Farm Bureau offers funding to covers Water Works lawsuit costs

Earlier this year, supervisors in Calhoun, Buena Vista and Sac counties had to end their association with a legal defense fund that offered to foot the bills in a lawsuit brought against 10 drainage districts by the Des Moines Water Works.
Supervisors said the ended the relationship when the Agricultural Defense Fund, part of the Agribusiness Association of Iowa, refused to disclose the names of individuals and organizations that had made donations.
Last week, two of those organizations – the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa Corn Growers Association – stepped out of the shadows, vowing to cover the remainder of the costs facing the drainage districts through the completion of the federal lawsuit, as well as to keep the names of donors public.
“Anything that’s going to be paid to legal defense will be made public,” said Ben Albright of the Calhoun County Farm Bureau, following a meeting Sept. 13 with the Calhoun County Board of Supervisors. “We all knew this needed to be funded. Our membership is in favor of it.”
Albright attended the meeting with the board accompanied by nearly 40 other farmers. He said earlier decisions to not be public about the Farm Bureau paying for some legal costs were made at the state level. Locally, he said, farmers understand the implications of any ruling against the county and the drainage districts. 
Read more in the Sept. 21 edition.