farm to do the survey for that illegal channel, so both the federal and state agencies were used by the Cedar (W) Township polluters to cause the Plume to now expand in taking out one of Waterloo’s wells in October, 2015.

      So if someone in Mitchell County resists or complains about high nitrogen fertilizers being drained directly into our Source Waters they will probably have arrest records like on my murdered son Adam’s records.

      But the charges were dismissed by Judge Kloberdanz a good judge, who stated, False charges and False arrest.

      • Gary Eggers, the charges against you were probably trumped up like the several against Adam, thank you for standing up against the farmer digging a drainage channel to dump farm runoff onto your property. We need to stand up for our Property Rights especially when people Downstream have their Water Quality affected.

        • lackfarm1 says:

          Gary and LuAnn,

          Greg Schmidt at the NRCS West Union Office refused to tell me why the NRCS had not required the Cedar (W) Township group (who gathered together in Court in the 2007 case taking up 2/3 of the seating) to have to get an Environmental Impact Study done before they dug a 320 foot wide mile long floodway through my Mitchell County farm in my call on 7/11/2008.

          The IDNR said I had to file for 401 permits each time I had to do repairs after their new channel damaged my farm and home and the Designated National Wetland. Yet those farmers were never required to get 401 permits as they trespassed and dug away my conservation unfunded repairs right through the Designated National Wetland and I had been made to close the sinkholes opened by their Flood Channels built to flow over roads.

          Over $150,000.00 of my personal funds were spent to stay in compliance with my Legal Drainage Outlet from the Corps. The group had testified in the 2007 trial that Gary my deceased husband had given them permission to come back a year and a half after he was deceased to Transition the Flood Channel through my farm. Judge McKinley said, sustained everytime, I said I had not given permission or easement for the group’s Flood Channel, as I had also signed the 1995 Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for Drainage and was the sole owner of that Mitchell County farm since 1/2004. I was threatened by Ray Frana at the Osage NRCS Office that I had to spend another $30,000.00 and complete the repairs for the 2008 ECP’s for those two Floods to limit the on-going damages from the New Illegal Flood Channel. Franna had threatened me, if I didn’t stay in compliance and finish the repairs he would take away my Right to Farm my farm and my renters right to Farm Program Benefits.

          Yet after I was forced to finish those NRCS and FSA ECP repairs the Charlie Heiderscheit brought those two after the fact permits for the Illegal channel that the IDNR and NRCS and Corps of Engineer’s had not given permits for, out to my farm, threatening me that he would not sign my Compliance Letters for those two ECP repairs for the two 2008 Floods.

          I drove Charlie up the entire length of the grassed 320 foot wide mile long huge channel completely dry in the first week of May 2009. I showed Charlie all the work Adam and I had done before he was murdered by the group that were building these illegal Flood Channels to the Designated National Wetlands huge sinkhole Aquifer Recharge Area. Charlie said I had to sign those after the fact permits or he still would not give me a Letter of Compliance so I could sell and get out.

          I reached into the backseat of my Trailblazer and showed the 26 Palas Graham pictures of Adam’s being trapped before the group contractors and farmers and Judge Bryan McKinley smashed Adam and later twisted his neck dislocating Adam’s C-2 and C-3 vertebra. Charlie started crying as he kept looking at the picture with Judge McKinley and Adam trapped in it and said, I didn’t have to sign the after the fact permits and he would get me the Letters of Compliance for the two ECP’s.

  58. Gary Eggers says:

    DENARDO the retardo THE RETARDED COP JUST ON HERE BEING A ASSHOLE. IGNOIRE thIS fool cop. See the Kinda Crap These Cops Will Pull??

  59. Gary Eggers says:

    Yeah Your a Cop. But for the Record never found Guilty Dog charge was,Phoney Cop hurt his own dog closed door on dogs foot himself cause he was and is a Dumb ass just like you. Lol Point was County Attorney keeps Harrassing ME and My Family. His Name is Mr Mark Walk. He Works for Rich PIG Farmers and kisses their rear. He does what ever he is told to do. Greg Beaver sherfiff is the same way. Game players who Abuse their Authority. NAMES SOUND FAMILIAR SAME NAMES INVOLVED IN MURDER. THEY ARE WORRIED I’VE PUT THEIR NAMES OUT THERE FOR ALL TO SEE. THIS STATE IS FULL OF CORRUPTION.LET’S SEE TOLD PIG SHIT HAULER GUY JUDGES HUSBAND TO STOP HAULING SHIT OUTBACK K. GUESS WHAT THEY CAME ARRESTED ME I USED A GUN THEY SAID TO THREATEN GUY. I DON’T HAVE GUNS HERE.REALLY FAKED WARRANT SIGNED BY JUDGE CAUSE I YELLED AT HER HUSBAND SO SHE ORDERS COUNTY ATTORNEYS TO DRAW UP A ARREST WARRANT HELD ME ON A 6,000 CASH BOND. WAS PAIDED. THEN THEY STOLE MONEY
    JUDGE WAS CAUGHT TAMPERING WITH JURY. CASE DISMISSED. THESE EMPOWERED IDIOTS JUST DON’T HAVE ANY BRAINS AROUND HERE. MUST BE DRINKING SHITY WATER. MANUFACTURED FAKE EVIDENCE BUT THEY GOT CAUFHT. THEY ALL SHOULD BE IN JAIL. COUNTY ATTORNEYS BOTH OF THEM AND JUDGE DE DRA.Schroeder. district Judge she was a Maggi strategy at the Time. She a,Joke PARALEGAL Not even a Attorney NO one wanted the Job. NOT QUALIFIED TO WIPE ASSES AT THE NURSING HOME. SHE BREAKS THE LAWS. SHE BELONGS IN JAIL. JURY AND WITNESSES TAMPERING. SHE HAS THREATEN ME. IN FRONT OF HINTZ BUT HE WAVED HIS ARMS AROUND TELLING HER NO NO NO.I’M 300 LBS MUSCULAR GUY. I WAS OUTSIDE OF COURT SHE CALLED ME A NAME I SAID BECAUSE YOUR A BITCH. BUT I WAS NOT IN COURT ROOM. SHE OWES ME $6,000 PLUS INTEREST. Attorney Misconduct judges misconduct. There is no justice in Iowa. These butt KISSERS are for hog farmers and POLUTION. Oh and DE DRA. SCHROEDER GAVE SOME PIG FARMER SIGNED PERMITTS TO BUILD MORE HOG LOTS. HE WAS AT A BAR HAVING A FEW AND HAD THEM IN HIS POCKET PULLING THEM OUT AND BRAGGING ABOUT THEM. JUDGE IS IN HIS POCKET HOW HE GOT THEM ALL SIGNED. PIGS SHIT WHERE’S THE SHIT GOING? NO ROOM TO SPREAD THAT MUCH SHIT I CAN TELL YOU. SOONER OR LATER SHITS JUST ON TOP OF SHIT. WHY LAND AND WATERS POLUTEDO NOW. THESE CRIMINALS HAVE HIT ME WITH EVERYTHING BUT I’M STILL HERE. NOW FBI KNOWS ALL. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WON’T DO ANYTHING. I’M SO GLAD I PAY TAXES SO THE EMPOWERED IDIOTS CAN SCREW ME OVER. THIS HAS BEEN A HATE CRIME ON GOING. BREAKING MY CIVIL RIGHTS. OH SHERRIFF HELD ME 4 DAYS WON’T LET ME CALL A ATTORNEY. PHONES BROKE SHERRIFF CURT YONKERS SAID.FEDS WERE ON HIS REAR I SEE HE LEFT COUNTY OR THE STATE.HEAT WAS ON HIM. NOT SURE. JUST STORYS. I’VE HAD MY HOME BROKEN ED INTO BY SHERRIFFS. DEPUTIES. NO WARRANTS. BROKE DOORS I WAS IN HOSPITAL WITH HEALTH PROBLEMS. HAD HOME BROKEN INTO GREG BEAVER DEPUTY WON’T RESPOND TO CALL TOLD ME TOO BAD. THE HARRASSING AND HARRASSMENT NEVER STOPS. I HAVE NEVER SEEN EMPOWERED PEOPLE LIKE THESE LIE SO MUCH IN COURT FILE MANUFACTURED WARRANTS. GOT CAUGHT. I’M STILL WONDERING WHY JUDGE DIDN’T THROW THEM INTO JAIL. JURY KNEW IT WAS ALL BULLSHIT. JUDGE OVER HEARD MY ATTORNEY WHO CAME BACK FROM BREAK CAUGHT DEDRA.SCHROEDER TELLING WITNESS WHAT HE WAS TO SAY COACHING HIM.YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD MY ATTORNEY YELLING AT HER. LOL HINTZ WAS THERE TOO. HE SAYS SHOULD MAYBE RUN THEM BOTH IN. YELLING WAS LOUD. JURY HEARD IT ALL.JUDGE DISMISSED WHOLE CASE. SAYS TO COUNTY ATTORNEY I THINK I KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON HERE I’VE HEARD ENOUGH CASE DISMISSED JURY DISMISSED. BUT THEN A DAY LATER $6,000 WENT MISSING WHERE’S MY MONEY? GONE THEY SAID.COURT COSTS. THEY SAID. I SAID THEIVES OF THIS COUNTY MORE LIKE IT. THERE ARE SO MANY MORE STORYS. LIKE I HAVE SAID. THEY CAME
    AFTER ME AFTER THEY FOUND OUT I HAD TURNED THEM IN. I ALSO GOT OFFERED $20,000 3 DAYS AFTER I BOUGHT THIS FARM TO SELL IT AGAIN. MERTENS DIDN’T KNOW FARM WAS FOR SALE. WANTED PRETTY BAD. NOW HE TILED THROUGH MY LAND RUINED MY BUILDINGS AND BASEMENT OF HOUSE. THANKS TO WATER TABLES BEING CHANGED ILEGALLY. HINTZ CALLED COUNTY ATTORNEY WHEN I HAD CALLED TO REPORT ALL THIS ILEGAL DIGGING ON MY PROPERTY MERTEN DUG UP ALL MY PROPERTY STAKES TOO.I HAD LAND REALLY SURVEIED. HE DUG NEW STAKES UP TOO. CALL COUNTY ATTORNEY SAME STORY NOT ILEGAL TO DIG IN MITCHELL COUNTY IOWA. WHO’S GOT RIGHTS ANYMORE?? RICH FARMERS. MERTENS TRIED TO KILL ME. WASN’T FIRST MY WIFE I’D BE DEAD TOO. HE TURNED AROUND ON ROAD WHEN HE SEEN ME AND TRIED RUNNING ME OVER WITH 4X4 TRACTOR. HE HIT ME BUT I SPUN OFF BUCKET BARELY. I STILL HURTS WHERE HE HIT ME. ONLY IN IOWA. THEN MY WIFE READ MRS LACK POSTS. CAUGHT OUT ATTENTION. NOT HARD TO BELIEVE WHEN I’VE HAD MY WINDOWS COON SPOT LIGHTED LATE AT NIGHT MANY TIMES. I’M FROM MN. I JUST GOT UP PULLED SHADES. DIDNT THINK MUCH ABOUT THAT AT THE TIME. BUT THEN PROBLEMS GOT WORSE SO THE STORY GOES. NEED FEDS TO DO A SWEEP HERE AND START ARRESTING THE EMPOWERED CRIMINALS HERE IN MITCHELL COUNTY IOWA. CLEAN UP ALL OF IOWA. CLEAN WATER SHOULD COME FIRST NOT MURDER! THESE EMPOWERED PEOPLE IN MY OPINION SHOULD BE HUNG FOR TREASONOUS ACTS ON US CITIZENS. DON’T DRINK THE WATER IT WILL DESTROY YOUR HEALTH FOR SURE. CHEMICALS IN WATER DOES CAUSE CANCER. WAKE UP PEOPLE. PUT THE WORD OUT THERE. PLEASE. I SEE WE HAVE A FEW TROUBLE MAKERS ON HERE.

  60. LuAnn says:

    Brent all ur doing is being a smartass to my husband that actually knows alot more than you think plus Im so glad you like to bash my husband who is disabled..If you dont have anything good to say then maybe you need to shut that big mouth of yours and get off this site..Because your comments arent wanted…they are plain stupid and immature!!!!!!!

    • Denard says:

      LuAnn, what are his disabilities? Are you his caretaker? If so, why are you letting someone so low-functioning have unfettered access to a computer hooked up to the internet?

      • Sometime in the future you could have health issues from drinking contaminated water that affect your typing skills or just being able to breathe or walk steadily or not shake so you have to correct your typing, so don’t criticize people who do have these health issues.

        My son, Adam was trying to get access to the IDNR well test data in the three IDNR testing labs that document the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer levels in our Source Waters in Iowa that were causing issues for Poet in killing off the bio-digesting enzymes before they could break down the switchgrass and corn stover to make ethanol.

        This data paid to be collected by Iowa taxpayers has been hidden from the public and even some Renewable Energy Corps to protect the corporations and polluters profiting from its production, sale, use, and illegal drainage of Nitrogen fertilizers into our Source Waters.

        • LuAnn says:

          Sorry Denardo..But thats none of ur damned businesw..You writing a book.??? My husband is very highly intelligent..So your barking up the wrong tree buddy…You need to get off this site & out of this conversation. Your negativity, & snide remarks are giving me a headache…..!!!!!!!!

      • SALLY DOE says:

        DENARD STAY OFF THIS SITE!

  61. Brent says:

    Okay Gary. we all can’t be sheep like you. Let me know if you need help with my email.

  62. Gary Eggers says:

    I’LL LOOK UP YOUR EMAIL BRENT YOUR THE DUMB ASS BULLYING ON INTERNET IS AGAINST THE LAW. I’LL POST YOUR WHOLE NAME ON HERE AS SOON AS WE LOOK UP YOUR EMAIL. THAT WAY WE ALL CAN HAVE A GOOD LAUGH AT YOUR EXPENSE. LOL

  63. Gary Eggers says:

    I WAS IN HOUSE DEPUTY WITHOUT ANY WARRANTS PULLED A GUN AND SICKED POLICE DOG ON ME. NO REASON. I WAS PUTTING MY CAR KEYS ON A HOOK INSIDE MY ENTRY WAY. YEAH WOW GAME PLAYERS YEAH WOW SHOT A HOLE THRU MY DOOR. NO REASON THEN CHARGED ME FOR NOT LISTENING TO A POLICE DOG. HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE. I WON APPEAL THIS IS DROPPED EXCEPT FOR ME SUING. COUNTY BOARD OFFERS TO PAY FOR THE DOOR DAMAGES. JUST GOES TO SHOW LAWSUIT THAT’S COMING. KEEP GRILLING MORE LAWSUITS ARE STARTING UP. GREAT WAY TO SEE SOME JUSTICE COMING.FBI WOULD START DOING THEIR JOB SOME WOULD BE IN PRISON OR PAYING BIG FINES RIGHT NOW. ANYONEVEN MAKING THREATS TO ME OR MY FAMILY MIGHT BE SUPRISED. WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU THREATEN THE WRONG GUY. SOME OF YOU FARMERS CANT SEEM TO FARM WITHOUT SCREWING YOUR NEIGHBORS MAYBE YOU SHOULD SELL OFF THE FARMS AND RETIRE! WE AND OUR FAMILIES DO HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT WATER WE DRINK OR SOME IDIOT CHANGING THE WATER TABLES AND FLOODING OUT OUR HOMES AND LANDS. IF YOU GOOGLE MY NAME BACK A COUPLE YEARS YOU WILL FIND I PUT TWO JUDGES OUT OF WORK AND ONE COUNTY ATTORNEY AND A CITY ATTORNEY. PLUS A FEW DISHONEST COPS. IF IOWA HAD BETTER RULES THIS MAFIA WAY OF SCREWING PEOPLE OVER WOULD STOP REAL FAST. I’M THE GOOD GUY.BUT THAT MAY CHANGE. I’D HAVE NO PROBLEMS TAKING A FEW CROOKED ASSHOLES WITH ME WHEN MY TIME COMES.

    • Denard says:

      “I’D HAVE NO PROBLEMS TAKING A FEW CROOKED ASSHOLES WITH ME WHEN MY TIME COMES.”

      Hey Gary, get very specific. What exactly are you saying you’d do? VERY specific please.

  64. Gary Eggers says:

    Yep That’s It Call the Honest People Idiots Reporting a Serious Problem.That’s gonna,Work Really Well as For Some being Stupid Why don’t you just reread what’s being Said. Stop being a Fool making your simpleton Comments.Sounds like your the One that needs some more Schooling. I’m on a smart phone. So typing all this isn’t all that easy. Then We get some Dumb ass Making Stupid Comments about Hey You didn’t dot the I. BIG DEAL! Like I said before FBI probably watching this site. SO MAKE YOUR THREATS LIGHTLY. You can’t stand the Truth GO Away! Please! I write as I Remember. Being I was POSIONED. SOMETIMES HARD TO DO. What I think we Have are some Players here making smart Comments. They Must be alittle Worried.WE sure are getting alot of Action here Lately.

  65. Brent says:

    Yes! I’m glad you used all caps! Come on Gary you’re the one who looks like an idiot posting your nonsense assumptions.

  66. Gary Eggers says:

    YOUR A COMPLETE IDIOT!

  67. Brent says:

    Gary,
    Didn’t you learn anything when Denard was telling you how dumb you look by using capitalization for everything. You people are delusional to think there’s that many people that could pull something like that off. Quit blaming the farmers. Your forgetting they’re the ones putting food on your table. But I suppose you’re a vegan hippie so go ahead keep blaming the farmers. Oh and I thought you had arranged some visitors for me.

    P.s.
    Sounds like you had the “2 and a half feet” of hog shit coming to you! If that’s even true.

    • Denard says:

      Think for a moment, assuming you’ve read her manifesto, how wide she is claiming the “conspiracy” is. It’s every neighbor of hers, all of them, all law enforcement from local to state to federal, all employees of the judiciary, all judges, all DNR officials, all conservation and rural political officials, all academic officials, all medical professionals in all of northern Iowa, and virtually anyone and everyone she isn’t related to. It’s beyond absurd and her replies, each time, are a stream of consciousness about well tests and allegations that someone told her they knew they were lying but they knew they would get away with it.

      At least make up claims we can begin to believe, please.

  68. Gary Eggers says:

    Adam was Murdered. I know from Talking get to Someone that was at the Scene.Rescuer.Why the Cover up. I won’t say on here what they did with that chain. Plus only hear sayou from so.eine who was there. But Rest assured they Did something to him that caused his Death. I Really feel Sorry for Mrs Lacks Loss. I DID CALL and Give information to the FBI This whole deal is still Under investigation Much bigger than we all Are. All FBI WOULD SAY IS. They knew and Thanked me for this Information Plus I told them what that Horse Dr in St Ansgar did to me.Like I said My wife started reading this POST. I said right off WTF Same crap been happening to Me. They are All Crazy Around here.I had called and Turned in Eugene Merten he spread About 20,000 gallons of HOG SHIT ON my 3 acres Outback.Had to Move My Wife and Kids to Safety. 90 plus degrees out. Shit was 2 and a half feet high. That’s not farming. Thats pure insanity. No One would help us. We were fairly new Here still. Back when this happen. If Truth be Known how bad It really Is.Here everyone Probably would be in a Panic. Why County Officals Lie about Stacyville Well having to be re dug Deeper New Well At taxpayers Expense? SHOULD BE THE FARMERS PAYING FOR THIS SINCE THEIR THE ONES THAT POSIONED THE WATER SUPPLY! THEY REALLY NEED TO MAKE A EXAMPLE OUT OF SOMEONE. I’M SURE IT’S COMING.I’d like to see the FBI COMES IN SON AND START ARRESTING SOME OF THESE EMPOWERED PLAYERS. MITCHELL COUNTY MAFIA HINTZ CALLED THEM. VERY DANGEROUS PEOPLE. TAKE THEIR POWER AWAY. VOTE THEM A OUT. PERIOD. START WITH SOME FRESH. POLITICIANS WHO WILL LISTEN. NEED SOME LAWS CHANGED MAKE IT EASIER TO DEAL WITH BAD FARMERS WHO OVER POLUTE.

  69. In 2008 before Adam was killed he was getting beaten up and harassed over his urging that the ROSOL II evaluations for a farmer’s Manure Management Plan’s IDNR Permits for Application should cover both very water soluble CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers. He had argued that criteria in those ROSOL II exams (for those two fertilizers) that NRCS still does for the IDNR should be expanded on to include besides NHEL soils, also a minimum soil depth above farm tile, Legal Surface Water and Tile Outlets, and application Buffer Distances from even farm through waterways, streams, sinkholes, swales, ponds, rivers, lakes, and intermittent streams.

    Koch Brother’s Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer application equipment is surely the most state of the art, not to knife the fertilizer they produce and sell into our Source Water. They should not be knifing it or CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer in, right through farm through waterways or to close to rivers and streams, either.

  70. Gary,

    Maybe Danard will start to understand in ten years from now, when his water bill is over a $1,000/month. If he can afford Clean Safe Drinking water like I was trying to drill deeper for in 2004, after my husband and animals were dead.

  71. Gary Eggers says:

    DENARDO WHY ARE YOU EVEN posting on here if you have nothing to add to this Problem?

    • Denard says:

      What I have to add is that while most all cases on the Iowa Cold Cases blog are actual cold cases, this one doesn’t even appear to be a mysterious murder, much less a “cold case.” Most of the claims are the totally nonsensical ramblings of an unhinged conspiracy theorist who also appears to be very dishonest in her “recounting” of events and conversations.

      It really says a lot that in her supposed passionate rants about the environment and her son, it always comes back to “evil Republicans” this and “amazing Hillary” that. Very few grieving parents who thought their child was actually murdered would be ranting and raving about political parties when there is no relationship between the death and political parties at all.

  72. Gary Eggers says:

    ALL THE ILEGAL DIGGING ON MY FARM DRAINAGE DITCHS. AND TILE DUG I CALL SHERRIFF THEY SAID COUNTY ATTORNEYS WONT ARREST. ANYONE
    FOR ILEGAL DIGGING. IT’S MR MARK WALK MITCHELL COUNTY ATTORNEY CALLING ALL THE SHOTS. SO PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE VOTE HIM OUT. VOTE OUT THE JUDGES TOO THEY ARE ALL SO CORRUPT. I’M SITTING ON A BIG WATER SHED AND CONTROLING WATER WHERE I LIVE. WOULD BE WHY THEY KEEP TRYING TO FORCE ME OFF MY LAND. I’M HOPING FBI COMES IN AND HAULS THESE CROOKS OFF TO JAIL. BUT THIS POLUTION THING IS STATE WIDE I’M AFRAID. NO ONE DID ANYTHING. NO ONE’S TOO BIG TO FAIL. THERE IS FARMING THEN THERE IS BAD GREEDY FARMERS BELIEVE IT’S OK TO POLUTE AND POSIONED INNOCENT PEOPLE!

    • We need the IDNR, USDA-NRCS, EPA, and the Corps of Engineers to enforce my 1995 Legal 404 Permit for very limited drainage outlets to the Designated National Wetlands huge sinkholes in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County IA to stop this one plume.

      We all (especially Downstream) need the strict enforcement of Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act. As we all need Clean safe drinking water, even our farm animals and our pets.

    • Denard says:

      Hi Gary. Did you know the word you keep attempting to use–over and over, all unsuccessfully–is “empowered?” Also, did you know that writing in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is generally accepted to be a sign of rather low intelligence? So much so that most of us aren’t even reading what you’re typing because it’s just plain too annoying. So speaking of “empowered” individuals, a good question would be how did someone of your education or intelligence level come to apparently own millions of dollars in farm assets, as you appear to be indicating here?

      • Denard,

        So you’re trying to say you are someone like my former Renter, but with an Ivy League education, and at least 5,000 acres of row crop farmland about all paid for and with all the huge John Deere equipment, using Perfection Farming Practices and sub contracting partners or corporations at your beck and call? I don’t think so.

        I hope you are using LEGAL surface and tile outlets for all of your farm’s drainage and not the one dumping chemical run-off onto your neighbors like Gary’s small farm/acreage is being damaged by an illegal altering of the rate and manner of flow onto Gary’s acres.

        My renter listened to me when I warned him about the limits of Mitchell County Iowa Karsted Limestone Aquifer Recharge area with very limited soil depths on my farm there. He helped me add to the Rock Breaks and other USDA-NRCS Conservation efforts, while people like you assume the richer larger farmers have the right or even would alter drainage illegally without getting permission from a smaller land owner.

        You are wrong, very large and small farmers can be the most sustainable and protective of our Soils, Water, Air, and Lives, but first they follow our Drainage Laws.

        • Denard says:

          What an utterly nonsensical reply. For one, I never addressed any farming practices at all. Two, I’m not a farmer, nor do I even live in your area.

          Reread your first sentence. Are you able to discern that it is a rambling mess, and not even a complete thought?

    • Gary, there were some good judges in Mitchell County, like Judge Kloberdanz, but he died of cancer, Bryan McKinley, was a bad one not giving Adam any aid and just standing there while Adam was crushed.

      We need to get more good just ones appointed and not vote out any good ones. Several very good judges were not kept on in Iowa and then we have the Republicans stuffing the courts with judges that favor the Big Corps, over the people, even on Water Quality. Support our present President who was elected by the people, not by Corporations, as he is now appointing a Good Just Supreme Court Judge, but as usual the Republican Senators are not doing their jobs.

      We need to research and be an informed electorate, as if our Life and the Lives of our Children depend on our Votes, as they do.

      Lives Matter, and we Need Justice For All of us Not Corporations.

  73. Gary Eggers says:

    WHEN WE WERE HAVING DITCH DIG HERE WHILE ME AND WIFE WERE GONE HINTZ Said to Me. Gary there are Powers That be in Mitchell County Don’t Mess with Them I was in THE Service Special Unit. ALL I’LL SAY. They come looking for Trouble. I Turned Them ALL IN to feds.NO one Needs To live like This. If you like HOG PISS and Fertilizer in your Water GO ahead and delete drink it. STACYVILLE HAD TO REPLACE THEIR WATER TOWER.HAD TO DIG A,DEEPER WELL. WHOLE TOWNS BEEN POSIONED. LOT OF PEOPLE DYING FROM CANCER IN TOWN. I KNOW THAT. MY LP GUY HE WAS A VERY NICE GUY. IT’S NOT NORMAL FOR THIS MANY PEOPLE TO DIE OTHER BLOOD CANCER. IN ONE TOWN. DRINK BOTTLED WATER WAY SAFER. OTHER PROBLEM IS BOTH US ATTORNEYS IN IOWA NORTH AND SOUTH ARE COVERING UP ALL THIS POLUTION. LOOK WHAT’S GOING ON IN MICHIGAN. NOT GOOD WHEN OUR GOVERNMENT LIES TO US LOCAL STATE OR FEDERAL. VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE. BOTH TOP PARTIES HAVE SCREWED US POOR PEOPLE.

  74. Thanks Gary for your defence, this is the type of harassment I received from Dale Adams and his superior at the Mason City DNR Office since I first complained about Bradley Johnson’s draining his feedlots and field chemicals down the sinkhole north of his home in 1993. They told me to go back to the Mayo Clinic and see a Psychologist, they knew I had just had surgeries and was getting Chemo for my cancer then and they refused to do some well tests and hid the results when they did do some. No I’m not insane, but have had justifiable anger to deal with, since they continue to refuse to warn people Downstream to test for Ammonia Nitrogen as N before they Chlorinate for the CAFO bacteria.

