(Des Moines)– Governor Culver is being criticized by a citizen advocacy group for failing to reappoint three commissioners, including one from Spirit Lake, to a panel that oversees the state’s air and water quality programs.
Instead, Culver appointed four new members to the nine-member Environmental Protection Commission.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement says 15 environmental groups asked the Governor in a letter last week to reappoint Jerry Peckumn, Francis Thicke and Donna Buell, who’s from Spirit Lake. The groups said those commissioners have a long history of protecting the environment.
Culver spokesman Brad Anderson says the Governor disagrees with any characterization that his new picks for the commission are not pro-environment.
The newly appointed commissioners are Dale Cochran, a former Secretary of Agriculture; Susan Heathcote, who heads water quality efforts for the Iowa Environmental Council; Charlotte Hubbell, a lawyer who has been a trustee of the Nature Conservancy and was a co-founder of the Iowa Environmental Council; and Ralph Klemme, a former republican state legislator from LeMars, who has headed the House Agriculture Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee.
(Story from the Associated Press.).