    Denard, women who have cleaned up after men, at least know you don’t mix Chlorine and Ammonia and then drink it or breathe the fumes in. But the IDNR still only tells well owners to test for Nitrates and Bacteria and not the 5 Nitrogen fertilizer Spectrum tests (one of those Nitrogen tests is Ammonia Nitrogen as N). We need to know the Anhydrous Ammonia levels are clear before we Chlorinate for CAFO Bacteria or we can cause Trihalomethanes that burn our eyes, skin, throats, lining of our intestines, and the fumes can damage our lungs.

  75. Gary Eggers says:

    BEING THIS COUNTY HAS DONE ALOT OF THE SAME TO ME OVER HOG MANURE AND ME CALLING FEDS. SHE IS NOT INSANE SHE LOST TWO OF HER FAMILY IN THIS. I’VE HAD SEVERAL ATTEMPTS ON MY LIFE IN THIS COUNTY. IMPOWERED PROTECTING BAD FARMERS WHO POLUTE. I’M IN MIDDLE OF FILING FEDERAL LAWSUIT. THEY HAVE HURT ME AND MY FAMILY. PRETTY GOOD. POSIONED OUR WELL. IT’S A ARTISAN UNDERGROUND STREAM FED.SO GET A YOUR FACTS THERE BUDDY BEFORE YOU START CALLING SOME POOR WOMAN NAMES. MAYBE YOUR ONE OF THOSE IMPOWERED IDIOTS INVOLVED IN THIS. YEAH UNTIL THIS STARTED HAPPENING TO ME. HARD TO BELIEVE SOME OF THIS. BUT BEING I’VE MET ALL THE IMPOWERED PLAYERS FROM THIS COUNTY INVOLVED IN HER STORY. INCLUDING COUNTY ATTORNEY MR MARK WALK. HE VIOLATED THE COURTS ORDERS. DOES WHAT HE WANTS TO DO.FROM WHAT I’VE SEEN.SHERRIFF HARRASSED ME NON STOP TILL BROUGHT GUNS HOME TO PROTECT MYSELF AND FAMILY. I’VE HAD THREE BULLETS FIRED AT ME. PAST 10 YEARS ONE BY SHERRIFF OTHER UNKNOWN ONLY SEEN THE CAR DRIVE AWAY HAPPENED TOO FAST. ANOTHER CAME FROM BEHIND MY FARM FROM THE NORTH. WHAT KINDA LOSERS HARRASS A HANDICAPPED GUY? ASK YOURSELF THAT? UNTIL I WAS POSIONED I WAS DOING OK. NOW ALL DOWN HILL TILL I DIE. I’M STILL DYING INSIDE MY INSIDES ARE FRIED. DRUGS DOCTOR GAVE ME. HE IS THE SAME IN THIS STORY MRS LACK IS TELLING YOU ALL. I. SURE USED SAME ON HER POOR HUSBAND TOO. ONE DRUG WAS LISINOPRAL THEN GAVE ME INDOMETHACIN ASPIRN FOR THE PAIN. I GOT SMART DROVE MYSELF TO AUSTIN,MN. 30 MILES. TO ER DOCTOR THERE SAYS MY GOD MAN YOUR ON THE VERGE OF A HEART ATTACK I WAITING GO HAVE A ENLARGED AORTA REPAIRED TOO. NOW DESTROYED NERVES IN MY LEGS TOO. I WAS IN HELL. STILL I SUFFER. SEVERE DAMAGE BUT I’M STILL HERE AND TELLING MY STORY. BIG MONEY FARMERS WILL KILL YOU. OR TRY TO IN MY CASE. NOW THEY NEED TO WORRY A OUT ME. MERTENS FARMS IS INVOLVED. SOME OF THE SHERIFF DEPUTIES. TOO. THEY ARE THE ONES THAT DID SPOT LIGHTING. I’VE SEEN THEM. I WAS OUTSIDE HUNTING NIGHT CRAWLERS. THEY COULDN’T SEE ME.HAVE A HEDGE ALONG THE ROAD. WAS A MITCHELL COUNTY SHERRIFFS CAR THOUGH. DIDNT SEE THE DRIVER. EVERYTHING YOU SEE HERE IS TRUE. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE KEEP DRINKING YOUR WATER. OR SEND YOUR WATER OUT TO ANOTHER STATE! I ENCOURAGE IT.YOUR OPTION IS DRINK IOWA WATER GET CANCER AND DIE. SO PROTECT YOUR FAMILIES.DRINK BOTTLED WATER NOT OUT OF YOUR FAUCET.

  76. Denard says:

    I’m a totally disinterested 3rd party who likes to read the Iowa Cold Case blog.

    Reading her manifesto, one quickly becomes acutely aware that the mother in this case is full-on insane. I’d question just about all of her allegations at this point, including things she claims others “admitted” to her. Very little about this story has any credibility at all.

    • Denard, 60% of Minnesota wells are contaminated and they are upstream from Iowa. This huge Mississippi River Watershed feeds herbicides, pesticides, and high levels of the most water soluble Nitrogen fertilizers like Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers down to the Gulf and is producing an astounding growth in the Dead Zones.

      Shouldn’t we in Iowa being testing our water for all the Nitrogen fertilizers especially the most water soluble ones? We should be as good stewards of our farms, protecting our water that we and our neighbors Downstream drink. You can’t taste them until it’s too late and according to the IDNR Geologists your only recourse is to drill to a deeper aquifer and then 5 years later drill too a yet deeper aquifer after they didn’t mention we should have been testing for the Nitrogen fertilizers.

      Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer levels are increasing in the deeper aquifers and Ammonia Nitrogen as N does not die off in the cold and dark of aquifers like the biological fertilizers can. It is an energy source produced mostly by the Big Oil Corps who are funding candidates mostly Republicans as they get legislation passed to increase pollution and allow them control of water rights.

      Watch the film, “Troubled Water, A Mississippi River Story” it’s in most libraries, but Farm Bureau banned it from IPTV even though it was made to be shown there by Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota.

    • Heather says:

      Move your Family here, live this cruel reality. I bet you will change your mind. Walk around. Visit. Fish the streams, drink the water and raise livestock and know first hand before your ignorance is written.

  77. sasha says:

    Veronica,

    I am just finishing up research on Adams story for a podcast I Produce. I would love a quote from you on where the situation stands today. Has anything changed in mitchell co.? Are you still active in trying to fix things there? Was Brad Johnson ever made to fix the original issues?

    I to am an Iowa farm owner. As a mother of 5 children who I have raised to respect the land and to work hard to take care of our 3 Generation Family farm, I can only imagine the heart break in loosing your son and in such a tragic way.

    If you have anything you would like to say I would love to add it to my podcast to help continue to get Adam’s story out.

    • Sasha,

      No nothing has changed the Cedar (W) Township group have drained more farm herbicides and pesticides and CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers down the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland.
      According to a State FSA employee over 20 newer sinkholes have opened up in and around Section 10 (where Brad Johnson, Dean Sponheim, and James Ursbatch farm) he claimed Section 10 is now just a sieve and a chemical drain.

      I’m still in a suit against the IDNR and the state of Iowa for not enforcing the Clean Water Act and the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws against those polluting Mitchell County farmers. Iowa and the IDNR refuses to warn the well owners Downstream to test their water for Ammonia Nitrogen as N before the IDNR tells them to Chlorinate for the CAFO bacteria. Their water may also contain high levels of Ammonia Nitrogen as N and if they chlorinate the chlorine may not combine well and may produce deadly Trihalomethanes.

      This Plume of high nitrogen fertilizers took out one of the City of Waterloo’s wells last October.

      Our Attorney General’s Office says they can’t warn people of the Anhydrous Ammonia building up in our Source Waters and the Gulf as it’s too POLITICAL.

      Our IDNR continues to hide the three Hygienic Labs huge Data files of water test information. Our Taxes paid for those labs and yet Monsanto gets access but Iowan’s can’t to the data for our care and research. We can’t even find out what tests need to be done. Access to this information is part of my Civil Rights suit for accommodation as I’ve been trying since 1993 to get access to what was killing our animals and damaging my family’s health and slowly killing my neighbors.

      5 Nitrogen Spectrum Tests are high on the list (this includes one test, Ammonia Nitrogen as N). It is the test that indicates the levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer in our water.

      Did you look at the map of this Plume that RussTell helped me draw after 2008? The Plume has moved through parts of Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and now into Black Hawk Counties and still the IDNR refuses to warn well owners to test for the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer that Orascom produces after Governor Branstad gave them access to over $500,000,000.00 in state tax funds. And Iowa can’t yet feasibly filter it from our Source Waters. It’s also the cause of the Dead Zones Downstream in the Gulf.

      No my Civil Rights Case number CVCV046761 has been hidden not even a note in the paper. The reporters I’ve contacted mainly say the story they wrote could not be printed because of their paper’s attorneys would not allow it. Corporate AG Gag.

      • Signs are appearing in Iowa, Koch Farms.

        Ads on TV for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer Application by Koch for a fee.

        Koch and Arab Oil Corps produce and sell this Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer that we are drinking and cannot feasibly filter out to protect our health or that of our animals. It’s one of two very water soluble nitrogen fertilizers used to grow corn.

        Our 20 year Governor continues to hide the well test data and give more of our tax dollars to the Oil Corps that are able to increase the levels of Ammonia Nitrogen as N in our Source Waters by his Non-Enforcement of the Clean Water Act and the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws.

        Soon the only drinkable water will have to be purchased from Koch Brothers. How costly will that be?

        • As animals and Iowans are already slowly dying from this pollution, it should be considered Corporate Domestic Terrorism.

          • sasha says:

            I have spent so much time looking into this tragedy, both in respect to your land and the loss of your son and husband. I am incredibly saddened to hear that nothing has been done about what I would call the worst kept environmental secret in our state. I hope that getting the word out on Adam and your Family’s story by featuring him on our podcast can do a little something. Knowledge is power after all…. People can’t fight for change unless they are allowed to hear the truth of what is really happening in the world around them. Main stream media doesn’t always show the entirety of what is happening in our world. Thanks for the Update. Keep up the Good Fight!

  78. Gary, I agree our only hope is to vote out all the supervisors, sheriff, deputies, county attorney, and assistant county attorney and bad judges, and start over with candidates that follow the drainage laws and honor our Property Rights and Rights to Clean safe Drinking Water. Thanks for your agreement and support of my suit to get access to my well test reports and to get the IDNR to warn others in the Plume of AG chemicals and Cadmium lead from Cedar (W) Township. Roni

  79. Gary Eggers says:

    The Names I see list here are Part of the Mitchell County Mafia.They Will Misuse the Law to Get what they Want.I’m not Sure Why FBI Hasn’t Arrested Some of Them.They Have Been Active In Ilegal Activities Against Me.Some have led to me Having Health problems .These are Very Dangerous Men.They ARE VERY Dangerous.

  80. Yes, I contacted the DCI and that agent put me off and later retired and since the main contaminant in the deeper aquifers is Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer our Attorney General’s Office and the Iowa DNR agents refuse to even give us access to the well tests for Ammonia Nitrogen as N, as it is too POLITICAL quoting the attorneys. The Big Oil Corps that make the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer feed a lot of money to the Judges, Local Authorities, and AG Organizations to Promote their product that is not even supposed to be in our drinking water at all. So there will never be an charges filed in my son or my husband’s murders unless we get a Democratic Society back. But I was hoping by my Civil Rights suit to get copies of the list of contaminants we Downstream from the Polluters need to test our wells for. The IDNR and the USDA-NRCS are continuing to allow the pollution of several aquifers at least down 300 foot deep at the Eden Presbyterian Church then down through Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and now into Black Hawk Counties.

  81. I wish there had been an answer to the first 911 call for Adam’s accident on the night before they later killed him by noon on the 13th of July, 2008. Other than Judge Bryan McKinley, Sheriff Younker, and Deputy Hintz, and then Highway Patrolman Palas Graham, who just told me to stop asking questions in 2009 about Adam’s murder, and the Mitchell County attorney Mark Walk who refused to press charges, like when I had also filed a Request to Prosecute form in 2005 for the murder of his father. Mark Walk just said Gary’s life wasn’t worth a dime in court after I handed him a copy of the Inspection and Appeals Office 25 pages of Citations into Gary’s Death. My Request to Prosecute form was timely filed in Adam’s Death but trying to get the sheriff or Mitchell County Attorney to get court ordered subpoenas answered failed. Mark Walk would not prosecute and threatened me and Adam was charged in 2004/2005 with assault by Brad Johnson for asking him to stop harassing me his Mom, and jailed twice for nothing more than the group using the sheriff’s office and the court to threaten and harass us.

  82. Please whatever candidates you support make sure they protect our water quality and enforce our laws that are on the books (vote a straight ticket so that President has a chance to get our laws enforced and keep our government working to weed out the killers in Mitchell County) here in Iowa the farm chemicals and especially the levels of increasing Ammonia Nitrogen as N from Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer are polluting more of our Source Waters and is the cause of the Dead Zones, the IDNR hides their well test data and does not tell us to test for the Ammonia Nitrogen as N but does tell us to chlorinate for the bacteria levels. Chlorine and Ammonia Nitrogen as N (Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer) can mix and develop deadly decontaminants that kill piles of animals on farms and can cause the miscellaneous masses and tumors when and if they get to market. It can only get into our groundwater by Point Source Polluting and that is why the Section 10 Cedar (W) Township group needed to be stopped. Adam would be supporting Hillary or Bernie if he was alive. When Adam and I were close to getting the USDA-NRCS case to close their Sinkhole drain they killed him and the Secretary of AG, Vilsack, called me on the phone and said he would take care of it when he got back to Iowa. But he is leaving it up to us voters to oust Steve King, Joni Ernst,Terry Branstad and the earlier George Bush who took away the IDNR enforcement funds. Votes do count but now we see so many Republican candidates parading as great Christians filled with hate and instead pushing the sale of our water and other resources to the highest bidder. We in this Iowa Plume lost Iowa’s safe water quality to Big Oil Corps’ Anhydrous Ammonia contamination. The group including Judge McKinley killed Adam to allow the the Cedar (W) Township group to continue draining their wetland through my home and farm to the Sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland that feed the aquifers with high nitrogen fertilizers Downstream that well owners use in Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and Black Hawk Counties.

  83. Trish says:

    This made me absolutely sick! How are these people not on trial for murder!?!

    • LuAnn says:

      They all should stand trial for what they did…Adam was trapped inside his truck for hours..So where was the Jaws.of Life to remove him from that truck? Im sure he would have lived …but they probably didnt even attempt to even try to get him out..They are nuts dropping that truck up & down like they did…None of them should be qualified to even be working the jobs they are…..

  84. Before Adam was murdered, he had been elected as a delegate for Hillary Clinton in 2008. He had written a Platform Plank for Iowa’s Democratic Party to Try to get Iowa to enforce The Clean Water Act and Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws that would have stopped this On-Going Pollution Plume that just took out one of Waterloo’s wells in October 2015. This year again as an Iowa Delegate for Hillary Clinton I have expanded on Adam’s challenge to the State of Iowa and the IDNR to protect its citizens from Point Source polluters who are killing more Iowan’s Downstream from our old farm and home in Mitchell County.

    My Resolutions past unanimously in my caucus in Dallas County.

    We stand for Strict Enforcement of Iowa’s Drainage Laws and Chapter 61.2(2)a. through g. of the Water Quality Standards Antidegradation Policy. If the Iowa DNR and the USDA-NRCS and the Iowa Governors had required some Iowa farmers to get 401 and 404 Permits during the past 20 years and had enforced these laws, Iowans Downstream in this Plume mapped out by Russ Tell in 2008, would not be forced to drink Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and suffer this chemical’s health effects. Public and private well owners need to be warned to test for the increasing levels of Ammonia Nitrogen as N, before the IDNR tells them to Chlorinate for the Bacteria from the CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers as Chlorine and Ammonia Nitrogen as N or Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer doesn’t combine well and can cause deadly decontaminants like Trihalomethanes that were the cause of some of the wells having to be condemned in this on-going plume. Unfortunately for us, who drilled to deeper aquifers we were not told to test for Ammonia Nitrogen as N but were told to Chlorinate our deeper aquifers water that had been testing fine for Nitrates and Bacteria when the sinkholes were channeled the CAFO manure runoff, but with the new channel dug through my farm to at least six larger sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland the levels were climbing in the deeper aquifer and the IDNR suggestion still is Chlorinate without testing for Anhydrous Ammonia (Ammonia Nitrogen as N) for the CAFO bacteria runoff to the Aquifer Recharge Areas Sinkholes. So neighbors did and developed the cancers and other health issues the Trihalomethanes cause as well as sudden massive animal loss numbers that got new wells drilled under the Program to Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers from High Nitrate contaminated Wells for some farmers in this Plume.

    Well owners and their health insurers could be spared the very expensive Chemo treatments and surgeries to remove the multiple cancers in the same family of the Downstream well owners drinking these decontaminants. I and my family have too many fighting the health conditions that could be caused by Trihalomethanes after chlorinating the Source Water that had high levels of Ammonia Nitrogen as N, Nitrates, and both E-coli and Coliform bacterias.

    The EPA office in DC says David Stewart is going to get the IDNR to give access to the IDNR’s well test data files of what contaminants are already testing bad in our aquifers and I had to pay about $1000 for Ammonia Nitrogen as N well test reports in 2012 that revealed we should not have been chlorinating our water that was highly contaminated in wells down to 300 foot deep in 2004. The Ammonia Nitrogen as N levels are increasing and flowing down the Mississippi causing the Dead Zones to grow at astounding rates because Iowa does not enforce our drainage laws or the Clean Water Act . Contrary to Leopold’s Radio Address in 2010 the IDNR’s non-enforcement of the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act is killing and affecting more Iowans lives and US citizens in Missouri and Arkansas and Louisiana who drink this high nitrogen fertilizer contaminated by Point Source Polluters.

    Former IDNR directors before Leopold, like Paul Johnson and Robert Libra IDNR Geologist used to collect well test data and close AG Drainage wells or other Point Source Pollution Plumes and published and monitored well test data for Ammonia Nitrogen as N. The IDNR has files of well tests showing the chemicals we should test for but the IDNR only suggests we should test for Nitrates and Bacteria when the Nitrogen fertilizer levels channeled by the digging through my old farm to drain a bunch of Tea Party farmers chemicals who stole 42 acres of my farm to illegally channel and drain their land down a line of Designated National Wetland Sinkholes into 3 aquifers recharged by that sinkhole area of Mitchell County. They have polluted both public and private wells in this On-Going Plume Mapped by Russ Tell in 2008. But the well test data that the IDNR agreed to provide in this new IDNR web site still is not being provided as the IDNR says it’s too political for our State’s DNR and the Federal USDA-NRCS to admit their planning the flood channel that continues to pollute more wells with the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer that just had the EPA fine that Big Anhydrous Ammonia Plant being built in Iowa with $540,000,000 of our taxpayer funds before it started producing the Big Oil Corp Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer we cannot filter out of our Source Waters and are drinking at ever increasing levels in this Plume.

    • Connie says:

      Veronica..what can I do to help? Give me direction..do you think a petition on change.org would be a useful tool??

      • Connie, I don’t know if a Petition would work there seem to be so many, but if you could write one about some farmers using illegal drainage outlets in Cedar (W) Township, Mitchell County, Iowa and polluting our Source Waters with Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, while farmers using sustainable farming practices and using legal drainage outlets are dying Downstream from the cancers caused by the pollution. Everyone Downstream needs to be warned to test their wells for Ammonia Nitrogen as N before they Chlorinate for Bacteria or they could cause Trihalomethanes to develop in their drinking water. Thanks, cousin.

  85. Stewart Schmitz, Iowa Dept. of Public Health,Toxicologist, sent me a letter with Well Data in this Plume on Feb. 2, 2016. Even though it was copies of older files of well drilling data that would have allowed the people in this on-going Plume to know what aquifers depths were having wells condemned and drilled under the Government’s Program to Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers from Nitrate Contamination, he did not provide the contaminants we well owners around the condemned wells drank and should have tested for in 2006 when the IDNR also condemned the Eden Presbyterian Church’s 1981 well at 3105 Glass Ave, Rudd, IA 50471.

    In 2004 a group of us that were still alive in this growing Plume in 2004 drilled wells to the next deeper aquifer like Paul VanDorpe and McKay IDNR Geologists recommended but they only told us to test that same new deeper aquifer at a 200-300 foot depth for Nitrates and Bacterias. Which we repeatedly did. Those tests were fine still in 2008 and 2009. But the wells drilled and paid for by our tax dollars in that same Aquifer Recharge Plume area were drilled to a depth of 500-600 feet as under that Government Program. I see from these well drilling records that our state has in our big data files. And we are still not being provided the names of the contaminants the IDNR canceled the Ice Cream Social at the Eden Presy.Church, saying they didn’t want children in the bathroom to even flush with that water.

    In 2006 it was on the CBS channel 3 news, but no mention of what the contaminant was. So I had spent thousands on well tests to maybe, by hit or miss, do the right test. But the IDNR and the Government Program to Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers from Nitrate Contaminated Wells big Data files contains the tests that caused that Program to fund Bradley Johnson one of the Point Source Polluters wells in 1993 to be drilled the 500-600 then safe aquifer that we had not been told we needed to also drill to while the IDNR allowed him and others to channel farm chemicals down into our new wells we had drilled to the next deeper aquifer in 2004.

    When I asked Ray Franna NRCS agent about what contaminants were being channeled down the sinkholes when I was applying for the 401 permits for my 2 ECP’s in 2008, he said I didn’t have to worry about the on-going pollution because it was Floyd County’s problem now.

    Now it’s also Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and Black Hawk Counties with Waterloo losing the use of one well to High Nitrogen fertilizers in this Plume from Mitchell County.

    • Ashley says:

      Why is this a cold case? If Adam did not die until after they injured him further with unsafe and malicious actions why have they not been charged?

  86. The high Cadmium Lead test result done in 2004 after Gary’s being cremated without my prior permission, was shown on my well’s water test for heavy metals that Russ Tell was having Mark Ross do in 2004, but I did not even know about that test until the Board of Health meeting in Osage when I had gotten Paul VanDorpe’s IDNR letter to me on the Agenda for that meeting and I probably would never have gotten a copy of the heavy metals test done at the Iowa Hygienic labs (either at Ankeny or Coralville) unless Mark Ross in that meeting, had not said that it was on my well, and he gave me a copy of the well test after Doctor Ross the head of the Board of Health for Mitchell County refused to print a letter to warn well owners to test their water for heavy metals especially Cadmium lead. And they never warned us then to test our new wells water for the higher levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer in the deeper aquifers we six or so well owners Downstream from Bradley Johnson (in Section 10 Cedar (W) Township). So even though I drilled a new well to get away from the High Cadmium Lead Ammonia Nitrogen as (N), and Atrazine, the IDNR employees did not warn us to test for Lead or Anhydrous Ammonia or CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers in the deeper aquifers we all drilled too.

    Bradley had claimed he had fixed me with dumping his dad’s trucking firm’s pile of old truck batteries down the sinkhole north of his house on Echo Avenue after I complained about the Point Source pollution in 1993. The IDNR had made him close that sinkhole but he used other illegal Point Source drains as Section 10 Cedar (W) Township has no legal drainage outlet. It used to be Wetland that could not drain to a Designated National Wetland in Section 11 Cedar (W) Township so he installed other drains directly into our aquifer and polluted our water with high levels of Atrazine, Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers and then in 2005 after Bradley got the IDNR to charge me with Blockage of Water, the State of Iowa DNR and FSA and the federal USDA-NRCS illegally backed the building of an illegal Flood Channel through my farm to dump into the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland and down into our new wells Source Water we downstream well owners had drilled between 2003 and 2007.

    One of the newly drilled well owners was Vince Morische Downstream from Bradley, he had commented as he helped me unloaded steel in 2004 for the GRS that pretty soon we would not have to add any Nitrogen fertilizer as all the water from section 10’s draining down into the aquifer was bubbling up in my and his fields southeast of 325th Street. Vince’s mother Ruth lived on her farm just south of James Urbatsch’s Designated National Wetland’s sinkhole. Her new 2004 well was being polluted and the IDNR did not tell me a new well owner to test for anything but Nitrates and Bacteria. Meanwhile the IDNR was doing tests done and recorded at the Hygienic lab at Ankeny (Ammonia Nitrogen as (N))before 2000 and since to check on the increasing levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer in our Source Waters and on our wells.

    The tests for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) on Ruth Morishe’s, Scott Lindley’s family’s new deeper wells after 2004, Mr. and Mrs. Laverne Olsen and Mark Gast’s family’s and others were climbing ever so much higher than my new well’s tests as I had installed a $3,500 special oxidizing filter system and a carbon filter, and a reverse osmosis system. There is no filter system to remove the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer, but I was able to remove other things like occasional bacteria and add oxygen that is blocked by the ammonia. Anhydrous Ammonia builds up and seems to be at higher levels in the deeper wells. We need to be warned to test for it, so we can stop point Source Polluters or the farmers that are using illegal drainage outlets to drain their farm chemicals into our wells’ Source Waters.

    • Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer or Ammonia Nitrogen as N levels are climbing in our groundwater across Iowa and especially in this Plume from Mitchell County Iowa’s Designated National Wetland Illegal Sinkhole Drainage System. Once the Ammonia Nitrogen is in our Source Water for our wells Downstream, this man made chemical drops to the deeper aquifers and pulls Arsenic and very high lead levels into our source water, according to Russ Tell at the DNR. We can’t taste it and we should have been warned to test for it when our animals died and we were told to drill wells at our own expense Downstream to deeper aquifers that also had very high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen or Ammonia Nitrogen as N.

      • Flint Michigan’s high Lead in their Source Water may not have tested as high as my older well’s very high Cadmium Lead result but it has caused high blood pressure and is probably the cause of tumors in people and animals Downstream, plus its effects on the IQ levels of children is threatening others in this plume from Mitchell County. In October 2015, Downstream in this Plume, Waterloo lost the use of one City Well because of Nitrogen Fertilizer contamination.

        • Donna says:

          If you look at the Iowa Cancer Registry online, it will tell you numbers in comparison to each county with cancer. It is very eye opening. You do not need to register in order to see the results.

  87. Brock Dakiller Na. if I was part of some corrupt ring, I would have already sued her.

    • Chico and Brock,

      The attorney general’s office relayed a message through my attorney that they can not issue a warning to do Nitrogen Spectrum tests for the Nitrogen fertilizers in this On-Going Pollution Plume from Cedar (W) Township because it is too POLITICAL meanwhile more Iowan’s suffer the health effects. A IDNR former Director published IDNR well test data for the Anhydrous Ammonia and other nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides detected in this growing Pollution Plume through Floyd County. The 2 IDNR Hygienic Labs house large data bases of my and others who paid to have testing done and they refused to warn us or give me, my well test reports or suggestions to test for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer in the new well I paid to have drilled in 2004.

      The AG attorney who took my deposition in June had promised to have the IDNR give access on a new IDNR website to the IDNR well test data so that anyone could know what to test their well’s Source Water for like Ammonia Nitrogen as (N), Atrazine, Lead, Arsenic, the other Nitrogen Spectrum tests. The other growing number of private well’s in this Plume and the City of Waterloo (that just lost the use of one of its public well’s because of Nitrogen fertilizer contamination), we need access to the data base of well test data that was paid for by our tax dollars. The herbicides and pesticides are growing in concentration and even Bill Stowe’s multi-million dollar huge Nitrate Scrubbers can’t lower them as much as the $3,500.00 whole house filter system I had installed in an Iowa City home.

      Iowa City’s water is Downstream from Waterloo’s polluted well and a Nitrogen Spectrum test I did on a home there years ago tested positive for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) or Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides and pesticides that my family and neighbors were exposed too. Oh, they have however finally put on the list of possible chemicals to test for, the Arsenic and Lead (that Anhydrous Ammonia is pulling into our Source Water) of the mapped out Plume. Russ Tell IDNR and I worked on a possible letter to warn the Iowan’s in this Plume from Mitchell County after Adam was killed seven years ago. Before Adam left to go back to Poet to check of that piece of equipment the day before he was killed, he told me, his Mom, to get those well tests reports, so we could warn the others Downstream.

      My Civil Rights Suit is about getting access to well test data that the IDNR is hiding to Protect the Polluting Farmers in Cedar (W) Township. The IDNR continues to hide from the public that looks at this new website what chemicals polluted the wells in Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and now in Black Hawk Counties, but just claims it is Nitrogen fertilizers in Waterloo’s well. Access to the IDNR’s databases would at least give us a hint of what expensive tests out of the 600 or so were needed. Veronica Lack

  88. Chicho Blanco He's probably part of the corrupt ring.

  89. Before the end of 2015 one of Waterloo, Iowa’s wells was found to be polluted with high Nitrogen fertilizers. As this Point Source Pollution Plume is ignored it has spread, polluting wells from Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and now Black Hawk Counties. As Paul VanDorpe claimed the Plume was traveling at the rate of 1 to 2 miles a year since the early 1990’s. But increased large rains have been channeled to the Mitchell County sinkholes and broken through the floor of the Upper aquifer and polluted the new wells that were dug in 2004 to a deeper safe aquifer with Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer. We had drilled new wells but had not been warned about the Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, let alone the Arsenic, deadly Lead, Atrazine, or the levels of Bleach the polluters like Jim Ursbatch claimed to have dumped down to make up for his manure runoff. In 2004 I received Paul VanDorpe and McKay IDNR geologists warning letters that there was no way to remediate our wells and we did but the IDNR allowed the group of polluters to increase the dumping of flood water down into our water by charging me with Blockage of Water and digging away 42 acres of my 200 acre farm, with no 401 or 404 permits. Now people in Waterloo have been exposed and the IDNR still hides the well tests of the AG chemicals in this plume from the people drinking it Downstream.

  90. Mel,

    Adam was such a fan of Johnny Cash like you, as his restaurant and old Brown University roommates, suggested other music for his sound tracks, but when his clothes would not fit his smashed body, I went with my sisters and brought a extra large black shirt like Johnny Cash used to wear.

    I am thankful that I refused to sign those illegal after the fact permits, Charlie Heiderschiet, FSA, again brought out to my farm 9 months after the group Adam had testified in court in that trial the IDNR said I had to file or they would charge me with the on-going pollution and then they killed Adam and used the threats against my other children to pressure me.

    My Civil Rights suit will never get any recognition as the Good Old Boys go on taking land to build illegal drains for their Wetland and this Point Source Pollution Plume grows. Mark Wagner testified under oath that they didn’t even have to ask me for permission to take the 42 acres to build the flood channel to sinkholes, as he said, She’s a woman and doesn’t know anything. I was never reimbursed for those 42 acres or the over $150,000 in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 conservation repairs for the damages to the Designated National Wetland and my farm that the FSA (Charlie Heiderschiet) and NRCS (Ray Frana) agents kept threatening that I had to do them to keep in compliance with my Corps of Engineer’s Agreement. I kept doing the costly repairs NRCS wanted but after I did transfer my home and farm, the group took out all the conservation repairs and channeled more chemical runoff to the big sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland.

    Adam said I should never give in, so I had the Corps of Engineer’s very limited Drainage Agreement added to the Abstract of that farm and made my farm’s sale subject to that 1995 Corps Agreement, when Mark Walk threatened the rest of my children. I signed off on the Lack Family Farm and my home and farm, doing two 1031 Exchanges’s for a lot less acres under Mark Walk’s control of my father-in-laws estate.

    I could not lose another child just so those Cedar (W) Township farmers could drain their land and make so much more money, while us Downstream lose our health and lives and suffer economic loss.

    So again this Thanksgiving I am thankful to be alive, and to be with the rest of my family, but praying Iowan’s will pay some attention to my Civil Rights suit as Iowa’s water quality may depend on it and other suits.

    God Bless Us, Everyone, Veronica Lack

  91. Secrets in St Ansgar, Osage, Stacyville, and we have murders, assaults, thefts, and sexual abuse used in hazing by the same ‘good old boys’ mentality that the group used to torture and kill my son, Adam. The Mitchell County Liability attorney, Rourick, when Adam was killed, is still refusing to give out information to a parent that asked for it, like when I and Adam’s Probate attorney subpoenaed Adam’s autopsy report, Poet’s Ethanol Exposure Patch, (that Adam is wearing in the pictures the Iowa State Highway Patrolman took before the group of St Ansgar and Osage good old boys tortured, mashed, and killed Adam) and the names of the good old boys in the 26 pictures killing my son. Palas Graham the Iowa Highway Patrolman also refused to investigate or arrest anyone of the Good Old Boys, as well as, Mark Walk the then Mitchell County Attorney, who refused to press charges or investigate and has gone on refusing information into Adam and his Dad’s murders, while threatening me if I didn’t sign off on my share of a family farm and my own farm that the group built an illegal flood channel through to drain Cedar (W) Township down a line of sinkholes. Lee Rood’s small article in the November 13th, 2015, Des Moines Register is on page 3 and 4, and won’t be noticed, but this on-going Good Old Boys power in Mitchell County is polluting the water Downstream through Floyd County and has now affected one of the Waterloo Waterworks wells.

    • LuAnn says:

      Rourick was my Mom’s attorney… For Her Will & Property Before She Passed Away In 2017..He Is As Crooked As They Come.. Can’t Trust Him.. I Was Going To Take Him & My Aunt To Court On The Shit They Were Pulling With My Mom’s Property & He Was So Scared That He Had To Hire An Attorney Of His Own To Represent Him Because Of All His Wrong Doings .Then My Aunt Bribed My Son Tyler With Money To Drop The Court Case Because I’m Sure We Would Have Had No Problem Proving Them Wrong But My Son Signed Off On It So We Never Did Have Our Day In Court……..

  92. Adam Lack says:

    Please ask Pope Francis to call attention in his upcoming speach to Congress about the huge pollution issue my son Adam and I were trying to stop but is killing US citizens and growing the Dead Zones!

  93. Veronica Lack says:

    I attended my cousin Peter Marzen’s service on September 4th, 2015, which turned out to be more like a Great Family Reunion, except for me it was also, the on-going realization that the IDNR is still hiding the Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer and Atrazine, and other high Nitrates polluting the wells in Floyd County in the area that most of his and my relatives grew up drinking water from. We have lost to many too soon, after struggling with various health issues that could be caused by the high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia mixing with the Chlorine to treat our water for the CAFO bacteria. I needed my well tests to protect my family and the IDNR withheld some to this day and others I received after I was forced off my farm. Those well tests in Downstream wells I finally received in 2012 after I had filed my suit were so high in Anhydrous Ammonia testing up to 12.2 in Laverne Olsen and Mark Gast’s well. When is the IDNR going to warn my family and former Floyd County classmates, and neighbors to test for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer before Chlorinating for the CAFO bacteria? The decontaminates that mixture creates are slowly deadly.

    • Jody Ewing says:

      Roni, I am so deeply saddened to learn of yet another family loss. My heart and condolences go out to you and Peter’s family members. I am very hopeful justice will soon be served, for Adam, Gary, Peter, and the countless others whose lives ended all too abruptly by others’ greed and deception. I publicly give you my word: I will continue seeking justice for Adam and Gary and YOU for the rest of my days. Many hugs and deepest sympathies.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      I’m still trying to get more well tests done to warn my Floyd County relatives and Downstream neighbors in this on-going pollution Plume of Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers and Atrazine and other herbicides and pesticides. Plus the lead from the batteries Brad Johnson supposedly dumped down the sinkhole north of his house. Why can’t the IDNR release IDNR public research well tests reports done by Paul Johnson up until 2000. Later even the new wells drilled to deeper aquifers in Mitchell County in 2004 were again polluted with Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer after the 2008 floods were directed by digging more channels to illegally drain 3000 acres of Wetlands down sinkholes in Cedar (W) Township.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      At a prior Family Reunion at Beads Lake in Iowa Peter and I had talked about my trying to get the well tests as the green slime was having to be pushed back to pull a boat over to the dock. Pete had brought the food from a Stacyville caterer (pulled pork and the trimmings) we both wished more research was being done into Anhydrous Ammonia and its health effects. I told Pete about my plans to donate my body to Mayo for their future research on the cardio-pulmonary, digestive, skin, eye, and cancer issues it causes. I don’t know if he did leave his body to Mayo because of our conversation, but he did donate it to benefit others in their research. Possibly into the multiple causes of COPD that plagued him.

  94. Gary Eggers says:

    I HAVE A LUNG CANCER AND MANY OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS. I HAVE NO REASONS TO TELL LIES! I BELIEVE MRS LACK TOO. MY PRAYERS GO OUT TO HER AND HER FAMILY FOR THEIR LOSSES. GOD BLESS THEM ALL FOR GETTING OUT THE TRUTH!

  95. Gary Eggers says:

    I’VE BEEN LIVING IN IOWA SINCE 1997 BOUGHT A HOBBY FARM. SOON AFTERWARDS EUGENE MERTEN MERTEN AND SONS FARMS Been Pulling Same Shit on Us. Sherrif Greg Beavers has Harassed Us Last 17 Years. He started out Harrassing us as a Deputy. Russell Hinzes I got along with BUT HE DID WARN ME GARY THERE ARE POWERS THAT BE IN MITCHELL COUNTY DON’T MESS WITH THEM IT COULD GET YOU KILLED. I’M NOT TOO WORRIED I SAID. I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF – WELL OUR WELLS POSIONED WITH HOG SHIT. I SENT WELL WATER OUT FOR EXAMINATION. CAME BACK NOT FIT FOR HUMANS OR ANIMALS!!! MITCHELL COUNTY DNR AND SANITARION COUNTY GUY. BOTH STAED TO ME AFTER WATER WAS TESTED SAME DAY I DREW MY SAMPLE SAID WATER WAS OK TO DRINK. THEY BOTH LIED!!!

    DON’T DRINK WATER IN IOWA – IT’S ALL BEEN POSIONED SUN DOESN’T BURN POISON OFF FERTLIZER OR PIG SHIT! THESE BIG GREEN SHIT WAGONS ARE A HAZARD ON THE ROAD BESIDES DUMPING HOG MANURE AND PISS..NOT CALLED FARMING WHEN THEY ARE RUINING THE LAND AND OUR WATER SUPPLIES. MY WIFE FIRST READ THIS ABOUT ADAM SAME CRAP THEY ARE DOING TO US. WE HAVE CHILDREN. EUGENE MERTEN ALMOST RAN MY 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER DOWN AT THE TIME AND LAST HALLOWEEN HE DID HIT ME WITH TRACTOR LOADER. INJURING ME. SHERIFF WAS CALLED. THEY DID NOTHING TO HIM. THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL ME – SEVERAL ATEMPTS MADE. KELLY ROSS HAS POISONED ME WITH LISINOPRIL INDOMETHHACIN THEN HAD ME TAKING ASPIRIN FOR PAIN. I WENT UP TO AUSTIN MEDICAL. DOCTOR IN ER SAY MY GOD MAN WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN TAKING?? !!! I TOLD HIM HE SAYS MY GOD. TWO IVS ONE IN EACH ARM SAVING MY LIFE.

    KELLY ROSS IS A DANGEROUS DOCTOR. DON’T GO TO HIM. I’M IN A FEW LAWSUITS NOW. WHEN I SEEN HE WAS INVOLVED IN ADAM LACK CASE HERE STARTED ME THINKING. COON LIGHTING UP MY HOUSE AT NIGHT TOO. I’M FROM MN. I JUST SHUT CURTAINS. NOT A BIG DEAL. MITCHELL COUNTY ATTORNEYS MARK WALK AND ARRON MURPHY HAVE FALSELY ACCUSED ME JAILED ME FOR TELLING GUY NOT TO SPREAD MANURE ON MY LAND – WELL HIS WIFE WAS MAGISTRATE SHE DUMMIED UP ARREAST PAPERS HOUR AND HALF MAYBE AFTER AND ARREASTED ME. JURY TRIAL GUY I TOLD TO STAY OFF MY PROPERTY ADMITS I HAD NO GUN. AS WAS STATED. AND THEN DEPUTY JEFF HAUGLAN GETS ON STAND STARTS TO TESTIFY. TO A JURY NO LESS. JUDGE SAYS 5 MINUTES BATHROOM BREAK. MY ATTORNEY CATCHES THE MAGISTRATE WITNESS TAMPERING TELLING JEFF WHAT TO SAY HE IS STILL IN WITNESS BOX AT COURTROOM.. JUDGE COMES BACK WE DID MY ATTORNEY AND DETRICH ARE GOING AT IT VERBALLY WHOLE JURY HEARD IT JUDGE HEARD IT. HE TALKS TO BOTH ATTORNEYS IN HIS CHAMBERS AND COMES BACK NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CONTINUE, THIS CASE DISMISSED. BUT I’M ONE THAT GOT SCREWED. WELL WASN’T OVER I WENT DOWN TO GET $6000 BAIL MONEY THEY HAD STOLEN THAT TOO.

    MITCHELL COUNTY IS EVERYTHING MRS. LACK SAYS HERE AND A WHOLE LOT MORE. WE NEED TO RID COUNTY OF THESE CRIMINAL COUNTY ATTORNEYS. IMMUNITY MY ASS – MR. MARK WALK AND ARRON MURPHY BELONG IN A FEDERAL PRISON.

    I HAVE MADE A FORMAL COMPLAINT WITH FBI AGAINST THEM. THEY BOTH ARE UNDER INVESTIGATION. OH FORGOT WE CLOSED A LOAN AT COUNTY ATTORNEYS OFFICE DIFFERENT ATTORNEY WHO DIED SUDDENLY. ANYWAY SOME OF MONEY WE BORROWED NEVER CROSSED THE STREET TO PAY BACK TAXES. WHEN I APPROACHED MR. MARK WALK HE TELLS ME TOUGH SHIT YOUR ATTORNEY IS DEAD. NOT MY PROBLEM! WE HAVE HAD OUR HOME BROKEN INTO, FALSELY ACCUSED AND ARRESTED MANY TIMES OVER FOR TELLING THESE GUYS NO. THEY TRIED TO KILL ME IN JAIL – SEVEN DEPUTIES – I CALLED EVERYONE IN THE STATE. NO HELP. THIS IS BULLSHIT. THESE PEOPLE ARE KILLING PEOPLE AND NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE??? I HAVE STARED MANY TIMES OVERSTOP GAMES AND BUY ME OUT. I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR IOWA AND ITS BULLSHIT LAW THAT ALLOWS THIS TO GO ON.

    I HEARD JUDGE MCKINLEY WAS INVOLVED IN THIS MURDER TOO OF POOR ADAM. MITCHELL COUNTY AND STATE OF IOWA ARE INVOLVED IN ONE BIG COVERUP. IOWA GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT AS CAN BE SO DON’T VOTE YOUR PARTIES VOTE OFF THE BOARD. MIGHT BE AN HONEST PERSON ODDBALL POLITICAL PARY. ANYONE THAT HAS AN IDEA ABOUT THIS LET ME KNOW. I’VE HAD TO FILE BANKRUPTCY THREE TIMES NOW TO SAVE MY FARM BECAUSE OF ALL LEGAL GAMES THAT HAVE BEEN PLAYED ON ME. I’M JUST LETTING EVERYONE KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. PLEASE VOTE MITCHELL COUNTY MAFIA OUT OF OFFICE IN THE NEXT ELECTION!

    • Jody Ewing says:

      Gary, thank you *so much* for coming forward and informing readers about your own family’s experiences in one of Iowa’s most corrupt and deadly counties. I can’t begin to imagine the horrors you’ve endured at the hands of Mitchell County officials who’ve long considered themselves above the law. In response to your “These people are killing people and no one seems to care,” we at Iowa Cold Cases have begun a campaign to have the national media (20/20, Dateline, etc.) investigate the county’s atrocities, including the murder of Adam Lack and his father, Gary.

      When I first learned of the 26 photos taken over the several hours it took to kill Adam Lack, I wondered why anyone would “deliberately” want, documented, an hour-after-hour gruesome homicide in-progress.

      The answer sickened me to the core.

      Who knew the enlarged, explicit photos would be shown to a grieving mother while giving her the ominous warning: “You know you have five other children.”

      At one point I’d published here on ICC a case summary page about Gary Lack’s horrific murder. I speak with “Roni” Lack fairly often, and I’ve since moved the page back into the “Drafts” folder as we work together on telling how a good man’s life — a life slowly poisoned with cancer caused by source point polluters — just couldn’t end fast enough to suit Mitchell County officials.

      I will once again quote the framed needlework that hung on Warden Norton’s wall in The Shawshank Redemption: “His Judgement Cometh and that Right Soon….” — but make no mistake; those who cometh will be bearing handcuffs.

    • Gary,

      I’m not seeing the research or data about Anhydrous Ammonia causing lung cancer but Adam’s asthma and my cousin’s COPD have health effects linked in research to Anhydrous Ammonia and there is no way yet to filter it out of our source waters as it chemically combines with H2O. Adam’s rash or skin burns on his shoulders came from his long showers and the gas escaping in those showers in our polluted water on our Mitchell County farm is what caused his having to use two different kinds of inhalers.

      A couple weeks before Adam’s death a call from the Manchester area claimed they were going to put the Remediation of my charge against the USDA-NRCS on hold, (this was the Federal charge 08 1022, Adam had helped me file) after I refused to take the $10,000/acre or $2,000,000.00 damage settlement offered in the Remediation, as then the pollution would continue and more lives would be affected…

      Adam told me before he left to go back to the Poet Plant on 7/12/2008 to get my well test reports. My Civil Rights suit is trying to get access to the well tests in this specific on-going pollution Plume, but the State of Iowa’s Russ Tell has promised me since 2008 when Adam was killed, that the IDNR would set up a state wide web site including all well tests results, so anyone could touch on an interactive map and know what was testing bad in wells within a 10 mile diameter of their well. They still have only a minimum of data and mostly just the Nitrates and Bacteria test results that don’t tell you about the lethal levels of lead, Atrazine, Anhydrous Ammonia, or other chemicals you can’t taste. Without the needed data we still are not being informed and the well test results I asked for in my Civil Rights suit are not included on this lousy IDNR web site the Attorney General’s Office allowed me to access this summer.

      We Iowan’s need this web site to include all the Anhydrous Ammonia (Ammonia Nitogen as (N)), Arsenic, Atrazine, Lead, Nitrates, Bacteria, like were testing at deadly levels in this one Plume alone.

      Its our property rights and rights to safe chemical free (Anhydrous Ammonia) and CAFO nitrogen fertilizer contaminated drinking water that are being taken away thus taking away our RIGHT to Life. Since we are denied the well test data that our tax dollars and our private funds have paid for, but the IDNR hides, destroys, or discards reports to cover-up on-going lethal pollution plumes well test reports.

      • Gary and Lu,

        If you call Sophia Walsh Cerro Gordo County Public Health ask her to provide tests on your well for Nitrates and Bacteria and Arsenic, plus Lead and Ammonia Nitrogen as N (that draws the Arsenic and Lead into Source Water).

        The first three tests are supposed to be free and the Lead and Ammonia Nitrogen as N will cost about $20 each. I have a concern, that if your Arsenic or Lead tests are positive, these known carcinogens could be causing your health issues. Her number is 641-421-9318 And please ask that the IDNR’s 3D GIS mapping of well contaminants be expanded to all 99 counties including Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, Black Hawk, etc.

        Plus the IDNR 3D GIS mapping should cover the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer contamination of our groundwater and both of the Arsenic and Lead tests and the Ammonia Nitrogen as N tests should all be paid for since the IDNR has the well test data in their big data bases that show how Ammonia Nitrogen as N pulls the known carcinogens into our Source Water or drinking water.

        Good luck, I suggested the same to another of my cousins in Mitchell County and he has not gotten his tests back but has survived both of the cancers my husband Gary could have survived.

  96. Mandy Carey says:

    Jim Carey you should read this

  97. Mandy Carey says:

    Are any of the sick bastards involved in this murder still on the St Ansgar Fire Department? This makes me sick and makes my blood boil. Why has nothing been done about this murder??

    • It was the Osage Fire Department personnel and the Osage Sheriff and Deputy and Osage 911 Response System that was shown to be most involved in the pictures taken by Pallas Graham as they proceeded to smash Adam, but the St Ansgar Rescue team watched and didn’t give Adam any aide.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Looking at the enlarged pictures (taken by Palas Graham the Iowa Highway Patrolman) it was St. Ansgar Fire Department written on some of the Jackets/Coats not necessarily all of them though. I was told that when the St. Ansgar Fire Department arrived, they did not have a jaws of life, and they had already lifted Adam’s truck with one chain, realized Adam was not crushed under his truck, and then breathalyzed Adam. So with Adam alive and still trapped they raised and lowered Adam’s truck causing its engine to crush Adam’s legs further, including breaking his femur, as another motor mount broke. They had to wait another hour for the Osage jaws of life, to pry the metal apart to release Adam, and until the ghoulishly smiling fireman talking to Judge McKinley, or someone twisted Adam’s neck to kill Adam. Mary, one of the people there said Adam would not have wanted to live anyhow because he would have been crippled if he had lived. At the time, Mitchell County was being sued for an accident that caused a person to be injured.

  98. Veronica Lack says:

    Brent, After filing a Civil Rights charge in 2010 to get the 1993 through 2010 well test reports that are still being withheld from me, I paid about $1000 to get a list of well tests again done on about 10 wells Downstream from Bradley Johnson’s Sinkhole drain including my farm’s new 2004 well in the plume that included results at the highest I’d seen for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer. Adam had told me to get the copies of the Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) well test reports on 7/12/2008 before he came home from Poet and took off chasing that Chevy Impala harassing me on my farm. There is no known filter for Anhydrous Ammonia and it is a deadly combination when mixed with the Chlorine the IDNR says to shock our wells with when bacteria levels from the CAFO fertilizers are high. Your average housewife as well as a farmer knows not to mix Bleach and Ammonia. But I needed my well test reports in 1993, to know about the Anhydrous Ammonia levels and the Nitrates and bacteria levels that were building up to the highest levels I had ever researched. I am still trying to get the IDNR and Mitchell County Sanitarian tests for Bacteria and Nitrates reports done between 1993-2004 and Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) and other tests – test reports from 1993 to Present in this On-Going Pollution Plume, so people Downstream can be warned to not Chlorinate when their Source Water contains both the bacteria from CAFO fertilizer and high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia that the EPA says is not supposed to be in our drinking water at all.

    Adam was trapped in his rolled truck that night, and the people he was chasing were probably the ones who first called the 911 call in of his ‘accident’ but left him there, and then 7 hours later some other 911 calls brought Judge McKinley and contractors and farmers Adam and I had testified against in the 2007 trial the IDNR said I had to file and they proceeded to chain up Adam’s truck and lift and drop it crushing Adam’s arms and legs and finally taking his head off at the C-2 and C-3 vertebra which was the cause of death but about 8 to 10 hours after the first 911 call that is one of the subpoenas still not answered by Mitchell County authorities. And if Adam had had that neck injury on the 12th they wouldn’t have been able to do the breathalyzer test that was what they were first saying that he had caused his own death because he was drinking, and the breathalyzer even though the breathilizer showed the ethanol exposure level from his work at Poet and it was done after they got to the scene on the 13th and proved he was alive. So Mitchell County’s Coroner Dr. Haganman, refused to answer subpoenas and give me a report of Adam’s breathalyzer test or his autopsy report that was also subpoenaed.

    At least other county sheriff’s and deputies and even Highway Patrolman in these other Cold Case files seem to have some concern for our Civil Rights whether its to good safe drinking water (or the IDNR’s maybe giving me my well test reports,) or the answers to court ordered subpoenas or autopsy reports to the family when Insurance Companies or the family demand it.

    • Brent says:

      No. Stop. You’re being redicoulous to believe that an ethanol plant would leave it’s employees to work in a facility that when they left work they had a recordable BAC. I can’t believe how idiotic and radical you sound

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Brent,

        A couple weeks before Adam was killed he was to have had a day off and instead Poet officials from SD called him to go back to the Hanlontown plant to drive the then Hanlontown plant manager to the HealthWorks Clinic in Mason City for a spot drug test in a Poet Company truck, so Adam did and Adam had been trying to start getting a Hot Ferm through to production so he had been exposed to Ethanol fumes at that time. As both Adam and his Poet Plant Manager flunked the drug tests, Adam was directed in a phone call from SD to drive his Plant Manager back to the Hanlontown Plant in Poet’s truck, where that Plant Manager was ordered to clean out his desk and was fired by SD Poet Officials on the spot, but Adam was ordered to do the Poet Operating Procedures for possibly getting that Hot Ferm through to Production, after Joe Rowe the Poet Safety Official at Hanlontown refused to do those Operating Procedure’s since it was dangerous. Adam was trying to switch to doing economic planning consulting work for Ethanol Plants and Poet had refused to let him do that under the not to compete issue of his signed Poet employee contract. So he was planning to go back to college and get his doctorate in Math.

        So for the next several weeks Adam worked on those POP’s while getting that Hot Ferm through to Production. Adam had tried to keep the employees who worked his 13 hour shifts out of the worst fumes, while he was exposed. Adam had to take a tablet and a pen with him to write down the valve changes or test readings, as he told me he could not remember what he had done (if he had turned a valve a quarter turn or what the temperature or pressures were)after he got out of the fumes. He said it was like he Blacked Out. But on Saturday the 12th of July, 2008, after Adam emailed the Poet Operating Procedures for Getting a Hot Ferm through to Production to the SD Poet Headquarters (the first time that had ever been done at an Ethanol Plant, the Head Office in SD promoted Adam to an Office job where he would be out of the fumes. But also requested Adam email the Operating Procedures for venting the emptied Hot Ferm tank that was warped and needed the dangerous fumes vented before workers could enter it on Monday. Adam did that at my dining room table and said he was going to go back to the plant to check on a new piece of equipment that measured those fumes but had not been calibrated. Plus he was going to drop off his utility payment in Nora Springs. I asked him to go to a doctor but he said he would sleep it off as he was not to have to clock in until Monday. He left his computer open and accessed when he left, and it was still running when Hintz showed up and told me Adam was dead and Hintz refused to investigate after I told Hintz about the tannish Chevy Impala’s ring tail-lights coming on and taking off, with Adam in pursuit as he came back to my farm home from the west.

        Weeks after Adam’s funeral I called Tori, one of Adam’s shift Poet operators and told him about Adam’s concerns about his calculations not being accurate in regards to that calibration not having been done before Adam had sent the POP’s for venting the warped tank to the SD Poet Headquarters on Saturday 7/12/2008. Tory told me it must have been okay as they were using Adam’s POP’s in all the Poet plants and no one was hurt.

        • Veronica Lack says:

          Brent, That was another item the Mitchell County authorities had refused to answer a court ordered subpoena for, Adam’s pair of jeans that had the Poet Ethanol Exposure Patch sewn in them, that Adam is wearing in Highway Patrolman Palas Graham’s pictures taken on 7/13/2008, before Adam’s femur was crushed and broken. Poet’s Insurance Company ING had asked for that exposure patch too. Adam was still wearing Poet’s pair of jeans he wore to his last scheduled shift at the plant when he was killed. Adam never got his chance to further all types of renewable energy and keep the US less dependant on Big Oil Corps, he was hoping to promote Solar, Wind and other renewable fuels besides Ethanol and biodiesel.

  99. Were you born white trash or is it meth induced?

    • Veronica Lack says:

      No I’m a farmer who was raised on a dairy and a farm southwest of Charles City in an area polluted by Bradley Johnson and other Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa polluters, that dump their runoff into Downstream Iowan’s and my present farm’s Source Water NW of Waverly. Bradley Johnson is the one who had Anhydrous Ammonia tanks sitting on his dad’s farm year around. He may have been the source of the meth you refer to as when he was seen driving a tractor we always referred to him as the Rocking Chair man. You could ask him your question.

      • Brent says:

        You are all very naive to believe any of this garbage. For someone who is raised a “farmer” and can’t type very well because of a shake you seem to be very vocal and in depth with most of the nonsense you put on here

        • Veronica Lack says:

          Worse yet it’s true and Adam and his Dad, Gary were killed by the ones who planned and helped build the illegal flood channel to drain most of Cedar (W) Townships’s Wetland down a line of huge sinkholes in a Aquifer Recharge area of a Designated National Wetland. That on-going pollution affects a large number of Downstream Iowan’s health including mine. Do you live Downstream? Please test your well’s Source Water, if you do.

          Do you know Bradley (Brad) Johnson who farms in Section 10 Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa? He’s been driven by greed to illegally drain his chemicals down into our Downstream drinking water to make lots of money growing corn on corn using the sinkholes as illegal outlets.

          • Veronica Lack says:

            Brent, did you know my disabled husband Gary or my son Adam when they helped me farm our 200 acre Mitchell County Section 11 Cedar (W) Township farm? The Mitchell County Soil and Water Conservation Chair, Bradley Johnson, and James Hyde, Mitchell County Engineer, and James Urbatsch Township Trustee, Dean Sponheim and William Brandau did not get any permits or permission from me or Gary to take 42 acres of my farm to build a mile long 320 foot wide, 6 1/2 foot deep flood channel through my first farm in Mitchell County. The legal but very limited Corps of Engineer’s Drainage permit for that farm was recorded on the abstract for my farm (which both I and Gary had signed). I could not add even 10 more acres of drainage from my farm to the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland on James Urbatsch and Martins and Johnson’s and others shares of the Designated National Wetland, so I or Gary could not give them permission to dig through my farm if I had wanted too. But since my pigs had died from tumors in large numbers in 1998 and I had to stop feeding them to market weight that same year, that Gary got his first cancer, I was again pressuring Dale Adam’s to give me the test reports on our well’s water. But he lied and said they were fine for both bacteria and nitrates. L G Wagner, Mitchell County Sanitarian, did the same with all the tests I had him do, but in 1998 he finally sent me a report from a Manchester lab that stated the water was safe from nitrates and bacterias. But as my vet Doug Loften after posting some of our dead pigs was pressuring me to have the well tested again I asked Dale Adams, IDNR to come out and test it again in 1999 and again he even refused that test report, but when FEMA employees saw and smelled the water coming out of our faucets they said to install a chlorinator so we thought the water issue was just the manure from Bradley Johnson’s feedlots down the sinkholes in 1999. So I did have a chlorinator installed. I did not know the very limited soil depth area, the section 10’s aquifer recharge area was being drained of its CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers and Atrazine down the section 10’s huge sinkholes into our source water we thought when Bradley Johnson was forced to close his sinkhole north of his house after I complained to the IDNR in 1993 that our water was safe and that is why we had had Dale Adams come out to take more samples, but the only test copies of the test reports I finally received in 2009, after Gary was killed in January of 2004, was one 1993 Test report that was bad for both Nitrates and Bacteria in 1993 from the U of I Hygenic Lab.

            • Dori Duffield says:

              Brent’s last name is probably Johnson. That’s why he’s being so defensive and calling you a liar. I’m so sorry for your losses and all that you have gone through. I have seen corruption coming from Mason City.

      • Jody Ewing says:

        Roni, your response to the above comment showed great character and class. Given the volumes of documentation you’ve carefully and legally procured, beware of pots who erroneously think they’re calling out to kettles. Personal attacks — particularly those whose only purpose is to pummel another’s character without so much as addressing the real issue at hand — should be taken with a grain of salt and a warning label: Consider the Source.

  100. Veronica Lack says:

    In 1995 after I had gotten my first IDNR permit to do my ECP repairs after the 1993, so called 100 Year Flood, in my 0.6 acre piece of the Huge Designated National Wetland on my farm Bradley Johnson had yelled at me that he had fixed me for my complaint to the IDNR in 1993 costing him $20,000 for having to close the sinkhole he had drained his feedlots down north of his home. The IDNR’s Dale Adam’s had gotten Bradley Johnson a new well paid for under the Program to Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers from High Nitrate Contaminated Wells (I found out in in Paul VanDorpe’s letter in 2004) but Dale Adams, IDNR, and L G Wagner, Mitchell County Sanitarian had withheld my well tests Downstream because I had complained about the ditches Bill Groskurs, Mitchell County Engineer, had dug for Brad behind two feedlots, draining their runoff down the sinkhole north of Brad’s home. So in 2004 when Mark Ross, new Mitchell County Sanitarian, brought the very high lead test into the Mitchell County Board of Health Meeting, which I had gotten Paul VanDorpe’s, IDNR, letter on the agenda, I was not surprised even though I had not tested for heavy metals, but the rumors had gone around that Brad or contractors had dumped batteries and old paint cans down the sinkhole to fix me, when the IDNR forced Brad to close his sinkhole as it was found to be the cause of his and Dean Sponheim’s piles of dead animals in 1993. All Dr. Ross the Board director said was he could not write a well test warning letter as it would scare the people.

    The tests that I had not seen yet, said the lead was so high and was far over proven cancer causing levels. My animals had died or got docked at IBP after only 4 months of drinking our water Downstream. My husband was having to be treated at Mayo for two separate terminal cancers, high blood pressure, and a fourth condition which was hyperkalemia. The treatment for hyperkalemia is drink more water to flush the high potassium out through your kidneys. I had filled Gary’s Hawkeye mug with water over and over not knowing the water tested so high in Nitrates that included high levels of Atrazine, the very high Lead that caused Gary, Adam, and my blood pressures to spike and was at known cancer causing levels, and included Anhydrous Ammonia and at times when the sinkholes were taking water high levels of bacteria from Nitrogen fertilizers. Yes, Gary may have lived only another 6 or so months but we will never know, because he was killed on 1/14/2004 and, we had not been given our well test reports since 1993. And people Downstream did not pay attention to my letter in the Press News in October of 2004 to try to warn them Downstream from Brad Johnson. As Dr. Ross refused to warn the people Downstream in that Board of Health meeting in 2004 saying it would scare them. Before I’m gone, I want people to know to test for the Anhydrous Ammonia that pulls other contaminants into our ground water or Source Water and drew the lead into our water and also when the IDNR told us to put chlorinators on our wells for the CAFO bacteria run-off to the sinkholes we were mixing the Chlorine with high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and Bleach and Ammonia don’t mix well and when you inhale the fumes coming out of your shower head it caused asthma or worse as well as burning your skin, lining of our throats, intestines, and eyes.

    I’m a farmer, not a writer, so please read, though not written well.

  101. Veronica Lack says:

    Most of the other relatives of the cases I read had some investigation or search done by local authorities into the deaths of their loved ones. But in the deaths of my husband and son the local authorities were involved and did everything they could to hide the Good Old Boys group’s killing both Gary and Adam. After I took the Inspection and Appeals Office 25 pages of Citations and investigation and the Board of Nursing’s signed charge and notes and the AMA notice of the warning letter about Dr. Paul Royer to Sheriff Younker and Mark Walk, Mitchell County attorney, and pointed out where the kayexalate was obtained by Linda. Mark Walk refused to even investigate or even say why he would not stop The Prescription Shoppe in Osage from letting nurses like Linda just get a scoop of that drug that should only be given with a doctor’s prescription and in a hospital under a doctor’s care and pharmacist mixing it up with sorbitol and instead allowing Linda to take 4 times the Mayo Clinic’s doctors prescribed dosage and she mixed it in a cup of water and made Gary hurry up and drink it even though he said it tasted so salty and not like root beer like before. Gary’s Mayo doctor ordered prescription for the drug he needed to lower his potassium level set in the Charles City Medicap Pharmacy until two days after he was dead when the killers removed it without signing for that drug but I was billed for it and the investigators recovered a list of other drugs that included two of the three drugs Gary’s Mayo Clinic doctor had ordered. But instead of closing the Prescription Shoppe Pharmacy, Mark Walk said Gary’s life wasn’t worth a dime in court in my Request to Prosecute. And then the Medicap pharmacy that had the Mayo prescription and that had mixed up the drug correctly was closed instead of the one where Mark’s wife worked.

    In Adam’s case the local authorities refused to give answers to why they would not investigate or answer court ordered subpoenas or give me copies of any of Hintz’s ‘accident’ report or Adam’s autopsy report which was one of the things subpoenaed, why Deputy Hintz made those statements to me that it wasn’t the mean one since they had put Vera Lack’s name and address down on the next of kin to notify on Adam’s accident report, I assumed they thought Adam was the mean one for giving eye-witness information about how Venz abused his wife to the Nora Springs cops, when Gary Venz, Vera Lack’s nephew was being suspected of shooting his wife in the face with a shotgun. Adam’s standing up for others, was the only thing that got him in any trouble. After they told me Adam was dead I told them about the car Adam had chased, they have still refused to give me the copy of that report I made on 7/13/2008 and why after he refused to investigate like they had refused to investigate Adam’s Dad’s murder. Why did they just leave me in the kitchen alone on my farm as I had collapsed, with my broken leg and no aide was given Adam as well as me, after Hintz told me Adam was dead?

    Sherriff Younker had waited over 6 months after the so called Transitioning of the huge Flood Channel and my second trespass charge to send Deputy Hintz out to investigate, after I had finished over $100,000 in repairs. Those repairs and more after the 2008 Floods I was being forced by the Osage’s Charlie Heiderscheit FSA and Ray Frana NRCS and Bradley Johnson, Mitchell County Soil and Water Conservation Chair, under threats I was going to be charged with Farming in the Right of Way for their illegal channel and at the same time threatening me with not being in Compliance with my legal drainage permit from the Corps of Engineer’s. And I was required to get the necessary IDNR permits each time I entered the Designated National Wetland to do repairs. In 2006 after the digging done illegally under the Bradley Johnson’s MCSWC Chair’s direction using his USDA-NRCS 1991 Proposed Drainage Ditch Survey that documents some of the sinkholes they were using to drain the Designated National Wetland down into our Source Water, and others they were planning to dig through to dump more Wetland ponding water down bigger sinkholes in the Designated National Wetlands huge sinkholes.

    After the illegal transitioning in 2005 I had to again get permits to close a sinkhole in the 0.6 acre Designated National Wetland in 2006. As Adam and I were working I fell and broke the plate in my right leg where my bones had not healed from a farm accident in 1999. Adam finished that work alone as I could not get a contractor to help. The illegal transitioning had opened that sinkhole by digging through the 1700 foot long 15′ long Designated National Wetland strip on my farm between the larger sinkholes on James Urbatsch and the Martins larger sinkholes. They did the transitioning by trespass and without getting any permits and the IDNR attorneys said I had to sue the group but I could only sue Mayer’s Digging Company (Roger Mayer and David Mayer and Mark Wagner and William and Barbara Brandau who had hired the Mayer’s to do the Transitioning without any permits or permission from me, and as they were the only ones we caught and I took pictures of them starting to do it.) The transcript for the trial in 2007 that Adam and I testified in cost me about $2,000 to have transcribed, so investigators could read the lies under oath by the above group of people.

    Sheriff Younker withheld my trespass charge against Dean Kleckner the former Head of Farm Bureau on 4/15/2003 and the Disposition of that trespass charge on 4/16/2003 when Dean Kleckner came out to my farm in an Osage police car and agreed with Gary and me that he would have Mayer Digging Company restore our soil to the grade it was prior to Mayer Digging Company, digging it away and replace our joint property line fence. I had told him the karsted limestone was very close to the surface where Mayer’s was digging and we were not wanting more sinkholes dug open. We had agreed the trees that Mayer Digging Company had also removed were of no significant value but we wanted our topsoil back to the grade it was prior. I was threatened by my attorney that I could not say anything about Dean Kleckner’s visit or Disposition of that Trespass charge as Sheriff Younker would not give me a copy of the Disposition until the Spring of 2008 about a year after the trial where Roger Mayer, Mark Wagner, and Mr. and Mrs. William Brandau testified under oath they were there together at my farm on 4/16/2003 (instead of Dean Kleckner in that Osage Police car) and they all swore Gary my dead husband who was killed on 1/14/2004 had given them permission to come in after he was dead and finish the Transitioning (with no legal permits). But my legal 1995 Corps of Engineer’s permit for drainage did not allow me or Gary to add even 10 more acres of drainage from my farm to the Designated National Wetland so neither of us could have given permission to add 3000 acres of Flood Water to be dumped through our farm to the Designated National Wetland’s huge sinkholes. And I sat there in that courtroom but my testimony and evidence was sustained by Judge McKinley whenever I tried to say anything about them not getting permits or my having refused permission for them to build that mile long 320 foot wide 6 and a half foot deep flood channel through my farm opening more sinkholes as they dug.

    I was told by IDNR attorneys John Tack and Randy Clark and another IDNR attorney I had to sue as proof I had not approved of, or accepted, this Flood Channel to Sinkholes Drainage System for Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa and if I sued them I would not be held liable by the IDNR for the future polluting and flooding by all the illegal ditching and Flood Channels to sinkholes Brad Johnson and the Cedar (W) Township farmers had planned in the map up on Jim Hyde’s Office wall in 2008. That suit I filed at the suggestion of the IDNR got to court in 2007 and cost me my son Adam’s life as his testimony was the most damaging to them, it also cost me $47,000 in attorney fees. Meanwhile I and Adam were doing the repairs after getting the necessary permits in 1993, 1999, 2004, 2006 and 2008. Now they were going to wait until I am dead to record any of my testimony or get Adam’s death investigated.

    Investigators should read the the 2007 trial transcripts where Adam and I testified and 4 transcripts of Adam’s Probate Hearings to try to get Adam’s death investigated (especially the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd transcripts where I entered the evidence I was able to get access to, as Adam’s Probate Administrator). No I don’t believe Hintz will investigate my death either as he assured me he would after he refused to investigate Adam’s, but I need this blog group to ask me and others questions, as it’s the only way I can think of, for information not being lost. So we might some day stop the On-Going Point Source Pollution Plume mapped out in the Well Testing Warning Message in a blue box above the picture of Adam’s Tombstone in this Iowa Cold Case File.

  102. CONNIE says:

    Veronica,
    Have you considered doing a petition on change.org and or contacting Dateline or another show to see if they will look @ this case? The more people that know about your case; the more likely to be heard.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Connie,
      I am an older farmer who was not raised with the internet and with my present condition typing is a chore because of my shake. I don’t tweet or text much let alone know how to do a petition on change.org even though I have signed many. I’ve tried contacting the Globe Gazette after my husband Gary was killed.
      And the young reporter that came out and wrote a story and took pictures of some of the sinkholes that were being used to drain that Wetland was refused the right to print her story by the Globe’s attorneys. There is alot of pressure in Iowa to support only the chemical companies and the groups doing the polluting (farmers), but not all farmers are polluting and some of us have spent time and money to prevent it while the polluters like Dean Sponheim are named Environmental Leader for 2014. He was the one who had the first ditch built to the sinkhole in the Designated National Wetland at 320th Street, just SW of my former Mitchell County home and farm. That young reporter took pictures of that sinkhole as the soil around was caving in.
      If others could help spread the word please at least warn the people Downstream. Even my renters well by Waverly in the Plume Downstream is testing to high. Veronica

      • CONNIE says:

        I will help you then :)

        • Veronica Lack says:

          Connie,

          I want to warn the people who use the Source Water in this Plume so they can know what to test for and about the Chlorine forming the bad decontaminants that can kill when the Anhydrous Ammonia combines with the Chlorine that the IDNR says to add for the CAFO fertilizer runoff that is being channeled and ditched to the sinkholes and into our aquifers.

          So it’s the area of the map in the warning letter but also can affect the cities Downstream, like Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and even Iowa City. Can you get that petition to direct people to the warning in Adam’s file above?

          • Veronica Lack says:

            By refusing to answer the subpoenas for the investigation of Adam’s killing, the Mitchell County authorities were able to hide the suspects behind the illegal channel being built through my home farm, then when Mark Walk cut me out of the division of some of the assets from my father-in-law’s estate as Harold had taken a sudden unexpected turn for the worse and died in the Osage nursing home 3 days after Adam and my testimony in the 2007 trial that at least proved the Flood Channel was not there before the IDNR had charged me with Blockage of Water. The Osage NRCS agents had been sending my farms paperwork like NHEL determinations and CRP information to Vera Lack and just months after Adam was killed she died in 2008 rather suddenly. On Adam’s accident report Vera’s name and address was entered as next of kin to notify and the NRCS and FSA office personnel were the only Osage agents that had addressed me as the wicked witch of the west (Vera’s family nick-name) and they had sent my farm records to Vera, after I had refused to dig that huge ditch that Dean Kleckner had also refused to dig through his farm. In 2009 when I was in the Osage NRCS office to get the permits and do the ECP repairs for the 2008 floods, as I walked in there were audible gasps and the teasing about being the wicked witch of the west as Ray Frana had done in the past stopped. I felt the group had killed a bunch of my relatives because they thought they were the obstacles to getting my farm instead of just killing me. So I had to sell out as they did not value my other children’s lives and now I don’t own what I couldn’t legally give them (an outlet down the sinkholes into the Designated National Wetland’s sinkholes on James Urbatsch and other Cedar (W) Township land).

          • About a month ago Waterloo had to stop using water from one of that Iowa town’s wells as it was found to be very high in Nitrogen fertilizer. Our aquifers across Iowa are in danger, but especially in this documented Pollution Plume.

        • Connie I tried to do a Petition last night but don’t think I did it right as my shaking is worse at night. But have mistakes, it starts out something like Iowans are drinking Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer because Iowa’s 20 year Governor has not enforced the Clean Water Act or Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws. Wish my feeble attempt to go. Veronica

  103. Veronica Lack says:

    In the first hearing to try to get Adam’s killing investigated, Judge Bryan McKinley failed to recuse himself but admitted he was at the scene and again claimed Adam’s breathalyzer test was positive for alcohol. Those pictures had time and date recorded including Judge McKinley’s image long after he claimed to have left the scene. So Adam did not have the injury yet that killed him about eight or more hours after the first 911 call. After his death, blood work showed Adam’s high exposure to the fumes from the Hot Ethanol Ferm Adam had been working to get to production at Poet. At the end of that hearing in late November 2010 Judge McKinley gave me permission to investigate myself, and even though I was refused answers to subpoenas, in the third hearing in the Charles City Floyd County Courthouse to get Adam’s killing investigated, all of the evidence I was allowed to receive, including the 26 pictures of the groups chaining up Adam’s truck and while Adam was seatbelted in the drivers side with his feet trapped under the dash, they started tipping, lifting, and dropping Adam’s truck on its drivers side. The third hearing in 2011 over 4 months later I entered the evidence I had collected.

    Adam’s crushed body could not even be put to rest because the Mitchell County Attorney had withheld the deeds to my and my husband’s cemetary plots and other assets from my father-in-laws estate (our family farm). They had stolen our soils off 42 acres of my farm to build a Flood Channel that dumps into a Designated National Wetland and then the Mitchell County Attorney takes the deeds to the soil my husband was buried in.

    If any investigator looks into this they should read the 4 transcripts and especially the third hearings transcript and exhibits that include the unanswered Request to Prosecute form, my Adam’s Voice File Notes, the 28 questions I was trying to get Judge McKinley to answer, and enlarged copies of the 26 pictures the highway patrolman took while they strung the chain across a ditch and started tipping the truck. What I did find out was worse than knowing how they killed Adam, most people that are murdered in Mitchell County have their death certificates falsified, as cancer for Gary and severe dislocation of neck at C2 and C3 for Adam because of motor vehicle accident. The new sheriff is probably reading what Sheriff Younker and Deputy Hintz recorded to cover up what was done to my son and husband. The investigation or reports were denied me in Adam’s death but I did get access to my husband’s. The Mitchell County Attorney’s only response to my Request to Prosecute form was Gary’s life wouldn’t be worth a dime in court.

  104. Tina Carroll says:

    u must be on some other planet corey…

  105. Veronica Lack says:

    The Iowa Department of Natural Resources from their reports and pamphlets claims to protect our Water Quality and I had thought they would enforce our Iowa Drainage Laws as I was threatened repeatedly and spent thousands of dollars and since 1993 was made to get permits to be able to do unfunded repairs on my farm. Mainly to stay in compliance with my very limited Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for Drainage.

    In Mitchell County a legal drainage outlet was an asset that was even more valuable than CSR as to gauge value of a farm. In 1990 the farmers without legal drainage outlets started changing land without legal drainage outlets, to corn and soy bean production. So I was glad to do the unfunded conservation practices so that my renter could rotate corn and soy beans. My cash rent went up, and we used low till and no till practices on that 90.36 CSR value farm. I fed feeder pigs to market weight and spread their dry waste that included the straw they had bedded down in, on those fields.

    Now since the Section 10 Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County group of farmers illegally dug the Flood channel to sinkholes through Section 11, first through Dean Kleckner’s and then into my old farm (getting no permits like, I a woman farmer, was always required to do when doing repairs) or them channeling to and in a Designated National Wetland, the on-going pollution Plume is documented in the well tests first on the wells Downstream in Mitchell County and in the research in part of Paul W. Johnson, a former Director of the IDNR.

    Paul Johnson published, Groundwater Quality Response To Closure Of Agricultural Drainage Wells In Floyd County, Iowa in July 1999, back when the labs did not have storage of well test result data. So the data is usable to document the spread of this plume, that Paul VanDorpe said was traveling at the rate of 1 to 2 miles a year since 1990. Now the data of well tests is stored so other later Plumes can be tracked and stopped before people and animals suffer and die.

    Stopping these Point Source Pollution Plumes is crucial to our Iowa Water Quality and especially with the Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, as well as the herbicides and pesticides.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      The Plume of the above Warning Letter

      Just as Paul Johnson was doing in his position with the IDNR in the late 90’s we need to close all sinkholes and legal or illegal AG Drainage wells that are causing these Point Source Pollution Plumes. And definitely require permits for legal drainage outlets that prevent farm chemicals to be drained illegally into our Source Waters. The legal drainage outlets for surface water and tile outlets from each farm should be considered an asset and increase the value of farmland or limit its use as to no chemical applications that pollute.

      Russ Tell said in 2009 that pretty soon the state of Iowa would not be able to document a Plume, because everybody (farmers) was Point Source polluting with the French Drains.

      The purpose of my 1995 Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for Drainage was to not allow me to add anymore drainage from my farm to the Designated National Wetland’s huge sinkholes. I could not legally give permission for those farmers that had no legal drainage outlet, so they just stole and dug out 42 acres of my topsoil after they got the IDNR to charge me with Blockage of Water, to build a flood channel to those huge sinkholes that now drain chemicals off 3000 acres down those sinkholes into our Source Waters.

      Now that the two very water soluble Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers are testing at ever increasing levels in our Source Waters we who live in this particular Plume and others may have had our health and our incomes as well as the health of our animals affected by farmers who are draining their land and chemicals illegally with no legal drainage outlet. Since there is no feasible filter for Anhydrous Ammonia we need to keep it out.

  106. Adam Lack says:

    Terri please look at and print out a copy of the Well Testing Warning Message Roni Lack worked with Russ Tell to get out to the people in the On-Going Point Source Pollution Plume. The IDNR so far hasn't warned you but she is still trying to get them too. It's in Adam's above Cold Case file information just a Paragraph above the picture of Adam's Cemetary Monument.

  107. Adam Lack’s case is not only one of THE most heinous crimes listed on ICC, the details we’ve presented barely cover the tip of a monstrously deep and deadly Midwestern iceberg. Veronica “Roni” Lack is one of the strongest, most courageous women I’ve ever had the privilege to know, and despite the “You know you have five other children” threats, she keeps pressing forward in her efforts to warn the half-million Iowans at risk and pursue justice in her husband’s and son’s murders — both of whose lives swiftly ended at the hands of tyrants posing as public servants.

  108. Kae Pullis says:

    What do we need to do for dateline, 20/20, etc to do a national show on this story???

    • Kae Pullis says:

      Looks like I better get to writing and putting some things together. I’m am not related nor did I ever have the pleasure of meeting this young man, but what happened to him is wrong on so many levels. The law enforcement corruption in this case makes my blood chill knowing at any given time these “people” could do this again to somebody else…..

    • Kae Pullis, you could either send them a link to Adam’s page or forward to them a copy of “Adam’s Voice” written by Veronica Lack. I agree that this is one story that needs national exposure in order for there to be any type of resolution or justice served.

    • Please let us know if you get it on the show.

  109. Becky Walker says:

    Photos showing the murder in progress and still nothing is done. Worthless bastards I hope you rot in the depths of hell. I miss you, Adam, you’re never far from my mind. Rest peacefully my friend.

  110. So sad! This young man had his entire life ahead of himself!

  111. I worked for this man. Spent time with his family. It is a great loss! R.I.P. Adam, you will have justice one day my friend!

  112. Pam Swanton says:

    How sad that these two people were murdered for other people’s gain

  113. Mary Akers says:

    Can not believe this is unsolved!!! Obviously there are crooks in charge !!!

  114. How does something like this happen? How can one, let alone dozens of supposedly soul bearing humans do this. To murder and cover it up in a mob mentality? The movie Hanabal is a childrens nursery rhyme in comparison to this real life nightmare of a story and in Iowa. Why can’t the FBI step in since locals are completely inept and more than likely guilty of several broken laws.

  115. This one seems like everyone knows who did it, just can’t get the right authority . Those standing around truck watching Adam die should be named and prosecuted
    STAY AWAY FROM NORA SPRINGS OR LETS GO HARRASS THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES….

    • Our address was Nora Springs but our farm and home where we were harrassed was in Mitchell County and our harassers were mostly Mitchell County male farmers and their male contractors with no legal drainage outlets.

      • Adam was murdered by a cemetery in a soybean field just east of Carpenter about 20 miles north of Nora Springs as shown in the 26 pictures. He had started swerving at the sign that warned of a T intersection and had no brakes to slow for the S curve with the car slowing in front of him, he had his seatbelt on and had to avoid running over the Chevy Impala. So he was forced to take the ditch. The 911 call that Younker and Rourick refused to answer court ordered subpoenas for I have again requested a copy of from the attorney general’s office as part of my Civil Rights charge since Mitchell County authorities had refused to answer the first 911 call before midnight on 7-12-2008, and left Adam trapped for 8 or more hours before coming back and finding he still wasn’t dead so they killed him.

  116. Gail Lewis says:

    I lived In a horrible town where the officials were criminals

  117. Kate Laura Melissa

  118. Dan Hofer says:

    Brad Ferneau u should read this

  119. I hope the so called people (actually I think “animal” is a better word to describe them) that tortured Adam Lack rot in hell someday (and very slowly too)!! Once again the justice system has failed a person (Adam). My heart goes out to his mother. I’m not very proud to say I’m an Iowan right now. Shame on Mitchell County and the Iowa DNR!!

  120. When people with power want something they will buy off anyone to get what they want…..This poor family …why wasn’t the FBI called in on this??

  121. Kae Pullis says:

    This needs national tv coverage!!!

  122. I am just heart broken….disgusted….and ashamed of what this family has had to go through. Corruption is every where…every county…every state…..I hope that there will be some relief for Mrs. Lack…..the FBI needs to step in….or hell even the President….farmers and big companies do not care about the damage that they cause…..I would like to force them to drink that same water daily……I bet things would change then……..Mrs. Lack, I am willing to help you in anyway that I can, I am not an attorney, or rich, but I am willing to help in anyway…This situation could have happened to anyone…..I think you are a strong woman who deserves answers and peace for your family.

    • Thanks for your support, but helping me get people to read the Well Testing Warning Message in Adam’s above file would be a Blessing for me. This July 13th is the 7th year anniversary since Adam was killed after he chased after the people harassing us. If you have a well or live in a small town in the Midwest please add the tests results of the test for Nitrates and the test for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) and if they total over 10 and your water also tests positive for bacteria don’t Chlorinate until you are sure your Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) test is 0.000. Drink bottled water until your Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) test is safe especially if you have corn fields near you they now may have Anhydrous Ammonia fertilizer applied on land being illegally drained as Point Source Polluting is how Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer gets into our Source Waters not by Non Point Source according to ISU researchers.

    • I am a woman farmer who has always tried hard to follow the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act even though George Bush took away all of the Iowa DNR’s enforcement funds (according to Russ Tell), I was forced to keep in compliance with my legal Corps of Engineer’s Drainage Agreement for my farm’s drainage. It cost me over $150,000 of my own funds and the government agencies that forced me a woman farmer, under threats to try to limit the damages of the illegal channel that was built by trespass, and theft of 42 acres of my soils to drain thousands of acres of Wetland down sinkholes in a Designated National Wetland. But the group of male farmers had the IDNR charge me with Blockage of Water, and had the NRCS survey my land for the Flood channel and sent the information to the Mitchell County Assessor’s Office to devalue my farm’s CSR value for the over 40 acres of area for that flood channel on 4/15/2003. The agencies did not feel I had the right to my farm and took those 40 or so acres with no compensation, and then threatened me with saying they were going to charge me with farming in the right of way. But they never were made to get the necessary permits for what they were doing and now cause the On-Going Point Source Polluting that endangers Downstream wells. All farmers whether male or female should be made to obey the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Acts Anti-Degradation Laws. And after I was pushed off my family farm all of the expensive conservation work and even the GRS were removed by the group of male farmers that are channeling even more runoff to the sinkholes in the DESIGNATED NATIONAL WETLAND.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        We need less Republicans in office as what does our state’s Secretary of AG, Northey do? In the Des Moines Register on July 7th, 2015, he says $3.1 in state funding will go to four projects to increase conservation. The first one on the list was a wad of cash for the Mitchell County Soil and Water Conservation District, formerly chaired by Bradley Johnson the Renegade farmer (according to Mike Hayes) that had harassed me and Gary and Adam and was the farmer that had gotten the USDA-NRCS to do a survey through the line of sinkholes on Dean Kleckner’s farm in 1991. Dean Kleckner was powerful enough, that his saying no to a channel through sinkholes on his farm stopped the Section 10 Cedar (W) Township’s from digging a channel to bigger sinkholes to drain their chemicals down the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland. But I said NO over and over and Mark Wagner’s testimony in court was that I was a woman and didn’t know anything.

        No permission or permits were needed by those male farmers, from me or the IDNR or the Corps of Engineers that had refused them an outlet down the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland after the Corps saw that 1991 NRCS survey. Then they had taken about 42 acres from me with no compensation and now that same group is being funded for doing conservation practices that do not stop any of the Point Source Polluting that their new Flood Channel causes in this Karsted Limestone, very limited soil depth, sinkhole laden, aquifer Recharge area.

        They should never get permits for the application of CAFO or Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers that are now polluting our wells Downstream. The Mitchell County Engineers Bill Groskurs and James Hyde built some of the channels and installed some of the culverts to drain about 3000 acres down into our source waters downstream. Our tax dollars should go to supply safe drinking water to the Iowa farm and town families downstream. And the Point Source Polluters need to be stopped and we need the IDNR and the EPA to enforce Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act.

        Good Water is Life. CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia contaminated Water is slow death and the contamination is growing because our agencies are concentrating on non-point source pollution and are ignoring Point Source Pollution which is the only way Anhydrous Ammonia can get into our ground water according to ISU.

  123. Corey Alden…you talk like you know something and your words are that of a guilty person. What do you gain by covering this up?

  124. 99% of iowa cops need to get there heads out of their asses and help people not leave it be

    • Joshua Brown says:

      It will never happen , there are people probably telling them to look the other way and shut up and do so because they get paid better than most people. I lived in a small town and if you didn’t have the name or the money either the cops would mess with you or they take their jolly time getting back to you on crap.

    • I live in a small iowa town to…. I get the they take there time crap it’s sad that people can’t feel safe

  125. Wowwww. A very interesting, but extremely frustrating read. It could be made into a movie.

  126. This is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard in my life.

  127. Lu Eggers says:

    SLAPPED WITH WHAT LAWSUIT COREY? THIS is all true..Look at all documents & records..I live in Mitchell County & there is alot of corrupt and crooked bullshit going on here..I know.because my hubby Gary & I have gone through almost rhe same things since we moved here almost 18 years ago!!!

  128. Corey Alden says:

    You didn't hear of any of this is because it's not true. It's her way of coping with his death. She's lucky she hasn't been slapped with a lawsuit.

    • Jody Ewing says:

      Corey, she hasn’t been slapped with a lawsuit because she has official reports and documented statements and a 25-page report from Medicare’s investigation, not to mention copies of the “26 photos” and lab reports from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Iowa (who tested her water samples). Veronica is not some grieving mother trying to cope with her husband’s and son’s deaths; she is an educated woman who has provided necessary legal documentation for her every statement every step of the way in her long pursuit for justice.

    • Corey,

      The contractors in the pictures that damaged my farm and dug the Flood channel to drain thousands of acres down a line of sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland on Urbatsch, Martin, and others’ land put up braces so Adam’s truck could only drop on Adam. They did nothing to protect Adam, and they knew you couldn’t control the weight of Adam’s truck. At least one of the contractors in the pictures had even gotten the Tea Pot Award. And after the breathilizer they did while they let Adam suffer, they knew he was alive and then they started dropping the truck on him. Supposedly, because he tested high on Ethanol (from his work exposure) they thought they had an excuse to kill him. That is what the pictures show me, and the accident report backs that up with some of the injuries Adam had that night not shown in any of the pictures yet.

      Judge McKinley claimed in the hearing in 2010 that Adam was drinking or had tested poisitive for alcohol like they had told ING (Adam’s Poet Company Insurance) so that I would not receive his life insurance or be able to fight the on-going pollution, but Poet knew what Adam had done for them — risking his life to write up those POPs on the 12th and being exposed to the fumes from that Hot Ferm.

      Even after Mark Walk’s causing the loss of my family farm and home and the 1/3 share of my husband’s family farm, I do still have some funds left to fight this on-going draining of an Aquifer Recharge area down a line of sinkholes because Poet’s ING paid the Life Insurance after getting the x-rays, blood work, and Mercy Hospital reports, even though Mitchell County’s Coroner, Dr. Haganman, has refused to supply the Autopsy report ING wanted in answer to a court ordered subpoena.

      After all the damages to my farm I used all of my husband Gary’s life insurance funds to try to keep in compliance with my Corps of Engineer’s Agreement for very limited drainage to the Designated National Wetland, but when the Mitchell County attorney Mark Walk claimed to have the deeds to my husband’s and my burial plots after he helped Jim and Margaret divide up my father-in-law’s Lock Box assets without me being involved, he took me to court and wanted me to sign off on Gary’s share of that farm.

      He had filed life insurance claims for Jim and Margaret and left my children and me out of the division of assets. So I had to fight that alone as no local attorney would go up against him. Mark Walk then had used the cemetary plot deeds as leverage after Adam was killed. He wanted me to sign an affidavit or agreement that my husband Gary had died of Colon Cancer instead of drowning in his blood after a fall where Gary had hit the door frame of the bedroom on the night of 1/13/2004.

      Gary had been administered drugs he had no prescription for from The Prescription Shoppe pharmacy in the Osage Hospital on 1/12/2004, and that salty drug burnrt his colon and he fell. The nurse admitted that she did not do a report of his fall or give him any aide, and then she did write in her notes his vomit was blood but did not tell us. And then she administered some drugs she had taken from Ray Power’s home after he died on 1/14/2004. Linda administered 4 mg of Haliperidol and two tubes of DBR gel that she brought from Ray’s, and Gary’s throat closed and he drowned in his own blood.

      Dr. Paul Royer called in a 1mg dose prescription for that drug to the Medicap pharmacy in Charles City after Linda had already administered the 4mg dose. Gary was dead within about 4 hours of her giving him the last drugs and within a day of her not reporting a fall (because she then would have to do a plan of care and then get Gary to a hospital). When she called and informed Dr. Royer, who had never seen Gary alive or dead, he called someone to have the Champion funeral home employees turn from their route to Osage from our farm and take Gary — who had not yet been seen by a doctor — to the Crematorium in Mason City. He wrote on the death certificate that I had said Gary had died of Colon Cancer.

      Then when Adam was to be put to rest I asked Mark Walk, the Mitchell County Attorney, again for the cemetery plot deeds, and he refused but offered to give them to me if I would sign that agreement that Gary had died of Colon cancer. I refused to say Gary died of Colon cancer because it was the fall and the internal bleeding. Mark Walk didn’t want me to have any funds to fight the pollution with, and so $91,000 of Gary’s accidental death life insurance was not paid. Also I think he wanted to cover up for his wanting Gary cremated so statements like ‘you can’t prove that Gary died from the on-going pollution’ would hold up, even though more people and animals were dying in the plume. So I wasn’t able to put Adam to rest by his Dad until I purchased new plots in the same cemetery and had our stone moved and had Adam’s stone installed. They now rest together.

      Veronica Lack

  129. Corey Alden says:

    So did a UFO or Bigfoot abduct Jodi Huisentruit too? This article is completely irresponsible and is surprising how far they've pushed with it risking a lawsuit.

  130. All of these people involved in his death need to be held accountable now! Everyone in the sheriffs needs to be fired and sentence there job is to protect and they did the opposite of that.

    • S J Curby,
      An election to clean out the Board of Supervisors, Sheriff’s Department, Mitchell County Attorney’s Office and Mitchell County Coroner’s Office is a good start, so there could be an investigation into answers to why this on-going Point Source pollution Plume, that only financially benefits a few, can be allowed to kill animals and people Downstream.

      Adam is dead, I will never get my son or husband Gary back. I have dealt with those losses and have gone on living. I am not brave, like Adam and Gary were, and I was threatened repeatedly by the Mitchell County Attorney before I got those pictures from the Iowa Highway Patrolman the year after Adam was killed. After seeing what they did to my son and getting a copy of the Inspection and Appeals Office Investigation into my husband Gary’s murder, Mark Walk answered the Request to Prosecute for Gary’s murder by saying Gary’s life wasn’t worth a dime in court and threatened to sue me if I said anything.

      Yes, they can sue me and have repeatedly threatened to, and have also had the IDNR charge me with Blockage of Water. Would they want to have all of the recorded evidence be looked at by another Judge and Jury? Maybe the jury might have relatives that had their health affected before they found out their well was polluted.

      I realized they did not feel a woman had any rights in Mitchell County. I feel I have property rights in Bremer and Johnson and Dallas Countys so I am suing to protect those Rights Downstream and to demand they not keeping withholding our well test results from me and let me warn the others in this on-going Plume. The State of Iowa has a Program to Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers, which paid for the worst of Adam and my harassers to have a new well in 1993 under that program, but refused to even give me my well tests done by the Mitchell County Sanitarian, LG Wagner and Dale Adams IDNR in 1993 and later years.

      At least vote the Bad Acting Good Old Boy Republicans Out. Don’t ever vote or consider electing Bradley Johnson (who resides near Meroa) to any Office as he should never have any control over another’s Life.

      Veronica Lack

  131. Adam Lack says:

    Julie, There already is a documentary film that the Farm Bureau and Big Oil industry banned from being shown on Iowa's IPBS but is in most libraries it was produced by the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History and is titled, Troubled Waters, A Mississippi River Story. I took a course and got permission to have it shown on a small public station in Iowa City after Adam was killed and Iowa City's water tested positive for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer. Check it out as the farm family in this documentary got their well test report, unlike me, but was not told to test for Anhydrous Ammonia but they did take the correct precaution and drilled to a deeper yet safe aquifer. Since there is no feasible filter for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N). Farmers need to be applying for legal drainage permits like I was required to do all of the years I farmed in that Aquifer Recharge Area. And those sensitive areas of Karsted limestone, sinkhole laden, very limited soil depths, should have never gotten ROSOL II permits from the government for CAFO or permission for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers to be applied there in Mitchell County's Cedar (W) Township. Veronica Lack, on Adam's old Facebook

    • On my LinkedIn Profile is a copy of the Warning Letter I’ve been working to have Russ Tell who is the IDNR employee over all the Iowa County Sanitarians like Jeff Sherman in Floyd County, send to users of this Point Source Pollution Plume’s water Downstream. As July 13, 2008 is the day 7 years ago that Adam was killed, I was hoping more people would at least see the area that Russ and I had mapped out in 2009 and would understand what tests they should do on their source water as the IDNR and the EPA have not stopped this Point Source Pollution Plume.

  132. What a heartless corupt bunch !!! these kinds of people think they're above the law they should all be held accountable for their actions, I hope this family can get justice for father and son. Your in my prayers.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Lorrie, Thank you for your concern and unfortunately more Iowan’s are isolating themselves and think they are above the laws. No one can replace or make up for my husband or son, but I know I need to warn those that live Downstream in the On-Going Plume of Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides. Please encourage people who live in Floyd, Butler and Bremer Counties to print out the Well Testing Warning Message in Adam’s above Cold Case file. And if you live near large corn fields that have the tanks of Anhydrous Ammonia applied on those fields it would be advisable to test your Source Water too. Veronica

  133. Ann Grell Schermer says:

    There are no words….this just should not happen. Bless Adam and his family and know that all responsible for this will get judged in the end, just like in Jodi’s case.

  134. Brad Toppin says:

    What is the case number?

    • My Iowa Civil Rights case Number is CVCV046761 It was filed in the fall of 2010.

      My USDA-NRCS Discrimination case was in Remediation and then put on hold just a few weeks before Adam was killed. Adam had helped me file that charge in February of 2007. This charge has to return to Remediation some day, it would be nice to get this dealt with, by these two federal (USDA-NRCS) and state agencies (FSA and IDNR) both together, this fall.

      • As Adam’s Probate Administrator I tried in four hearings to get Adam’s death investigated but the Mitchell County liability attorney told Adam’s probate attorney that they could not answer the court ordered subpoenas for Adam’s autopsy report, or the names of the people killing Adam in the pictures that Pallas Graham took while they did it, or the Poet Bio-Refinery Exposure Patch that Adam is wearing in the pictures. My timely filed but unanswered Request to Prosecute form, my Adam’s Voice notes, my 28 questions, and the enlarged copies of Pallas Graham’s photos were entered as exhibits in the third of those 4 hearings. I think one could get copies of those hearing transcripts and exhibits from the Floyd County Courthouse of those 4 hearings. I’ve paid the transcription fees so copies should not be costly. I was trying to get Judge Bryan McKinley to answer those 28 questions after he refused to recuse himself and the court recorder identified Judge McKinley in the photos in that first of the 4 hearings. Probate Hearings November 2010 and about six months into 2011.

        • Veronica Lack says:

          The reason the Mitchell County liability attorney Rourick, gave for why not answering the court ordered subpoenas was that I would sue them.

      • The USDA-NRCS Discrimination on Farm Program Benefits Charge has a Case number of 08 1022 and Carl-Martin Ruiz was Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights who answered questions.

        • The USDA-NRCS has failed to go back to Remediation thus allowing the illegal Point Source Pollution by a group of farmers in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa to continue into our Source water for drinking water in this particular Pollution Plume that affects the health and lives from Charles City, Waverly, Cedar Falls, Waterloo and down through Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

          • It’s not just my loss, its over half a million Downstream that have their Source Water being polluted, that is why I refused to take the $2,000,000.00 the Iowa NRCS mediators were considering to give me for the continuing damages to my farm to allow this flood channel to sinkholes they built through my farm and flooded out my home, with it’s occasional tidal wave of redirected flood water. That was why Adam’s paper that he was given an A+++ by his U of IA professor angered the polluting farmers so much they waved it in court in 2007, saying you proved the channel was not there before, but we are going to get it Grandfathered In, as they spit on me and Adam as we walked out of the courtroom. I could never sign those IDNR after the fact permits for the polluters Charlie Heiderschiet brought out to my farm in the first week of May 2009 after they brutally killed Adam.

  135. JoAnn Flesner says:

    Sorry for your loss. Keep fighting.

    • lackfarm1 says:

      That’s exactly what Dean Lines FSA said, he had helped me in the past try to limit the damages Downstream. Dean said I needed to (after the Floods in 2008 almost took out my GRS and when I was trying to do the repairs ECP to keep in compliance with my Corps Permit for Legal Drainage Agreement), “keep fighting”. But I was not able to risk another of my children and I traded my home farm for a lesser one Downstream in this On-Going Plume. I told Dean about Mark Walk’s threats. So now my fight has switched to protecting or at least getting the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources to warn users of this contaminated Source Water Downstream. Veronica Lack

      • Dean Lines FSA and Dennis Sandee NRCS Charles City Floyd County agents had helped me plan the ECP repairs in 2004 and 2008 after the new illegal Flood channel was built by the group of male farmers who used Charlie Heiderschiet FSA, Ray Frana NRCS and Mitchell County Engineers Bill Groskurs and James Hyde to plan this illegal channel that damaged the Upper Cedar Valley Group Aquifers and brought more Flood damage Downstream to Charles City. They are some of the good guys and thanks go to them for their continuing work to protect our water Downstream. The Best Fourth of July, to all, we need the 16 Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act enforced and we need the EPA to be given the funds to do that enforcement as the State of Iowa does not enforce those laws against point source polluting farmers in Mitchell County. Veronica Lack

        • The good FSA and NRCS agents I dealt with were Dean Lines and Dennis Sandee.

          • You can go to Veronica Lack’s LinkedIn Profile and if you know of anyone living Downstream in the On-Going pollution Plume from Mitchell County into Floyd, Butler, and Bremer Counties, there is a copy of a warning letter to Iowan’s who use that Plume for their drinking water source. It tells what water tests need to be done as you cannot taste most nitrates in your drinking water. But they kill as Brad Johnson was given a well paid for in 1993 after he had ditches dug to the sinkhole north of his house in 1991. That program is called To Prevent High Animal Loss Numbers from Nitrate Contaminated Wells, but the IDNR withheld my well tests in 1993 when I first complained about the ditches-to-sinkholes drainage plan in Mitchell County. My animals died or got docked at IBP, then Gary was killed in 2004 and Adam in 2008. Even in court and under oath Mark Wagner, said she’s a woman and doesn’t know anything, when he was asked if he had asked permission. My Adam’s Voice file notes were written as I was trying to stay in compliance with my Corps of Engineer’s legal drainage permit, Yet the male farmers were never required to get 401 or 404 permits for their taking 42 acres of my farm to build a huge Flood channel to dump down the huge sinkholes in a Designated National Wetland in Cedar (W) Township Mitchell County Iowa.

  136. Jeannie Laube says:

    This is so chilling that something like this could happen here!! Can’t the FBI look into this???? We obviously need to go above the local law enforcment!!

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Jeannie, The agents I have spoken to won’t get back to me and I assume they never researched any of the reports or evidence. Our Republican governor has given over 100 Million of our tax dollars to an Arab Oil Corp to build a Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen Fertilizer plant in Iowa so I assume that is why the IDNR is hiding the on-going polluting and our well tests from Iowan’s. Take the profits and drive the small farmers out and make more profits and install CAFO’s on Aquifer Recharge areas that are called sieves because they have so many sinkholes. Just thousands of acres now a chemical drain.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        No that is $540 million in tax incentives yet the EPA only fined Orascom E and C $80,689 for not having runoff erosion controls for their Stormwater leaving the site. Yet the $1.9 Billion Anhydrous Ammonia fertilizer Plant is still under construction while Point Source Polluting. There is No known way to effectively filter that man-made chemical fertilizer out of our Source Waters so why does Iowa give so much money to an Arab Oil Corp to make it and sell it to farmers who apply it and don’t get legal Drainage Outlet Permits for draining their farms into our drinking water?

  137. Mindy Miller says:

    This is horrible & my heart goes out to you Veronica! Keep up the fight you're an amazing woman!

  138. Heather Klobassa says:

    I have skimmed through this quite fast and will go back tonight and continue this research. Very INTERESTING! And with all the comments about Cancer not being HIGH in Mitchell County is simply… CRAP! Each Team of Doctors that my personal Family, not to mention many friends have spoke with at Mayo each time asks “from Mitchell County” and they all look at us in sorrow and shake their heads. THIS IS A PROBLEM and Mayo knows. It is about time this County comes to grip. TOO many lives lost and battling. I hope this gets resolved for everyone involved and those who choose to ignore. I am saddened how many People had the ability to stand up, announce or report findings that chose to keep things hidden. It creates more questions and lack of trust. GOOD LUCK!
    ~

  139. Wow, we knew Adam, he lived by us in Floyd and yet never knew ANY of this! This is sickening to think this kind of CRAP could happen in IOWA. Please someone who has connections somewhere hold those accountable for their actions! How could emergency persons not respond for that length of time? How could they treat a human being (either dead or alive) in a manner that he was treated? Someone somewhere can get the answers. Please help this family!

  140. Sr. Phyllis Ann Hackman My prayers and Sympathy are with your family. Peace be with all of you.

  141. Veronica Lack says:

    Adam’s actual time of death corresponds closest to the time recorded in Palas Graham’s camera file for his 26th picture at Adam’s accident scene, over eight to eleven hours after the first 911 call. But in that picture after they dislocated Adam’s head, Dr. Haganman was told to write down the time the accident happened as Adam’s time of death so he wrote down the time of the 2nd or third 911 call on the 13th, because they were trying to say Adam’s mashed body was from the accident and that he had been thrown out of his truck and it had rolled on him, yet he is still in the truck with his feet under the dash and the seat belt and the cab of his Dodge Truck.

    The air bag had protected him until the Mitchell County group Adam had testified against showed up about seven hours, after the first 911 call. They refused me, Adam’s mother, the court ordered subpoena for that first 911 call — probably by the people harassing me – the ones Adam chased in that 2004 tannish Chevy Impala — so those two men would not be charged with leaving the scene of an accident or the 911 response team could not be charged with not responding and not giving Adam aide, plus being found guilty of torture and murder.

    I’m Veronica Lack, Adam’s mother, and I’m still waiting for a federal investigation of Adam’s and his Dad’s murders to cover up this illegal draining of about 3000 acres of Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer, Atrazine, high lead, and very high Nitrates, and also bacteria into our aquifer or Source Water for our wells Downstream. Veronica Lack

  142. Adam Lack says:

    Anhydrous Ammonia nitrogen fertilizer is not supposed to be in our ground water or drinking water at all, according to the EPA, and there is no known filter for it. Iowa State U researchers claim this fertilizer can only get into our drinking water by Point Source Polluting, (like Johnson, Urbatsch, Sponheim, and the Brandaus are doing in Cedar (W) Township, Mitchell County, Iowa). So to cover up the on-going pollution the Iowa DNR employees hid this one Woman farmer’s bad well tests from her and claimed to others Downstream that their well tests were fine when they were actually testing very high in Anhydrous Ammonia nitrogen fertilizer and also Nitrates.

    Jeff Sherman, Floyd County Sanitarian, wrote to 20 of the well owners in this Plume, that my Mom, this one woman, was just concerned about a neighbor’s work around a sinkhole. So others’ health suffered and her friend, Ruth died this past year and the Plume spreads Downstream at the rate of 1 to 2 miles a year since the sinkhole was opened by a former Mitchell County engineer digging north of Bradley Johnson’s home.

    Ruth had her new well drilled to a deeper aquifer in 2004 just after Scott Lindley and then my Mom’s new well were drilled and all of the other wells when we did our own nitrate test reports in 2004. But the IDNR went on hiding the Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer test results from my Mom on her new deeper well and the older Nitrate and Bacteria tests. Mom and Ruth and Scott drilled to the same good aquifer in 2004. In the 2007 court case I and my Mom testified that the IDNR 401 and Corps of Engineer’s 404 permits for my Mom’s farm did not allow for adding the huge amounts of farm chemical runoff to the six huge sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland. Yet the group of polluters with NRCS employee Ray Franna and the Mitchell County engineer sent paper work to the Mitchell County Assessor’s Office to downgrade my Mom’s 90.36 CSR value for her 200 acre farm on 4-15-2003 for their planned transitioning of a huge flood channel to drain the thousands of acres that had no legal drainage permit and had been refused 401 and 404 permits in 1991 by the IDNR and Corps of Engineer’s. This was after Bradley Johnson’s 1991 Proposed Ditch Survey, and the other Section 10 farmers had tried to form a Drainage District but were refused a drainage outlet. So they illegally dug out 42 acres of my Mom’s farm to build a huge flood channel that dumps into the Designated National Wetlands huge sinkholes and more will die so those Section 10 Mitchell County Iowa farmers can grow corn and soy beans on their Wetland that still has no legal Drainage Outlet.

    My Mom refused to sign after the fact 401 and 404 permits for those polluters, ever since 1993 when Charlie Heiderscheit had claimed this huge ditch to sinkholes would all be paid for but denied her ECP help because she refused. She has still refused to sign them after they killed me. It was illegal but our government agencies here in Iowa the IDNR and the USDA-NRCS federal agencies claim they don’t understand how the Anhydrous Ammonia levels are increasing and the Nutrient Reduction Strategies only address Non-Point Source Polluting. Point Source Polluting with French Drains, and building ditches to sinkholes are actually being promoted by the USDA-NRCS as my 2005 Evironmental Science Paper was trying to Point out. Veronica Lack

    • Veronica Lack says:

      In May of 2009, Charlie Heiderschiet, brought a IDNR and Corps permit for the Section 10 polluters already dug out chemical drain to the Designated National Wetlands huge sinkholes. He was pressuring my mom to sign them under threats of taking away her right to farm her farm, and of him refusing to sign her Compliance Letter, for all of the Conservation Repairs she had been required to do for her 2008 ECP, and then she would not be even able to sell her farm. She explained and showed Charlie the work she had done. He still refused, so she showed him, the enlarged pictures of the group killing me, Charlie started crying and said he knew them better than my Mom, he said he would sign her Compliance Letter so she could sell her farm and get out.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        I have felt so bad about showing those pictures of my son being killed but there was no way I was going to sign those permits to give a legal drainage permit to the still very illegal on-going chemical drain into our drinking water built for the six to eight sections of farmland in Cedar (W) Township in Mitchell County Iowa. And I was hoping someday the IDNR and the USDA-NRCS would stop this one O]n-Going Point Source Pollution Plume. My family wanted me safe and out of our family farm because of all the vandalism, property damage, and I had to agree to Mark Walk’s threats and sign off on the sale of both my home farm and my husband’s 1/3 share of his family farm at 1/2 their value because when I got those pictures in 2009, Mark Walk, threatened, you know you have 5 other children.

        • Veronica Lack says:

          With my Civil Rights suit, I’m trying to get the State of Iowa to protect and warn the 1/2 million Iowan’s at risk in this one Point Source Pollution Plume.

          And I still want copies of my old well’s test reports and the well test reports for my new well’s Nitrates and Bacteria and Anhydrous Ammonia or Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) tests from 2004 to 2010.

          • In those 26 pictures when they were killing Adam are some of the contractors and farmers and of course Judge Bryan McKinley. He was the Judge in the case Jon Tack and Randy Clark had encouraged me to file or the IDNR could charge me with accepting the channel that the group was harassing me and Adam (and damaging our property) to build. But filing that charge, that I was told to file because my legal Drainage Permit from the Corps of Engineer’s did not allow me to add even 10 acres of drainage to the Designated National Wetlands Sinkholes. This turned the anger of those farmers and contractors, that the IDNR had refused a Permit for a Legal Drainage Outlet, onto me and Adam.

            Some of those in the pictures could be the contractor that almost killed my youngest son in 1998 (he only got 5 years probation for it). Smith would brag about his clubbing Adam’s brother to taunt Adam after Brad Johnson had set up those false charges of assault against Adam. But Adam’s asthma was so much worse from the fumes coming out of our shower, because of the IDNR’s Dale Adams telling the Section 10 farmers to dump extra Bleach down to make up for their manure run-off. Bleach or Chlorine and Ammonia Nitrogen as N don’t mix well in this Plume. Adam could not risk being put in jail again as they had taken away his inhaler when he was arrested twice on Brad Johnson’s false charges.

            The reason they won’t give some of the names of the people at the scene in answer to court ordered supeonas was because it may include Ray Frana, Heath Smith, Judge Bryan McKinley, and others that were harassing us because the Corps of Engineer’s and the IDNR had refused those farmers and contractors like Mayer’s Digging and Popp’s Excavating which was the company Smith worked for then. Adam and I had found Popp marker flags along the edges of the area on my farm dug away while Adam was at the U of Iowa taking courses and when Adam had written the paper they waved in court in 2007. I think the FBI has facial recognition software.

            Veronica Lack

  143. Gabi Meninas says:

    The 22nd picture of Adam still trapped, taken by highway patrolman Palas Graham at about 11:45am on 7-13-2008 according to the recorded file his camera made. Adam was still alive but the group he had testified against didn't give him a chance, after refusing him aide and making Adam wait for help since his first accident 911 call at just before Midnight on the 12th.

  144. Iowa Cold Cases you are most welcome…this a.m. I spent with Ronnie and her cousin and my friend, Phillip Lack…what a lovely way to spend an a.m.!!! She mentioned this was happening…i was only too glad to mention it to you. Thanks for jumping on this so quickly.

  145. Gabi Meninas says:

    Corey Alden, the Des Moines WaterWorks is suing over similar Point Source Polluting by three counties' Drainage Districts along the Raccoon River. The CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer levels are causing issues across Iowa but so far none, I know of, as bad as in the Upper two Cedar Valley Group Aquifers down to about 300 foot deep in this particular Plume. If you know of people especially children drinking water Downstream from Bradley Johnson, Dean Sponheim, James Urbatsch and Max and William Brandau, ask them or their parents to have their wells tested for both Anhydrous Ammonia and Nitrates. Veronica

  146. Gabi Meninas says:

    Kevin Crowe, Did you get my emailed question last year about why the first 911 call to report Adam's accident at about midnight on July 12, 2008 and a copy of its tape was denied in response to the court ordered subpeonas? Adam was left trapped for about 8 hours before some of the group he had testified in court against arrived and later killed him. Veronica Lack

  147. Corey Alden says:

    I agree with the OP. This article has stink all over it. Mitchell County isn't the only place with high incidence rates of cancer. It can be argued that much of the cancer in North Iowa can be attributed to the pockets of strontium-90 and iodine-131 fallout from the Nevada tests.

    • sarah says:

      well, corey, if you are aware of that factoid, then why discredit the truth of the Lack feature?
      commit to help or get off the page.

  148. Corey Alden says:

    This article along with the posters are nothing but a joke. You all are conspiracy theorists at best and are just embarrassing yourselves. Not saying pollution doesn't happen, but to try to pin his murder on landowners and county/state officials is just ludicrous. Shame on you all.

    • sarah says:

      paid by those who are guilty to discredit the truth of this matter.
      any comment by corey alden, if he’s real, needs to be ignored.

  149. Gabi Meninas says:

    Iowan's drinking either well water or treated surface water Downstream from the huge chemical drain built illegally through Dean Kleckner's farm into mine in 2003 should be testing for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) as it is testing at the highest levels I have ever seen (1.0 through 12.0 Downstream from this on-going known point source pollution Plume).

    The Iowa DNR continued to withhold this specific tests' results from me for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer. The EPA says one should do both a test for Nitrates and the Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) tests and add the test results. If the total of the two tests is over 10 it is not safe to drink according to the EPA. Our Nitrate test results that were withheld until about October of 2009 after Adam was killed ranged from the lowest in the mid 40's in 1993 to 78 to 95ppml in 2004. If one was to add those two test results in our well test total of the two tests was definitely the cause of our health effects. We could not taste the nitrogen fertilizer and our three filter systems only lowered the Nitrate test from 95 down to 78 in 2004. Veronica Lack commenting on Adam's old facebook page we keep open to keep in touch with his friends, I'm Adam's Mom in the photo he is down front and center, up until he was killed at age 33, he was urging me to get the copies of our well tests that the IDNR refused to give us, covering up this known pollution Plume from Mitchell County Iowa Section 10 and surrounding Sections in Cedar (W) Township just north of Rudd/Nora Springs in Iowa. In 2010 I had a Sierra Club attorney apply for them and the test results were horrifying as there is no filtration system I had that could have made our water anywhere close to safe. Veronica Lack

    • Veronica Lack says:

      A well just Downstream from my new well tested even higher for Anhydrous Ammonia fertilizer. It was the well shared by Mr. and Mrs. Lavern Olsen and Mark Gast and his family which tested at 12.2 for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) or Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer it could cause scaring to eyes, skin rashes, loss of hair, throat erosions, and burned the linings of colons at this and lower levels. The EPA says its just not supposed to be in our water at all, and claim it can only get in by Point Source Polluting. Veronica Lack

      • lackfarm1 says:

        When Bill Groskurs and James Hyde were Mitchell County Engineer’s there was a huge map up on the wall in the Engineer’s Office of Mitchell County where they had magic markered where farmers were wanting channels to drain wetlands. In the areas into Cedar (W) Township of those big 320+ foot wide magic marker lines there were huge sinkholes in that Aquifer Recharge Area and the Corps of Engineer’s Office refused an outlet to the Designated National Wetlands for draining thousands of acres of farm chemical run-off down those sinkholes. After Bradley Johnson had gotten NRCS to do a 1991 survey across Dean Kleckner’s farm and into the Norby farm which was later mine, that refusal later infuriated the farmers in Mitchell County with no legal drainage outlets when in 1995 after doing a lot of conservation repairs at my own cost I was given a very limited legal drainage outlet for part of my farm’s 200 acres to the Designated National Wetland, but I could not add more than 10 acres of drainage than had already naturally drained to the Designated National Wetland and had to maintain the grade of the Designated National Wetland and keep it grassed. And couldn’t add more acres of drainage than had previously drained to the Designated National Wetland sinkholes on the James Urbatsch, Merle Johnson, older Christiansen/now Martin and others who owned land in the Designated National Wetland with huge sinkholes. At that time there were no sinkholes on my farm until after the group dug through my and Dean Kleckner’s fenceline on 4/15/2003. I had to charge Dean Kleckner and Mayer’s Digging Company with trespass and removal of fence and my topsoil. That same day the Mitchell County Assessor’s Office had gotten a copy of the part of that magic markered map from the NRCS Office to downgrade the CSR value for about 40+ acres of my farm for a new drainageway. I was not told of this and when Dean Kleckner the former Head of the Farm Bureau showed up in a Osage Police Car the next morning on the 16th of April 2003, he agreed in the Disposition of my Trespass Charge to put all of our soil back and to rebuild our joint fenceline to the prior grade at least 4 foot up from the Echo Avenue Box Culvert floor. Even though we trusted Dean Kleckner the work wasn’t completed properly by Mayer’s Digging Company.

        In the later part of 2004 after two floods carrying Farm run-off to the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland came through the new spout dug across Dean Kleckner/now William Brandau farm. Dean Lines had mapped out the mile long erosion and feet deep erosion soil loss and a ripped out sinkhole under the floor of the cement double Box Culvert on 325th Street. I had to spend well over $60,000 in Conservation repairs to try to stay in compliance with my Corps of Engineer’s very limited Drainage Agreement.

        Then the IDNR charged me with “Blockage of Water” for the polluters new channel which I could not give an easement for on my farm. When I asked David Allen, IDNR to come out to investigate, he said I could be charged with the on-going flood damage and pollution of the aquifers the sinkholes fed if I didn’t sue the group that had dug into my farm since the IDNR had no enforcement funds.

        So I filed suit at the beginning of 2005, but the first good attorney, Bradley Price, set the case up according to the former IDNR drainage attorney James Hudson’s guidance, but the two groups of attorneys paid out of the L and P insurance both used by me and William Brandau and Mayer’s Digging Company maintained I had hurt their clients drainage by not allowing more drainage to the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland. And they claimed I had hurt their drainage by closing the sinkholes their new flood channel force opened on my farm in 2004 and 2006. Bradley Price had to back out because he did work in the past for that big insurance company, and he handed my case over to another firm, Yunek and Isacson, those partners got into a disagreement and Isacson got kicked out of out of Yunek’s Office and my case files got stored across the street in the Esser Law firms basement and Issacson committed himself to the 5th Floor of Mercy Hospital for treatment. I couldn’t get ahold of my attorney as Yunek refused to take over Isacson’s cases and I did not know where my files were at that time.

        I filed a request for delay of court date to be able to get another attorney and when it got to court my Request for time to get another attorney was sent by the court and Isacson signed it and submitted my Request that he had failed to do, so I could hire another attorney.

        The last attorney that I paid the most of $47,000 in attorney fees to was Thomas Lipps of Algona, he had finally started to understand what I was up against as when he was asking for the last $2,500 at the last day of the 4 day trial he said this group of Good Old Boys, (meaning Judge McKinley and the farmers and contractors and their two teams of insurance company attorneys in court that set over to the right) would not allow any compensation to me so he needed his last costs up front. I paid and paid another over two thousand for the transcription of those 4 days of that kangaroo court proceedings giving up our Right to Clean Safe Drinking water for the well owners in parts of Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and Black Hawk Counties, Adam’s testimony was clearer and better than mine so the group spit on him and me as we left that last day saying, “you proved the channel wasn’t there before, but we are going to get it Grand-Fathered in as time passes. Judge McKinley had addressed the jury to make sure if you answered Thomas Lipp’s ten questions a certain way and they could all go home and have their Picnics and celebrate for the Fourth.

        My and others property taxes were raised to cover the increased flood damages for Cedar (W) Townships channelling flood water over roads and taking out some culverts and bridges, and farmers and homeowners downstream have to pay the increased damages and loss of income and health from the on-going increased channeling of Mitchell County Flood channels built to drain farm run-off down into our aquifers. This one Plume affects the health of half a million Iowans and their animals Downstream from this particular Karst Limestone Aquifer Recharge Area of Huge Sinkholes.

        The IDNR attorneys John Tack and Randy Clark had refused my request for help in filing the suit against the polluters after David Allen
        had said I needed to file it. When I lost or the Big Insurance Companies were off the hook for having to pay for any of my 1/2 Mil Damage to my farm or any of the damages to the roads and bridges continuing to be damaged by this illegal Mitchell County Drainageway, I paid for the Court Costs and Transcript of that 2007 trial to have a record along with the Depositions that prove the farmers like James Ursbatch whose testimony proves he knew they needed to get a 401 permit from the IDNR and a 404 Permit from the Corps of Engineer’s Office and a Environmental Impact Study done by NRCS before they could enter a Designated National Wetland and Dig a New channel that the Corps of Engineer’s had already denied them a Drainage Outlet for in about 1991.

        So now the pollution Plume from Cedar (W) Township has spread taking out one of the City of Waterloo’s wells in October of 2015, because of the high Nitrogen Fertilizers, more lives are affected as Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer draws Lead and Arsenic into our groundwater according to Russ Tell at the IDNR.

        • Gary Eggers says:

          IOWA’S DNR YOU CAN’T TRUST THEM. PERIOD. I called them to come out investigate the 3 foot high hog shit dumped in my fields by magistrate’s husband at the time. Now she’s a district judge, DeDra Schroeder. She calls county attorney and they file phony charges on me – $6,000 Cash Bond. Then they steal the $6000.00 money posted. About time to pool money and hire these CRIMINALS taken out. My Past Sick of All these Crooks. They Own The Courts. They Stack the Jury’s in Their Favor. How you Ask. They Type Cast Selections. They Pretty much know How to Make Most People on a Jury Vote. Everything is Calculated. Hand picked Juries. They Know how Most People Think. Church you go to. I’ve Spent $30,000 Fighting these Empowered Assholes.

          I feel Sorry for You. Not Worth owning Land in Iowa anymore. You Have no Rights here unless the Good old boys Say So. Well there’s other ways of dealing with these Good old Boys. About time they All Move or GO to Jail! Guy that Ruined your Land Should have Been put into Jail for ILLEGAL Trespassing. BUT HERE IN IOWA YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THAT IF YOU’RE RICH FARMERS AND KNOW POLICE AND COUNTY ATTORNEY MARK WALK. HIS DAYS ARE COMING I CAN ASSURE YOU. HE IS A CRIMINAL THAT NEEDS TO BE LOCKED UP. We have filed complaints. You can file complaints with the Ombudsman Office too. Written complaints only. GOOD LUCK.

          I filed a complaint with the DNR – then the problems started for me. POISONED WELL. I believe MR. LACK was poisoned by KELLY ROSS, same doctor that’s poisoned me with bad drug combinations. Prescribed LISINOPRAL that took my legs out then gives me INDOMETHACIN – take aspirin for the pain. I complained says keep taking meds. I did drove myself up to ER in AUSTIN, MN. THEY SAVED MY LIFE. I should have been dead. Dr. Ross gave me a cocktail of drugs that should have killed me.

          If you put everything together these empowered assholes of Mitchell County are as crooked as can be. Russell Hintz warned me there are powers that be in Mitchell County, that I need to stop complaining about pollution. I was surprised. I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. We need to file a big lawsuit for wrong doings by Mitchell County and State of Iowa in Federal Court. Understand the Ricco Act, we can all file a class action lawsuit. They are jury tampering – it’s why you lost in court. Just something to think about. They have destroyed my life. I can’t tell you.

          • Gary and LuAnn,
            It took me years to get a Letter of Right to Sue the State of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and then it took me almost two more years to find and hire an attorney to represent me. So now I’m concentrating on getting this suit addressed and if I am still able to financially and healthy enough I will join you and others who have been damaged by Mitchell County’s illegal Point Source Pollution Plumes. Count me in. Veronica

  150. Gabi Meninas says:

    Kevin Crowe,

    Please look up the 911 calls both under Michael Adam Lack and Adam Michael Lack as I was able to get some information about the first 911 call off the North Central Iowa AM-1300 KGLO or http://www.kribnews.com web site on 2/19/2013. The date was 7-12-2008 when Adam came home after working horrible hours at Poet, he had gone to check something and saw that Chevy Impala sitting in the front east side of my farm's home U shaped driveway. It was about 11:30 pm and he took off after it, as someone slammed the passenger door and took off. That was the last time I saw him alive as he drove after them under my yard light. He had chased the vandals before and I sat back down to wait. The first 911 call came in just before Midnight according to Palas Graham, probably by one of the two he was chasing, but as usual no help or aid was given us and the polluting vandals did not even call me just the Mitchell County 911 Response system. Years later after being denied even answers to supeonas for that first 911 call, in order to protect the vandals Adam had chased, and who left Adam trapped for about 7 hours, others called Adam's accident in to 911 on 7-13-2008. Later supeonas for one of the later calls were answered. But not the first, second, or third or forth and a Chevy Impala like the one Adam chased set at the Mitchell County Sheriff's Office after Adam's later being killed and his being killed was not even investigated and I was even denied his autopsy report and his Poet Bio-Refinery Exposure Patch that he is wearing in the pictures.

    Kevin I know its too late to help Adam but those pictures haunt me and I've been advised by my Mayo Clinic counselors to try to warn of the on-going pollution Plume that caused my family's and our Downstream neighbor's health issues and what had prompted Adam's checking into if the Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer in our well water was also why Poet's bio-digester enzymes were not able to successfully produce ethanol from switch grass or corn stover because of high levels of Anhydrous Ammonia in the water not only affecting us but also those bio-digesting enzymes. Before noon on 7/13/2008 Deputy Hintz showed up and told me Adam was dead, it was just a Big Mistake, A Big Mistake he said looking down at his shoes, and I begged him to investigate. (I told him about Adam chasing the Chevy Impala, and he refused, saying, it wasn't the "Mean One"! I asked where Adam was and he just repeated Adam was dead and I should call the Rock Creek ladies to help with the funeral). I have not been able to get a copy of the sheriff or deputy Hintz's reports or of their refusal to help me as they left me alone in shock.

    Hintz knew we were Catholic and did not attend the Rock Creek church since they had had my husband Gary cremated even before he was seen by a doctor and I had not given prior permission and I was chewed out by our priest in front of Adam and Tom Bucheit at the Champion funeral home. When the priest asked how much of Gary's estate was I going to give to the Catholic Church to make up for having him cremated before the funeral, Tom Bucheit showed Father the papers Tom was trying to get me to sign to approve the after the fact cremation of Gary. Father went on saying don't you know you could just rent a coffin if you don't want to spend the money for a decent burial. I broke down crying thinking how I was going to have to explain to his grandchildren how my loving husband was in a little box of ashes. Now after the sheriff and county attorney Mark Walk would not investigate Gary's murder admitted to by Nurse Linda in the Board of Nursing investigation and the Medicare investigation's and 25 pages of citations and now they were refusing to investigate Adam's death….

    Please help me get all of the information you can, I heard their was a big shake up that changed the group that was in control of the Mitchell County 911 system and fire department after Adam's being murdered. And I believe you were not part of it and that most of the regular employees are good people. But the power held by Judge McKinley and some of the people in the pictures as Adam was killed takes control even of good people. Veronica Lack

    • Veronica Lack says:

      When Deputy Hintz said, “it wasn’t the Mean One”, I thought he was referring to other than Brody Mitchell, the Mean One – Bradley Johnson that I had filed complaints at the Sheriff’s Office, or other than Gary Venz who Adam had given information to the Nora Springs cops in the investigation of Gary Venz’s wife’s suspicious death.

      Adam had chased Brody out of my farm field where he had been spinning and damaging seeding but Brad was the most damaging. The car Adam chased on the evening of 7/12/2008 before he was killed the next day looked like Brody Mitchell’s Chevy Impala. Deputy Hintz, refused to investigate, and the Mitchell County authorities and the Mitchell County Liability Attorney Rourick in St Ansgar refused to answer the Court ordered subpoenas for the first 911 call before midnight when Adam’s accident was first called in on 7/12/2008 by probably the two in the car Adam was chasing…

      Mitchell County authorities still refuse to answer Adam’s probate attorney’s Floyd County court ordered subpoenas for even Adam’s autopsy report that ING Adam’s Life Insurance Company had first requested.

  151. Gabi Meninas says:

    Sarah, it's worse Downstream in Floyd County and along the West side of the Cedar River as the Aquifers that carry the deadly Plume from the Mitchell County's Cedar (W) Township On-Going pollution that the USDA-NRCS's Ray Frana helped the Cedar (W) Township farmers dig through my farm illegally taking 42 acres of my soils to dig an drain flood water from Section 10's huge swale down a line of sinkholes carries Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO fertilizer and other chemicals like Atrazine and the lead from batteries dumped down a sinkhole to fix me after I first complained in 1993 about Bradley Johnson's sinkhole north of his house taking all the flood water and manure off those two feedlots. Test your water for Anhydrous Ammonia and Nitrates and add the two test results in Des Moines those test results are not to total over 10. Veronica Lack

  152. people…drive around this coming spring and watch the water runoffs coming off the fields…last year i reported a bright yellow color and immense amounts of frothing in the east ditch on primrose ave, less than a mile from the 9…i was assured it was a farmer testing his 'tiles'…well…have you seen the new drain field and concrete wall in the same ditch? AND…the burr oak creek behind my folks place had RED MULCH-LIKE material in the bed of the stream…called about that too. i've walked that river for decades and NEVER seen it with red shit on the bottom of the river. some woman from DNR called me back assuring me that it was normal and natural…i don't believe them anymore. not with that hog confinement upstream.

  153. let me tell you a little somethin' somethin'…when i was sick in saudi arabia in the 90's, i mentioned i was from mitchell co. iowa. the drs there…IN SAUDI ARABIA…sat up and took notice and started running tests!!!! now, if THEY are aware of our high cancer rates…don't you think YOU should be aware of your high cancer rates? GTS…and get your information and research in order. for you or anyone to deny this woman her reality is nothing less than arrogance on your part. karma, in the form of cancer, is never far off…just ask ANYONE from mitchell co. who's fighting it now.
    and Laura Meirick Wynohrad…you call yourself a 'health worker'?

  154. ray, how DARE you deny her the reality she KNOWS…LIVED THROUGH…YOU KNOW of the pollution in our rivers, streams and our groundwater system. anybody with a NOSE can tell the smell of SHIT before they get near it! there are MILLIONS OF US OUT THERE NOW, RAY…MILLIONS…who know the smell of SHIT when we smell it…and your post stinks to high heaven! if you are an instructor at iowa western cc…you really need to take a class in spelling, or at least use spell check…alas, men like you think they know everything…even how to spell. lying isn't your forte either. none of us millions believe you or monsanto's shit any more.

  155. Gabi Meninas i am so sorry…how does anyone live with such a knowledge?

  156. Gabi Meninas says:

    The first 911 call was just before midnight on the 12th of July 2008, Adam was caught and had to wait about 7 hours for the group to come and take another two hours to kill him. Check the accident reports that were filed at the state offices. It wasn't just 45 minutes that he had to wait. Adam's Mom, Veronica Lack

  157. Gabi Meninas says:

    Thanks Brandee, I think Laura is referring to my step-daughter, who I helped with child support after her Dad, my husband, was disabled. Gary tried to be as good a Dad as he was able, the costs of our multiple cancers and other health conditions limited our being able to afford college costs for our six children. The two step children were the only of our children who complained about my costly fighting of the pollution channel being dug through our home farm, they claimed I was pouring their inheritance down a sinkhole. I just didn't want others to suffer as we had. Veronica Lack

  158. Gabi Meninas says:

    Ray Franna,
    Bradley Johnson testified under oath in the 2007 trial about the illegal transitioning of the illegal Flood Channel through my farm that he said you had done a survey for, on my farm. This illegal Flood Channel that I could not give an outlet for, continues to pollute more wells and more lives of Iowan's and their animals are endangered Downstream. The only drainage permit for my former Cedar (W) Township Section 11 Mitchell County farm was my very limited 1995 Corps of Engineer's Agreement for Drainage recorded on the Abstract for that farm. Yet you Ray helped plan the illegal Transitioning of that Chemical Flood Drain down a line of sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland that the Corps of Engineer's had refused a permit for Jim Urbatsch, Dean Sponheim, and Bradley Johnson or Section 10 farmers in the early 1990's. You could at least warn Floyd, Butler, and Bremer County residents since Ruth Morische lost her fight this last summer. The high Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers, Lead, Atrazine, when treated with Chlorine cause deadly disinfection byproducts. Tell the truth, Ray. Veronica Lack

  159. Lu Eggers You are right…. why? and Raymond Frana WHY did he have dirt in his stomach, a crushed arm, skin scrapped off his face and a large HOLE in the top of his head? At the time of the accident he was pinned in the truck with the air bag deployed AND wearing his seat belt…. Now you tell me he wasnt murdered…

  160. This is NOT TRUE! Veronica Lack unfortunately does not know what she is talking about. While I worked at NRCS, I was involved in several and I mean several conversations with Ms. Lack about the pollution discussed in the article. There are producers that do pollute the environment however none of her neighbors do. Dale Adams has retired from the DNR however he was not someone that would say "You don’t want to take this test. You will get your neighbors in trouble.” He is not that kind of person. The fact is Ms Lack is not willing to accept the deaths of her husband and son. In my opinion Veronica is blaming anything she can to make since of her losses. Her son was in an accident and unfortunately passed away. NO ONE WAS CONSPIRING TO KILL HIM in fact all the people Veronica blames for her family members deaths were deeply saddened for her loss. The author of this article should be ashamed with them self for writing such crap. Veronica I truly pray you find peace in your hart, life and move on.

    • Gary Eggers says:

      Dale lied to me about water tests.Safety he says. I took same water to Mn. Cause I had heard stories. My Suspicion was Right Can t trust. CERTAIN Iowa Workers.

  161. Laura, I think you had better re-read the article, because your mini rant has incorrect statements and facts, and while your at it, your own stated website for cancer rates. Mitchell County is surround on all sides but those in the deep orange and in the red. You don't think that 378 reported cases of Cancer in 4 years is high? That is one in every 150 people. That means in any given elementary school, 1 to 2 children will have cancer PER GRADE LEVEL. That doesn't bother you? It's not enough? How about the fact that 2 people in the same household developed 3-4 combined types of cancers…you don't think that odd at all? The article listed Nora Springs as where Adam operated a business as well as grew up, as he did in Rockford before moving out west as a freshman in high school. If you had paid attention to the article, you would have noticed that all incidences occurred AFTER the Lack children had grown and Veronica and Gary moved back to a family farm. After Gary's passing, Adam moved back in with his mother so she would not be alone and to help her with the physical and legal battles her farm ownership entailed. I HAVE actually taken the time to read Adam's Voice as well as the environmental reports, and I grew up in Floyd. I worked for Adam when he ran the Floyd Y, and if you knew him, he was not the type of person to talk just to hear his own voice. He only EVER spoke if he had something important to say but otherwise was quiet. Rarely did the haunted look leave his eyes. The family photo captions do not state that all those in the photos are her children except the one, one is of her 6 kids, and the other is missing one of her children, but the other "girl" you know could have been a significant other of one of the children – ask your friend. Again, if you had bothered to read the article and the photo captions, perhaps you would actually comprehend the statements being made. I hope you don't carry over this lack of attention to detail to your professional life. I also know some of the persons named in the reports on a personal level. It's very disheartening and caught me completely by surprise.

    • sarah says:

      SHIT…GO UP TO THE MAYO CLINIC AND GAZE UPON THE MAP ON THE WALL THEY HAVE THERE.
      Mitchell Co. IOWA has the highest cancer rate in the NATION.
      IT’S ALSO, THE WHITEST COUNTY IN THIS NATION…there’s a statistic that all of us need to be even more aware of!
      Truth to power…speak it.

      • Gary Eggers says:

        I’ve seen that Map Mentioned When I was at the Mayo Clinic. They keep track of all cancer reported.where person lives. NORTH IOWA EXTREMELY HIGH RATE. Bad Farming Practice. WAY TOO MANY HOG FARMS. WHERE’S ALL THAT MANURE GOING?? THE SUN DOESN’T DESTROY IT. IT RAINS SEPARATES
        CHEMICALS IN FIELDS IT ALL FILTERS DOWN THROUGH GROUND OR RUNS OFF INTO RIVERS LAKES STREAMS. POISONS IN THE CROPS WE EAT. INTO ARTISAN WELLS UNDER GROUND STREAMS. HOW STUPID CAN SOME PEOPLE BE? WHEREADER DO YOU THINK ALL THAT HOG MANURE GOES?? I’M FROM MN. ORIGINALLY HELP MY GRANDPA AND UNCLE FARM 1,000 ACRES.THE CRAP FARMERS ARE PULLING IN NORTH IOWA IS BAD FARMING NO T GOOD FARMING NO RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE. THEY ARE WILLING TO KILL PEOPLE AND POSIONED THEM TO HAVE THEIR WAY. GREEDY FARMERS PAY ATTENTION OR DIE FROM CANCER BEFORE YOU TURN 60. OH I’VE GOT A RARE FORM OF LUNG CANCER SO YEAH I DO KNOW. MY LUNGS ARE FULL.DO THEY GOT ME. BLAME IT ON THE RAIN.IT’S GOD’S WATER!! QUOTE FROM EUGENE MERTENS IN COURT. HE TRIED TO DO A LAND GRAB ON US TOO.

  162. I don't buy it. First of all, Mitchell Co does NOT have a high incidence of cancer – check the facts at https://www.cancer-rates.info/ia/index.php
    Second, I know one of the girls in the "family photo", she may be related to the family, but Veronica is not her mother. Just saying that if some of the facts are not right… you can't believe the article. I also find it funny that I have lived in the area nearly my entire life, including when this accident happened, and I didn't hear a word about it. That seems pretty odd to me. PS – Nora Springs and Rockford aren't even in Mitchell County!!!! Looks like he never even lived in Mitchell County…….Something smells funny here……

    • sarah says:

      mousey used to tell me “the fox smells his own hole first”…if you think something smells funny here, youuuuuuuuuu might be smelling your own shit!
      who paid you to write this drivel?
      anyone with a BRAIN knows the powers that ‘be’, whether small town thugs or huge corporate conglomerates, pay people to discredit those who speak, write or sing the truth!
      it’s called truth to power, bitch!
      get some!

      or, you walk in the shoes of Ronnie Lack for ONE GODDAMNED HORRIBLE DAY, and remember how your son fought for the clean water we are all supposed to have the right to, but these farmers around here instead are given, by the governor who’s ruled by money, preference over the rest of us!
      we are (what dick cheney called the first 3000 people killed in the WTC disaster/inside job, leading up to his bombing raids through the afghanistan mts for oil pipelines to be laid, using our Air Force,) “collateral damage”.

      THERE’S A CONSPIRACY THEORY FOR YOU…and funny, how it’s NOT!

    • Heather says:

      Laura, go up to Mayo. They have a map. Tell them you are from Mitchell County. After a blank stare and a sigh it will change your mind. . An eye opener!

  163. Gabi Meninas says:

    This is my son's old facebook page that he opened on my email address and which he used to visit with some of his friends and played Farmville before he was killed. We changed the name after a niece took over tending his farm, and we kept in touch with some of Adam's friends. Thanks, his Mom Veronica Lack

  164. Veronica Lack says:

    Palas Graham, the young highway patrolman, that was called by Deputy Hintz or Sheriff Younker had finally showed up the next day to supposedly help Adam and was to investigate. So it took him about another hour to get there. When he showed up he was at first I think, told Adam was dead. But Adam wasn’t as his breathilizer result later proved and then Palas walked down the road to take pictures to document where Adam had tried to control his Dodge truck but had over-corrected. Palas was the first person to mention that first 911 call to me and several years later I connected on a local internet news to a mention of that same first 911 call at about midnight of the 12th of July but as Michael Adam Lack of Nora Springs IA and my supeona for that 911 Call information still has been denied as Dr. Haganman who is in the pictures Palas later took of Adam still trapped, wrote on the death certificate that Adam’s death was due the dislocation of his C2 fracture and that Adam had died at 0650 or about 7 hours after Palas Graham had said his accident happened. Adam doesn’t yet have his neck dislocated and other injuries that were written on the accident report and his blood isn’t sprayed all over in the cab of his truck yet in Palas’ pictures. Adam’s vertebra was sitting over on his right collar bone when I got to finally see him the evening of the 13th of July. That kind of injury would have been a quick death. But the injuries he suffered after Palas’ pictures later before they dislocated his neck is what any mother would have a hard time understanding. Why did they not secure the engine and protect Adam? The motor mounts had broke and that is what had trapped Adam the contractors that use heavy equipment and know you couldn’t control the truck on one chain put up braces so it’s weight and that of the rest of the truck could only tip or drop on Adam and then they proceeded as the pictures show to tip the truck up and down repeatedly crushing Adam as he tried to pull himself out the window even though the engine was smashing his legs.

    And these pictures were given to me after I refused to sign off on the 1/3 share of the Mildred\Harold Lack farm that I had inherited from my husband Gary Lack. Mark Walk had taken me to court because I refused to sign off on that sale of the family farm Adam and I had been trying to get financing for. Mark Walk had promised that farm to two buyers without asking me. No attorney in the Area would stand up against him in the courtroom so I had to appear alone. And later when they were putting pressure to sell to members of the group that wanted to drain their Wetland through my home and my other 200 acre farm, Mark told me, “You know you have 5 other children.” just after I was able to get those pictures that still haunt me.

    I want a federal investigation not a local or even state since it is our state and local governments covering up and allowing the on-going Point Source Polluters to continue to make a lot of money at the expense of the health and lives of people and their livelihoods Downstream. Read Adam’s Environmental Science Paper. We need the strict enforcement of Iowa’s Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act to stop Point Source Polluting of our drinking water.

  165. Carol Pike …as in carol kelly pike from austin?

  166. Carol Pike says:

    I think this is the Sarah Elliott I knew back then. Did she beat the cancer?

  167. Veronica Lack says:

    As Adam’s Mom and Probate Administrator, I attended 4 hearings to get Adam’s death investigated and the first of those hearings was in December of 2010 and Judge Bryan McKinley failed to Recuse himself and lied in that hearing about the lenght of his time at the scene, after admitting when he had arrived, and lied about his involvement at least to his being out in the field where Adam was trapped. And claimed Adam had tested positive for alcohol so that Adam’s life insurance wouldn’t get paid. But refused to answer my 28 questions about the people in the 26 pictures (including him). Copies of those 4 hearings transcripts are in the Floyd County Courthouse the 3rd Hearing in 2011 is where I entered the evidence and the 26 pictures as evidence, along with my notes, Adam’s Evironmental Science Paper, and the 28 questions I was not able to get answers for his siblings. ING Adam’s Life Insurance, was not going to pay the claim as they wanted Adam’s autopsy report. The Mitchell County authorities had been trying to say Adam was drinking, but had refused to give me his autopsy report or his breathilizer, or x-rays or blood work. So I signed an agreement with ING for them to get the refused information, as they were going to close the insurance claim. In 2 weeks part of the information was delivered by ING along with a big check. But ING was not able to get a copy of the autopsy report just the blood work and x-ray reports that proved Adam was not drinking and what caused Adam’s death.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      The correct date for the hearing above, where Judge Bryan H. McKinley, refused to recuse himself, was November 29, 2010, in the Floyd County Courthouse. The transcript of that hearing I received a copy of after I paid the transcription fees. Veronica Lack

  168. ron sundermann says:

    It’s distressing to hear stories of deep corruption and intimidation spewing out of our beautiful state.. If local authorities up there in Mitchell county won’t do their jobs, can’t Iowa state law enforcement do anything?

    • Veronica Lack says:

      When Adam was killed it was 2008 the year of the last big market crash, my appeals to the Mitchell County Deputy and Sheriff went unanswered and my Request to Prosecute also. OSHA refused to even take my complaint against Poet as they claimed a charge against Poet might cripple Iowa’s weak economy, since they claimed ethanol production was Iowa’s only hope of bringing Iowa’s economy out of the hole. I asked about the others exposed to high levels of ethanol fumes in “hot ferms” was OSHA at least going to make sure they were taken to a hospital? And the OSHA employee mentioned that Iowa was a “Right to Work State”. Later in Cedar Rapids I think a different plant did get about 13 employees to the hospital after an exposure not as bad as Adam’s repeated ones.
      My Civil Rights charge against the State of Iowa and the Iowa DNR has already been costly to file, but the charge the IDNR said I should file against the polluters in Mitchell County at the end of 2004 cost me $47,000.00 in lawyer fees and my son’s life for his testimony against the polluters who used the government agencies against us.. I lost with Judge McKinley sustaining my Corps of Engineers Agreement and all of my and the USDA FSA and NRCS records of my farm and it’s on-going damages. While the Polluters waved the NRCS Proposed Ditch Surveys in court along with Adam’s paper that is on this site and the polluters’ teams of attorneys put USDA aerial photos up on the overhead projector that showed the damaged and dug out mile long area in 2005 after I had filed that suit to stop the on-going pollution or the IDNR had said it would charge me for accepting this huge flood channel to sinkholes. And this was after the IDNR had charged me with Blockage of Water because I had refused to have this flood channel to sinkholes dug through my farm by the polluters.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Ron, Unfortunately that very fact of turning a deaf ear to the corruption and intimidation and cover-up of this one Point Source Pollution Plume has allowed the greedy interests of non-sustainable farmers and local USDA employees to outlet their farm drainage down into our aquifers or our drinking water. Even the NRCS agents in Bremer County were encouraging farmers to install French Drains to drain swale areas on their farms. Now Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers are testing positive in our drinking water across Iowa.

      We only have to look at our lakes, ponds and rivers to see the green slime that feeds on it. But what has our Republican Governor done, Branstad has taken lots of money from the big Oil interests for his re-election campaign. The Big Oil Corps behind this promotion of Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer influenced our Governor to give about $110,000,000.00 of our Iowa tax dollars to an Arab Oil Corp to build an Anhydrous Ammonia fertilizer plant in our state. Now the effort is to hide the recorded well tests for Ammonia Nitrogen as (N) so Iowans can’t find out until its too late like on my well.

      The first cancers in adults were hormone feeding tumors, then later colon cancers and most spread to the livers. My stage 4 cancer did not spread to the liver and Mayo Clinic’s care got both my husband’s and my first cancers in remission, but Gary’s colon cancer did spread to his liver like others Downstream in the plume, so now I’m in a research study at Mayo to see if drinking coffee helped protect my liver from my cancer. I went to a seminar to listen to Des Moines Bill Stowe speak about the Water Issues. Afterwards I waited in line to ask him about this ever increasing pollution and if there was a feasible filter for Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and told him about our well tests. His big multi-million dollar nitrate scrubbers remind me of our old percolator coffee pots. He claimed it was the next (after Nitrates) biggest threat to Iowa’s Water Quality. It already had been in 1993 when I first complained but the IDNR had withheld my well tests, so I couldn’t know all of the filter systems I had installed could not protect my family, pets, or farm animals. Veronica

  169. Tamara S. Schuttler says:

    I am a EMT and this was very hard for me to read I can’t believe some people just leaving someone sit there injured. I am so sorry for what happened to your son. But as EMT side of it if they weren’t call right away there is little us EMT’s can do we are very limited to the stuff we can do and its very hard on us also we don’t forget those things so whoever was on the rescue does remember everything they saw and did I have had a few bad calls and I have NEVER forgotten them. small town places are almost getting as bad as a big city, My prayers are with you that you can find closure and get all the answers you need and I also believe the law enforcement is not set up the right way I have a lot of different issues on things and its not only Mitchell county its all counties I know that don’t make you feel any better but very proud of you for putting this out in the open and I plan on sharing this story also it needs to get out to the public even if its been some years stand up for what you believe in no matter what anyone says its still freedom of speech and its your right just think before you say or do anything. Don’t give them any ways to get out of it, and its your right to see the report. Good Bless you and wish you the best.

  170. Cindy Shank says:

    Sarah Elliott In the 80's a girlfriend of mine was going thru the Mayo Clinc in Rochester for cancer. When the drs found out she was from Martin Co in MN he just shook his head and said, Martin Co in MN and Mitchell Co in IA are the highest Counties of the states for cancer, must be the drinking water.

  171. Lori Updyke says:

    shared/pa/07-14-14

  172. Karen Lee says:

    For the haulers its ONLY about the money they have no morrows who they harm.

  173. Karen Lee says:

    Dont wish this on anybody :(

  174. Karen Lee says:

    semi’s they go all over Iowa ,and they haul late at night so it done with before you realize what happened.. this is a huge, huge problem Iowa.

  175. Karen Lee says:

    crap into Iowa. the dnr put there blinders on. Iowa needs to be aware of these

  176. Karen Lee says:

    no the dnr from manchester ia office put there blinders on. sad thing about this Iowa continues hauling this toxic stuff on there land.. they say they need a place for it. Other states has it band’. Not IOWA .. Other states bring there toxic

  177. did they ever investigate the waters and stuff after this?

    • Monica,

      I’ve been speaking at Iowa State Democratic Conventions, Going to the Iowa State Public Health, IDNR (who claim George Bush took away all their enforcement funds), USDA-NRCS, Corps of Engineer’s Office, and found the government employees are even in tears because they understand what the Point Source polluting farmers did and are doing but continue to allow this particular on-going Plume from Mitchell County, Iowa.

      The laws are on our books but the power of the big AG groups like Farm Bureau refuse to allow troubled waters research by 14 universities to be able to help make Iowan’s aware of the increasing amounts of herbicides, pesticides, nitrogen fertilizers (including CAFO-bacterial and Anhydrous Ammonia-Big Oil man made) being Point Source Polluted into our drinking water. The IDNR has promised me since 2008 after Adam was killed that the IDNR was going to develop a web site that would allow me to see all of my old well tests and the well tests results on the new well I had drilled in 2004, and the well tests on the yet third deeper well drilled in 2010 in Mitchell County. And that this new web site would be state wide, so Iowans could know what AG chemicals were in their drinking water and what tests were needed on their wells.

      The IDNR now hides the need to test for Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO nitrogen fertilizers or lead or arsenic or decontaminants formed when the IDNR says to chlorinate your water for the bacteria because of that chlorine and ammonia not combining well. I’m trying, but was escorted out of the Iowa Farm Bureau Headquarters just after starting to write my name at the front desk. Branstad and his brother’s AG interests have allowed our drainage laws to be broken to the detriment of those Downstream.

      I’ve been cut down from partial ownership of 560 acres of farmland to 206 acres when most male farmers have went to double, and my remaining acres are in Bremer County Downstream in this on-going Mitchell County Iowa Pollution Plume. Our water there is polluted but the IDNR is not even telling well owners to test for the Anhydrous Ammonia fertilizer or lead or arsenic before they tell Iowans to Chlorinate. The web site Adam had suggested in 2008 is not even going to have access to the data that the IDNR is destroying to cover up this huge pollution issue.

      After my Deposition on 6/19/2015 for my Civil Rights Case, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office that is representing the State of Iowa and IDRN against me, said in 45 days they were going to have this web site up and running so my Court date was canceled for October, but the attorney general’s promise wasn’t kept and still no warning and the pollution from Point Source Polluting Farmers is increasing.

  178. Karen Lee says:

    Iowa needs to Ban so other states dont bring there toxic crap to IOWA..

    • Karen, the laws are on the books, but the State of Iowa is not enforcing our 16 Drainage Laws or the Federal Clean Water Act in Mitchell County Iowa, Cedar (W) Township, except on me a woman farmer before I was driven out of Mitchell County after they killed my husband, Gary and then my son, Adam. The enforcement of those Good Laws would protect us from the farmers that are Point Source polluting like ditches to drain fields down sinkholes or French Drains or illegal AG drainage wells. All farms should have legal Drainage Permits.

  179. Karen Lee says:

    raw sewage waste from cedar rapids ia to his farm.. we got very very sick !!!!!!

  180. Karen Lee says:

    god bless this family. my husband and i was put in a similar situations. Wake up IOWA u MUST get rules & regulations in IOWA. Our farm neighbor hauled

    • Karen, the laws have been there (Iowa’s 16 Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act) and would have protected us but not under Iowa’s 20 year Republican Governor who has been instrumental along with former President George Bush and the Big Oil Corps that make Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer, with defunding the IDNR’s enforcement of those laws. I was one of the last farmers to keep getting 401 permits in Cedar (W) Township to do repairs when needed to the damaged Designated National Wetland. My 1995 404 Permit from the Corps of Engineer’s would not allow me to add even 10 more acres than drained in 1995 to the Designated National Wetland’s Sinkholes. While a Cedar (W) Township group of illegal drainage channels to drain that Designated National Wetland down the NRCS surveyed and documented sinkholes in that Designated National Wetland and directly into our aquifers or Source Water in Mitchell, Floyd, Butler, Bremer, and in Black Hawk County wells Downstream has polluted most wells Downstream. Now Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer is building up to ever increasing levels and there is no feasible filter system to remove it and it reacts with the Chlorine added by cities and towns and farmers to try to protect their animals from CAFO fertilizer bacteria causing intermittant levels of Trihalomethanes and other decontaminants that can be deadly. Veronica

  181. Matt Kiburz says:

    What a disgusting group of men up there. Sad story.

  182. Veronica Lack says:

    Mitchell County authorities have still refused to answer the court ordered supeona for the first 911 call to report Adam’s accident on July 12th before midnight. They won’t tell me because they left Adam trapped and in pain for about 7 hours before others called it in the next morning. The ones who left him there after calling 911 just before midnight were probably the ones in the Chevy Impala harrassing me on my farm and that Adam chased, they may have cut his brake lines for a third time as the highway patrolman said he overcorrected for the S curve but was going to fast and there wasn’t the tire marks from breaking. As his Mom, I know he would have taken the ditch instead of hitting that tanish Chevy Implala even though they had cost us a lot of money in repairs to our vehicles.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      July 13th is a hard day for me, as how could they not answer the first 911 call and instead round up some of those who were in court in July of 2007 including Judge McKinley and then they spend a few more hours crushing Adam so he dies without my being able to even help him. I know it is now six years but someone may come forward someday, Adam stood up for me and others, some may stand up against his killers.

      • Greg Greiner says:

        My thoughts are with you, Veronica. You are a good person, and I am very sorry for your losses. I hope you find justice.

  183. Lu Eggers says:

    Kevin Crowe, this accident happened 6 years ago, and there is no excuse for taking 45 minutes to get to the scene of an accident. From St. Ansgar to North of Highway 9, no way in hell does it take that long to get there………..plus like Sarah said you were not part of that team at that time…things haven’t changed that much have they???…..Still when you’re called out on an emergency, you get your ass moving as quick as you can….and get there within reason……there is just something fishy about this whole story……no excuse whatsoever of not getting the jaws of life to get him out of the truck and there is no excuse for not putting a neck brace on his neck, plus jerking the truck back and forth with him still in it…That’s just plain stupid, no common sense and then with the constant jerking of his truck, his neck is snapped at the C-2 vertabrae…If he would have lived, he would have been paralyzed…I hope to god that he didn’t suffer much but the sound of all of this it looks like he did…….

    • Adam’s death was no accident, Adam had his brake lines cut twice in just the prior six months and Adam had them repaired twice at Meitner’s St Ansgar Automotive before he couldn’t slow down and had to take the ditch to avoid hitting that about 2004 tannish Chevy Impala he was chasing from my farm. And those guys that were harassing us about their illegal Drainage called it in on 911 and expected him to be dead but left him trapped. And when they show up the next morning and find out he’s alive they proceed to crush him slowly from the legs, arms, then his neck. Cause of death severe dislocation of neck at C-2 and C-3 vertebra but not until after 9am on 7-13-2008 after his having to roll his truck the night before.

  184. Lu Eggers says:

    Your right Lisa…That's called NUTS…..and also…getting paid off…F…ing sick bastards……The thing is why didn't they get the jaws of life to remove Adam out of his truck…??? But instead the dumasses hooked a chain up to his truck while Adam was still in it and continually jerked it back and forth snapping his neck @ the C-2 vertabrae…Only idiots that don't have any common sense do something like this…Are these people really trained in their field of work??? To me the answer would be HELL NO..because any fool knows that you don't even try to move someone that has been seriously hurt in a car accident without putting a brace on their neck..Was there a brace put on his neck?? Sounds to me like the answer is no……If I was Adams mom I would sue the pants off these people for wrongful death…because this didn't have to happen…if they would have only followed the rules….Stupid asses….Would it have been too hard to put a neck brace on him, jesus….what it would take a couple seconds to put one on him……I wouldn't want any of these people touching me if I was involved in a car accident, because if they did it would mean DEATH for me as well….Get off the rescue squads because none of you are qualified for SHIT…..

  185. young lack wrote quite the paper!
    funny how ISU didn't follow-up on it…while he named names and all…
    and who was the iowa governor at the time?
    hmmmmmmmmm….
    the Ag Secretary?
    hmmmmmmmmmmm….
    FOLLOW THE MONEY…

    • Sarah Elliott says:

      Monsanto now owns the ISU Lab and all the research done in it…they determine WHAT they research, HOW it’s reserached, the WHY, the WHERE, and how it’s presented.
      Monsanto has also lost another 25% of their stock value in the last quarter.
      KEEP TALKING AND KEEP PUSHING THE CLEAN WATER AGENDA!
      WE HAVE TO LEAVE A PLANET TO OUR KIDS THAT’S INHABITABLE.

  186. get this, true story…i used to live in saudi arabia! when i went into the Aramco clinic complaining of body aches, i told them i was from mitchell co. iowa. the attending physician from USA started paying attention and ordered all kinds of tests. ALL CLEAR but…his response to where i came from has stuck with me for.ev.er. and, think about this for a minute…the biggest cancer hospital/cancer research team is located in the HEART of the midwest…MAYO knows more than it's sharing about our environment and how it affects our health…that kind of establishment doesn't plunk down in bum-f–k southern mn. for no reason…there's a steady income here due to the constant toxins in our air, water and land. how are we going to fix this? how do we change our situation? how do we impress upon farmers their annual commitment to Monsanto instead of to the future generation? FOLLOW THE MONEY.

  187. Lu Eggers says:

    Absolutely right Sara…if someone was paid off do you think they are going to endanger theirselves by disobeying the person that paid them off..I'm talking about EMTS, Fireman, Law enforcement..Hell no…so of course the EMT would take their sweet time to get to the accident and it sounds like to me what Veronica Lack had said it took them about 45 minutes to get to the scene of the accident…Come on……From St.Ansgar to where the accident occured, North of Highway 9, no way in hell does it take that long to get there……

  188. LuAnn says:

    I live in Mitchell County & this case really caught my eye as we have had numerous problems with the DNR & the Mitchell County Sheriff’s office, plus with Mr. Walk who my husband Gary & I have dealt with on several occasions. I also know Bryan McKinley as well, as I grew up in Otranto, Iowa, attended St. Ansgar Community Schools, which 4 of my children have attended and 3 are still in school. I live Northeast of Stacyville.

    As I was told by my hubby the other day we live on one of the biggest watersheds. We have had problems with a farmer who has tiled on our property, plus his own to the North, & East of us, which has caused our little acreage to be flooded out last year as the water from his fields are pushing towards are acreage. We never had problems with flooding when we moved to our home in October of 97, never had water in our basement either until recently.

    Also, this farmer, when we first bought our place, dug a trench behind our machine shed without our knowledge as we were not home at the time. Law enforcement does nothing because this is a rich farmer, and we are just poor people. We have had problems with our water as well. It is not safe to drink. We had asked for it to be tested on several occasions which they refused to do, finally they did test it.

    I also think your son Adam was killed..The reason I think this is because he was digging into something that they didn’t want him to know about. He already had the goods on these people and they just took him out so he wouldn’t talk anymore. My husband always said there is a lot of crooked shit going on in Mitchell County, especially with law enforcement, plus I have heard it all over. I know a lot of those officers you had mentioned in that story you wrote, “Adams Voice” and the one deputy that you had mentioned, I was in complete shock because I didn’t think he was capable of saying or doing what he did….It just floored me.

    I printed the story out and gave it to my hubby and he has contacted some higher up on it. We would like to get to the bottom of this also because your husband Gary was poisoned by the water and all the contaminants and other people as well. It just can’t go on. Something needs to be done. Your son was just concerned with what was going on and was just trying to protect his family plus other innocent people. There is no excuse whatsoever in taking a human life. These people need to be punished for their crimes and if I have my way, we are going to get to the bottom of this and find out just what the hell did happen and who all was involved because I can figure out some of the people who did this and I think the number one person who was behind all this with your son is Brad Johnson. After what I read, I think he had something to do with it. Time will tell.

    RIP ADAM…the truth will come out sooner or later and then your family can find some peace and closure in all of this.

    • Sarah Elliott says:

      whoa…say it with flowers, say it with drink but never, ever, say it in ink.
      be very careful what you print here…you can be sued for slander…and those in power here, would just LOVE some more money and more land.

      • LuAnn says:

        Yes tis true…I should remember that…..

      • LuAnn says:

        Can’t be sued for Slander for telling the TRuth! !!

      • Gary Eggers says:

        ALL IS VERY TRUE. WATER TABLES HAVE BEEN CHANGED. DNR HAS COME AFTER ME IS LATEST. FOR HAVING 500 TIRES. $10,000 FINE. NO COURT NO NOTHING. IOWA POLITICIANS NEED TO VOTE THEM ALL OUT!,,VOTE FOR SOME HONEST ONS. ONES IMPOWERED NOW ARE FOR THE MOST PART VERY CORRUPT.

        • Sarah Elliott says:

          Last spring, I walked the burr oak creek behind the folks house and found, to my dismay, a red color to the river bottom that had NEVER been there since I’ve been walking that river (40 years)…called the DNR…they allegedly sent out somebody to check it out….got back to me, claiming it was ‘leaf decomp’. Huh. Since when does leaf decomp smell like hog shit? Funny, same trees all around the same river…this spring, no red color or smell of hog shit at the same spot. Wonder why?

          A decade ago, the folks well tested, through Iowa State, was unfit for children under 4 yo.

          TODAY, it comes outta’ the hose, frothing…bubbles in the water in a clean bucket…dump the bucket, rinse, refill…bubbles. That’s not a natural occurrence. It’s not the hose. It’s the water and what’s in it to cause that bubbling.

          Farmers around us are killing us.

          If you have two brain cells to rub together, I’d back the man running for U.S. SENATE, TOM FEIGEN…the man’s an attorney, backs Bernie Sanders, and is a vehement supporter of the environment. He’s on facebook, under Tom Feigen for U.S. Senate…

          • Sarah, you are right, I,m a farmer, driven off my Mitchell County farms by the IDNR refusing me my well test results since 1993 on my old well that it tested so high in Nitrates and the bacteria from Bradley Johnson dumping farm chemical and feedlot run-off down the sinkhole north of his Dad’s house. Paul Van Dorpe condemned my then well in 2004 after my animals had died or were docked at IBP for miscellaneous masses and tumors.
            Gary my husband was being treated at Mayo for the multiple tumors that later spread to his bones and liver.

            But Cedar (W) Township polluters like Dee Ursbatch, claimed I couldn’t prove anything after Gary was killed, by snearing at me and saying, “you can’t prove anything because Gary was cremated.”

            Now Waterloo lost the use of one well because of their channeling to drain their farms through my old farm in Cedar (W) Township, without my permission, or even my, deceased husband, Gary’s, like was testified by Brad Johnson and the Brandau’s in court in 2007, they claimed Gary had given them permission to come back with bulldozers and scrapers to dig away (after my corn was up) 42 acres in 2005 to Transition the Flood channel they had begun in 2003. But Gary had been killed in January of 2004 and I owned the land and had refused them an outlet or any access as my very limited 404 Permit for very limited drainage agreement did not allow me to give them permission.

            Some Mitchell County farmers will break every law on the books, murder, theft of 42 acres to build a flood channel to drain their limited soil depth Karst Wetland down a line of sinkholes in a Designated National Wetland. They apply repeated high levels of nitrates like herbicides and pesticides and very high levels of very water soluble Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO NITROGEN fertilizers draining them illegally through my old farm to the sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland.

            These chemicals weren’t enough for the IDNR to hide the well tests from us, thinking we would be dead, and no one would know, so the IDNR hide the well tests for High Cadmium Lead from us Downstream. Bradley Johnson had screamed at me in 1993 when I had first complained to Dale Adams, IDNR, about his manure from two feedlots and farm chemicals from over 500 acres washing down the sinkhole north of his house. The IDNR made him close his sinkhole drain but then all the tile outleted there backed up and he was mad. He solved that by outletting his and other farmers tile straight down into our Source water. So now more Cedar (W) Township farmers wanted us out of the area. So they convinced the IDNR to charge me with Blockage of Water after Gary was dead, and since the Iowa DNR no longer enforces Iowa’s Drainage Laws or the Clean Water Act and instead supports AG polluters they did.

            The IDNR hid our well tests for high Lead, very high Atrazine, Very high CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers, even on the new wells Downstream, I and Ruth Morische and Scott Lindley and his family, and the Laverne Olsen’s and Mark Gast and his family and others. We Downstream were told to only test our new 2004 wells for Nitrates and Bacteria not Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers or the other contaminants the IDNR had condemned our wells for in 2004. Then the 2008 Floods and the IDNR said to Chlorinate for the Bacteria levels that were up from all the fertilizers being drained down this Sinkhole Drainage System created to drain this Aquifer Recharge Wetland Area that should never have either of the very water soluble fertilizers applied there.

            Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer and Chlorine can form Trihalomethanes, a gas that comes out of your shower head and burns your skin, eyes, throat, intestines, colon, and makes asthma worse and can cause COPD when inhaled. That’s why I still have a hard time singing at church or speaking to this now very huge pollution issue.

      • Amy says:

        I’m sorry but I don’t see any slandering in her statement. She is just putting their names in here and that is not slander. Besides the brad guy she mentioned but in reality she stated that she thinks he had a lot to do with it not that he does have everything to do with it.

    • Troy says:

      Rest on peace Adam, I don’t know you or your family. However the crooked people in the entire equation will pay someday. It’s just a matter of time. Thoughts and prayers are with you.

      • Troy don’t know if I met you at Granger yesterday, but thanks for your support. I’m still trying to get the State of Iowa to stop some farmers Point Source Polluting of all our Source Waters (aquifers, rivers and streams) with Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer that we cannot filter out and combines with Chlorine used to treat for CAFO fertilizer. These two very water soluble nitrogen fertilizers should never be drained by ditches and illegal flood channels to sinkholes in a Aquifger Recharge Area of a Designated National Wetland. Chlorine and the increasing levels of Ammonia Nitrogen as N can form/develop decontaminants like the deadly Trihalomethanes that burnt my family, as we were Downstream from Mitchell County Iowa Point Source Polluters who with the IDNR hid our well tests from us and the IDNR still only tells private well owners in this one Plume to test for Nitrates and Bacteria not the Ammonia Nitrogen as N, even though those in this Plume could be poisoning themselves if they Chlorinate with the Ammonia Nitrogen as N levels high after a big rain event. Veronica Lack Adam’s Mom

    • Veronica Lack says:

      Adam used to say, “I like thunderstorms and truth, because they answer to no one.” He would sit out and watch the storm roll in even as lightning flashed. He said truth and two back to back CIA lie detector tests were the only thing that allowed him to get representation against Brown University and Sarah.

      Gary’s Chemo made by Astra Zeneca’s price had went sky high and I was already charging his out of pocket costs and the damages from Ike and Bradley Johnson’s sinkhole drain. We had done repairs and installed three filter systems and a chlorinator. We had hired an attorney for Adam from here that had just set and made Adam not even get to respond previously at the University Hearing. Turns out he was a cocktail partier with the Brown employees, and we could not afford the quarter million needed for a good attorney that would stand up against Brown University in Providence, R.I.

      But Adam’s telling the truth in those two back to back $10,000 CIA lie detector tests convinced a great attorney to take his case, David Casey.

    • Thomas Clark says:

      I agree LuAnn. I sincerely hope you folks don’t give up the fight against these murders and all who have conspired to ignore the truth. Let me know if I can be of any help. I have been fascinated with this case for years and am in utter disbelief that it has not been picked up by a higher authority than the crooked local officials. Don’t give up and God bless you Lack family.

  189. Veronica Lack says:

    On the accident report they filed at the State of Iowa they checked No Aide Given and wrote notes about injuries Adam had not yet sustained in the pictures when they were Breathilizing him after he had been trapped for about 8 hours. I supeonaed the first 911 call and all of the later ones but those supeonas were not answered to protect the people Adam was chasing from my farm. TP Republicans in Cedar (W) Township do not respect my family’s Right to Life or property and endanger the lives of 1/2 million Downstream with their ditches or flood channel through a line of Sinkholes.

  190. Veronica Lack says:

    There was no ambulance in the pictures, just Judge Bryan McKinley, and Doctor Haganman and the group of farmers and contractors and the then St Ansgar Rescue personnel and Highway Patrolman Palas Graham who took all of the pictures and probably more than I was given when the Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk was trying to get me to sign off on the sale of two 200 acre farms at far less than their value. He said, you know you have five other children.

    • LuAnn says:

      Mark Walk is a jerk…sorry but my hubby hates him and I don’t think too much of him myself…….Judge Bryan McKinley is also…They all are in bed together and they will all cover up shit to save their own asses……

    • LuAnn says:

      That’s just a low person for saying something like that….

  191. Yeah, because an EMS crew is actually going to just stand around for 2 hours chatting and laughing before intentionally snapping someone's neck. That's TOTALLY plausible.

    Effing conspiracy monkeys.

    • sarah says:

      Lisa, until you’ve experienced backlash from neighbors who continually break the law and the rules of environmental maintenance just so they can make money at the expense of others land, drinking water, air quality and livelihood, DO NOT MAKE THAT KIND OF CRASS, IGNORANT STATEMENT HERE! You have NO IDEA what kind of harassment this family endured! You have NO IDEA what their water smelled like or tasted like! You are not trying to talk over a scarred larynx because you inhaled anhydrous ammonia or unknowingly consumed it over the years before getting the water tested!

      Didja’ READ what the retired sheriff had to say? Do you know him personally? I do. I remember the sheriff he worked with, who was MUCH better at law enforcement than Younker was!

      Conspiracy monkeys? No. Not at all.

      When you step out of line in Mitchell Co. Iowa, you are disciplined. And if you choose to step out of line, you’d better have your shit together legally, because if they can stop you from stepping, they will.

      It’s not just Mitchell Co…it’s all over this world.

      Good will prevail and these goddamned murderers will live with the consequences of their behavior.

      This is REAL.

      THIS HAPPENED.

    • Denard says:

      That’s the trouble here. In her haste to make people look like irrational criminals, she doesn’t even take the time to recreate plausible conversations that anyone could even entertain the possibility took place at all.

      “And then he said, “It wasn’t the mean one.” Shook his head, and said, “It was just a Big Mistake.” And then looked down at his shoes and shook his head repeating “A Big Mistake.” I asked, “What was a big mistake, that Adam was dead?” He wouldn’t answer. I asked if he was going to investigate. He said, “No!”

      Riiiiiiiiiiight.

      • Brent says:

        The moms a left wing nut job from what i can read from the comments. I don’t believe any of it !!!

        • Gary Eggers says:

          Brent it sounds like you’re either a cop or another empowered idiot. Lawsuits are coming. I have talked with FBI and there is an ongoing open investigation still going on. So if you are on here just to call innocent victims names I’m pretty sure someone will be coming to have a talk with you. This is pretty serious — 2 people are dead. So if you had any brains don’t leave comments on something you know nothing about. Maybe read it all. Funny county attorney is not in jail all the crap he has pulled.

          • Brent says:

            I’m neither a cop or an impowered idiot. But I’ll be sure to talk to who ever comes to my door. Hell, I’ll let them drink from our well if they’d like, it’s great.

        • Brent – No last Name, no way to have a agent contact you for information of where there might be water not contaminated with 80 times the maximum contaminate level for Atrazine, and other herbicides and pesticides and Very high Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers and High Cadmium Lead? You can’t taste most of these, except when the sinkholes are taking manure water and then your washer clothes and dishwasher and dishes stink and you have to shut off your hot water heater.

          You must be upstream of the Cedar (W) Township Polluters or involved in the polluting of others’ Source Water Downstream from you.

        • Thomas Clark says:

          Your nuts if you think this is over. Sounds like you know more than you are willing to tell. It’s people like you that make me sick you little puke.

        • John Smith says:

          Ok retard

      • There was more in my report to Hintz (about the 2004 Gold/Tannish Chevy Impala) that Adam chased away from my home after a male passenger jumped in. Hintz never gave me any aid just left me as I collapsed and slid down the wall after he refused again to investigate the ones harassing me that Adam chased, as he came home from the Poet Plant. Hintz, and I think, Younker who sat out in the Sheriff’s vehicle but didn’t come in, could see I didn’t have the brace on my broken leg, but no aid given me, she was only a woman farmer, who would not dig that big ditch to drain Cedar (W) Township down a line of USDA-NRCS documented Sinkholes in a Designated National Wetland. Hintz had checked out Adam’s Poet Computer on my dining room table and asked to shut it off but I told him no as Adam operated and adjusted operations and I had promised him I would never let anyone touch it. Adam had earlier gotten promoted by the South Dakota Office on the 12th and he had emailed the POP’s in for getting the Hot Ferm through to production and then the SD Office had asked him to send the POP’s for venting that warped tank so it could be repaired on Monday. Adam did that from that computer and left to go back to Poet to check on a new piece of equipment that wasn’t calibrated that was supposed to measure the fumes. It was when he came home from Poet again that Saturday night when the Chevy was pointing south out of the U driveway in front of my home that a male ran from my home to the car and jumped in and the ring tail lights came on and they sped out and Adam chased them as he had before.

        Hintz and Younker refused to give me a copy of my report about the 2 people harassing me that Adam chased. They also left me alone after I collapsed after Hintz would not tell me where Adam was except Hintz said they had taken him to Mason City to see why he died. My 2 children that were about 4 hours away got there shortly after two of my sisters who got me up and dressed but Hintz would not tell me where Adam was.

    • Thomas Clark says:

      The evidence doesn’t lie you inept idiot. You are too ignorant and full of yourself to see the trutb. An injustice was done and you have the audacity to defend the people involved.

  192. read "sundown towns" and go to the SPLC website and click on the 'hate map'…get informed of your surroundings and live accordingly.

  193. Kevin Crowe …it was 4-5 years ago…you weren't part of the team at that time. if i need an ambulance in the future, i would hope it's everything you claim it to be.

  194. North Iowa's own version of "Erin Brockovich". Very sad! Always wondered about the correlation between the high cancer rates in North Iowa and the drinking water quality.

    • Sarah Elliott says:

      @michael Bigger…go up to the Mayo Clinic. They’ve gotta’ map on the wall…with pins in it…showing their cancer patients origin. They know who their patients are, they know where they are coming from and they know they’ll KEEP coming as long as BIG AG and BIG PHARMA are connected!
      Mitchell Co. Iowa has the highest cancer rates in the NATION!
      Those doctors in Mayo Clinic aren’t staying there because they ‘love’ the climate!
      They’ve got themselves a ready source for cancer and neurological research, which costs money…a never-ending source of money!
      Mayo has moved (followed their insurance money) to Phoenix, AZ…where these rich mega-acre farmers spend their winters!

  195. Kevin Crowe says:

    Sarah im not sure if that comment is towards mitchell county ems but assume it is. I have been in charge of the service for the last 3 yrs and if u give me a name and date which took us 45 min to respond i will look into it. We average a 3 min response time time to go enroute and win a state award last year for being a great service. Things have changed alot in 3 yrs and whether u believe it or not this is a great up to date service with many dedicated experienced professionals. We carry more medications than all other services around including the helicopters. I can assure you no one is part of any conspiracy to hurt or deny care to ANYONE. Feel free to contact me @ 641-832-2238 to discuss this further.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      KGLO AM 1300 reported Adam’s accident, “Nora Springs man dead after single-vehicle accident on Saturday (7/12/2008) night”, …. “which was reported just after Midnight Sunday morning on Mitchell County Road S-70 south of County Road 105. by Fisher

      Highway Patrolman, Palas Graham, who took the 26 pictures while Adam was later killed on 7/13/2008 had threatened Veronica in about March 2009 as he had first showed her blackened copies of those pictures with, “you have to stop asking Questions these guys play for keeps.” had refused access to the information on the first 911 report but Adam’s Probate Attorney later got access to a copy of this Iowa Highway Patrolman Palas Graham’s Iowa Department of Transportation Report that verified the recording time of the first 911 reporting time of Adam’s accident as 00:01, or one minute after Midnight on 7/12/2008 or one minute at the start of 7/13/2008. But after they discovered he was still alive some in the group in the pictures witnessed how Adam was murdered after having his limbs crushed. Veronica has still been refused the answers to the questions and that transcript and recording of that first 911 call (by probably one of the two men in the ’04 Chevy Impala harassing Veronica at her farm on the night of 7/12/2008 and when Adam chased them to get their plate number) of why the group in court are allowed to kill, so the polluting can continue to endanger the lives of 1/2 million Iowans Downstream just so the owners of 50,000 acres can benefit from increased yields profiting on their acres at about 5 million more per year on the entire 50,000 acres, but the increased Health Insurance costs for those 1/2 million are far more costly both economically and quality of life threatening for those 1/2 million. Veronica Lack

    • Thomas Clark says:

      What happened the morning Andrew Luck called for help? Do you have an answer for this Mitchell County EMS director. I understand you wasn’t directing the service then but it’s not hard to understand why people would distrust you and your service.

      • Veronica Lack says:

        Thomas Clark: The first 911 call went into the Osage call center before Midnight on 7/12/2008. Probably called in by the harassers Adam chased from his Mom’s farm house and she had witnessed, Adam again tried to get the license plate numbers, that Sheriff Younker had told Veronica and Adam they had to have to file another complaint. They supposedly told the Sheriff or Deputy that Adam was dead, and no Aide was sent. Until seven hours later when Adam was killed by those pictured.

  196. makes one trust in their response personnel doesn't it? might be why it took the ambulance more than 45 minutes to get out to my dad the first time he had an incident…hummmmmmm…and we never called them again. one way or another, they get even…one way or another.

  197. Lu Eggers says:

    I live in Mitchell County & We Have Had Many Issues With The Water In Our Area, & The Water Tables & with the DNR….Sounds to me like Adam was digging a little too deep & finding answers to what was going on, and he was murdered so he wouldn't be able to probe into this situation anymore. The way it sounds, is like he was either taken out by someone that knew him &, the Mitchell County Sheriff, Deputies, County Attornies, & Fireman know exactly what happened but were paid off to keep their mouths shut……This is serious shit…..This young man was just voicing his concerns and trying to protect innocent people, farmers,, their families, livestock & other people against the dangers of what was going on with the water…This case is very interesting to me because we have gone through almost the same things and everything is always hush, hush…I would also like to get to the bottom of all of this..& to find out just what exactly did happen…………

    • Lu,

      The State of Iowa’s two Hygienic Labs in Iowa City and Ankeny do most of our water testing for smaller public and private wells and even though I published that warning letter to test for Cadmium Lead in 2004 in the Press News after Bradley Johnson had bragged that he had fixed me for reporting him to the IDNR (the IDNR had forced him to close his sinkhole drain) by dumping his pile of truck batteries, no one listened to my warning.

      And the State’s Lab Data of well tests including that very high Cadmium Lead result on my well were ignored even by the IDNR and and the State of Iowa, and Osage’s Dr. Ross, the then director of the Mitchell County Board of Health. This exposed and is still exposing other families Downstream to high levels of Cadmium Lead. We need the State of Iowa to protect its citizens not cover up for on-going Point Source Polluters. You see all these programs about CSI and other and Big Data files can be accessed to find sources of pollution.

      Why has Iowa hidden plumes of known contaminants in a certain quarter of a County or Township by not setting up a web site that has a map of all the bad well contaminants, so that we can can know which of the over 600 pollutants we need to test for in our wells and possibly filter them out. Before we get the tumors or cancers or high blood pressure or skin irritations or COPD these effects and the effects of lead on a child’s mental growth should be important to Iowans. The new IDNR web site hides the huge data so that one has to pull up each resident’s well test data in the state individually and then find no well test data or only a few of the wells over 50 tests I have paid for on my wells. Where are they filing the Big Data? And who is the State of Iowa trying to Protect, by hiding it?

      • Michelle Jacobs-Anderson says:

        Results are hidden away due to the most powerful people owning the biggest farms with the most pollution is my guess. Those federal kickbacks are easy cash. And when u own tons of big dollar property with profitable toxic gmo crops then people tend to look the other way to protect those with tons of money and power. Just my guess…why would they publish results showing polluting Iowa is a “great place to raise a family” if you are powerful and rich. If not, keep quiet and you will be fine…they forgot to add that last part on the welcome to Iowa signs perhaps…I don’t know. So many theories and guess but am still stuck on why they didn’t have an ambulance and take the guy out of the truck before dropping it a few times. Still in my opinion everyone involved at the scene of that accident should be held accountable for his death. If I was reading a mystery story book, seems the answer is right there in black and white as this stuff is so heinous and shocking hard to believe it is real life, it may as well be a book or a movie…

      • Gary Eggers says:

        I also took water samples into Mn. and had my water tested there. My well water isn’t safe for Animal Consumption. They wanted to know where our water came from. I said my 10 acre Farm on the Border. Shouldn’t even bath in this water unless you have to.

        Mertens Farms was behind the poisoning of our well. Rich farmers running Mitchell County. Hell they poisoned whole Town of Stacyville. The town was forced to dig a new well. Ever see Those Green HOG SHIT Haulers? Well that Shit goes and sinks into Artistic Well plus runs off into streams. These Farmers Are Killing us. This crap all Causes Cancer. Children are being hurt.

        I’m not scared of Mr. MARK WALK. I’m about to sue this county and him and clean house of these criminals. Sheriff Greg Beaver is part of the problem. County attorneys tell crooked judges what to do. There is no justice in Mitchell County – hopefully there soon will be. They all are involved in trying to murder me. I’ve since armed up to protect myself. They have broken into my home without warrants. Greg Beaver shot a hole in my door. No warrants. County supervisors said they would pay for a new door. Our tax dollars pay for these pieces of shit excuses for human beings empowered to cover up crime by a few bad farmers who don’t care about us citizens.

        Our water has been poisoned. These people will and have killed before. I’m very well aware of this. I have called the FBI many times and reported them. All I know is they are all under a FBI investigation. They first started coon spot lighting my home late at night. I just pulled shades. One night I was outside after midnight and caught a sheriff setup car spot lighting my living room window. He saw me and took off fast.

        Best thing to do is tell your friends and vote Mark Walk out of office for starters. He has harassed me the last 18 years. His office swindled us out of some of our loan money. His partner that died closed our home loan. Somehow taxes were never paid I found out. I asked Mark Walk about it to try to find the money. He told me too bad. Said “Not his fucking problem.” Need to stop farmers from blowing poison on crops. It does not go away. That’s a big lie. Poison goes into the food, too. VOTE OUT ALL THE COUNTY OFFICIALS. It’s the Only way it’s gonna Change and get Water Cleaned up. I have and plan to on Governor and His CREW. HE IS WORTHLESS – VOTE HIM OUT! PLEASE!

        THIS STATE IS RUN BY CROOKS. HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH ALL THIS CRAP?

        MAY GOD HELP US ALL IN THIS FIGHT FOR CLEAN WATER.

        • Gary, we need a Class Action Suit with attorneys that work on our behalf later getting a small part of a settlement and that also get the Iowa Drainage Laws and the Clean Water Act Enforced Closing all Point Source Pollution and fining the Mitchell County groups who have altered farmland drainage of their chemicals into our Source Waters. Our Clean safe drinking water is our Right, as is our Right to Life. Veronica

      • Adam’s last request of me on Saturday the 12th of July, 2008 before he was murdered, the next day, to cover up, was to get copies of wells Downstream of Cedar (W) Townships’ Sinkhole Drainage System, test results for Ammonia Nitrogen as N. Our new well that we and others had drilled to a deeper aquifer to try to get safer farm chemical and lead free drinking water was burning our skin and eyes, throats, and intestinal lining. This new aquifer was testing safe for Nitrates and Bacteria but no one was being told to test for the Anhydrous Ammonia in the deeper Aquifers. But with the new illegal channel through my farm to the very deep Designated National Wetlands Sinkholes, Adam was thinking the Ammonia Nitrogen as N levels must be climbing from the 0.000 levels they should normally be. In 2012 I was able to pay a male attorney to get Mark Ross to spend the time to look up the IDNR records of test results for about ten wells in this on-going Plume including mine that ranged in results of 1.0 to 12.2 horribly high and our advise from the IDNR has not changed. Test for Nitrates and Bacteria and Chlorinate when the Bacteria levels are up.

        They are telling us to possibly burn our families Downstream with Trihalomethanes by letting some farmers illegally drain their land down into our Source Water. I am a female farmer that stood up in court in 2007 along with my son Adam, against this polluting group of farmers and the IDNR that charged me with Blockage of Water and the USDA-NRCS that surveyed part of my farm to build the illegal Flood Channel to Sinkholes in this Aquifer Recharge Area. Why is their no mention of my Civil Rights suit when the Iowa Attorney General’s Office says its too POLITICAL to say Iowan’s are Drinking Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer? Adam wanted to warn people to test for Ammonia Nitrogen as N before they Chlorinate.

        Is it because you can’t blame that chemical on towns and cities? That Nitrogen fertilizer is not like the others, its made by the Big Oil Corps like Orascom. Its been used to send rockets to the moon and has blown up some. Will it get to explosive levels in our aquifers if we don’t start enforcing our Drainage laws and the Clean Water Act on some farmers that use that particular man-made chemical that does not die off in the cold and dark of the deeper aquifers? How will fracking affect its concentration as it builds up underground?

    • Michelle Jacobs-Anderson says:

      It’s sort of obvious the sheriff etc know who did this, and they certainly killed him off purposely in his vehicle with the tow truck. How is this not obvious to the FBI? This is extreme worst whistleblower retaliation. You would think the FBI would have investigated and figured it out years ago. Just my thoughts on that…if we want to have rules and regulations to keep people and our environment safe, then why are we killing people off when they find something that doesn’t follow those rules and regulations. Can’t have it both ways. Why even bother having the rules then.

    • Thomas Clark says:

      After reviewing the evidence read in the information provided by this site I am disgusted and appalled that this gross injustice has been ignored and the responsible parties have not been brought to justice. There is clear evidence of two not one but two murders and a conspiracy to not even cover them up but to ignore this herendous injustice. My heart pores out to Veronica Luck and her family for all they have suffered and I am in utter dismay of the lack of pursuit of the truth by state and federal law enforcement agencies who also ignore the obvious. Mitchell county sheriff’s department, the county attorney’s office, the medical examiner’s and the Iowa department of natural resources officials that are assigned to the county should all be held accountable for their actions. I refuse to believe the governor isn’t grossly negligent in the cover up as well. They should all resign their posts immediately at the very least. I too feel Andrew Luck was murdered for digging into deep of a problem that would implement way too many people in important position and scar the image of Iowa as well as cause millions of dollars in clean up and compensation for the victims of the nearly million of Iowans downstream and the states all the way to the gulf of Mexico. Are these people idiots who put profit over people. Answer to this is obvious. I just pray that honest people gain positions in organizations such as the Iowa DNR and expose these attrocities and put an end to them so the wrongs can be corrected for future generations of Iowans. Mitchell County officials need to be held accountable. How do the men present the morning of Andrews murder sleep at night knowing what you were part of. How does the nurse who administered unprescribed meds that result in a man’s death not be held accountable. Correct me if I’m wrong but veronica is the only person who should have authorized how her husband’s corpse was disposed of under state law not the medical examiner. He was cremated to destroy evidence. He should be held accountable and brought to justice. The fact that all of this has occured and the 26 photos taken by the Iowa state trooper is undisputed evidence that Andrew was alive and nothing was done to help him is sickening. I am sickened by the lack of morals by all these officials who stood by and did nothing. Let’s not forget to include the failure to respond by first responders be it the sheriff, state trooper, firemen or any paramedics assigned to the area. It is inconceivable to accept this behavior. A conspiracy to ignore a whistle blower who was not allowing his family and fellow iowans to be victims so he was killed and the worst part is the numerous public officials and agencies who were involved.

    • Mel,

      IDNR and NRCS agents in Mitchell County that planned this illegal sinkhole drainage to accomodate the Cedar (W) Township male farmers that dug that Flood channel through my home farm are killing more animals and affecting the health of more Iowans Downstream by their draining their fertilizers and other farm chemicals down the huge sinkholes in the Designated National Wetland.

      They stole 42 acres from me, with no use of eminent domain, just theft and no reimbursement. In court, when the bulldozer operator, Mr. Wagner, was asked if he had gotten permission from me, he stated, “She’s a woman, and she doesn’t know anything.”

      Unfortunately this on-going Plume (from their draining of thousands of acres of very little soil depth, karst limestone, aquifer recharge area, former Wetland around and down Designated National Wetland’s huge Sinkholes) loads farm chemicals, Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen (very water soluble fertilizers) into our Source Water of our wells Downstream.

      In October of 2015 this Plume took out one of the City of Waterloo’s wells. The Mitchell County group doing the polluting were not required as I was to have to get 401 permits from the IDNR or even a 404 Drainage Permit from the Corps of Engineer’s Office like mine that was recorded on the abstract for that farm.

      Non-Enforcement of Iowa’s Drainage laws and the Clean Water Act is allowing some farmers to pollute and our 20 year Governor’s Legacy will be water we cannot even filter of the huge amount of increasing levels of Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizer Bacteria. When we try to treat for the high levels of bacteria, the IDNR says to Chlorinate, but with the building levels in this Plume, of Ammonia Nitrogen as N, we can cause Trihalomethanes that kill.

      We need to have all farmers obeying our drainage laws and punished severely for their continuing to drain their chemicals creating this particular Plume, maybe it could set an example to stop the increase in Point Source Polluting that has happened in the last 20 years. Our Source Waters across Iowa contain CAFO and Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizers at increasing levels and we are drinking them but we grew up never having to drink Anhydrous Ammonia Nitrogen fertilizer since it’s made by the Big Oil Corps and now my grandchildren have to deal with Asthma, Eczema, more allergies, learning disabilities, tics, cancers, and increased COPD.

      Anhydrous Ammonia and CAFO Nitrogen fertilizers are the main cause of the Dead Zones in the Gulf, and also Blue Baby Syndrome.

    • Veronica Lack says:

      We need Adam’s USDA-NRCS Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation Version Three or Adam’s “RUSLE3”, Re-Installed at the DC Offices of NRCS, as it was being utilized by President Obama for the Remediation of Veronica Lack’s Discrimination suit 08 1022 against the USDA-NRCS. It was filed by her with Adam’s help in 2/2007. In February of 2017 Trump’s Administration REDACTED the work of the Democratic Administration to Protect our US Source Water and Rich Soils from contamination and erosion. President Obama listened to average citizens and worked to protect us. Good Ol’ Boys in Iowa will kill and steal a small female farmers land to pollute 1/2 million Iowans Water, so they can have higher yields. Veronica Lack

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