The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

During open forum, a resident shared a concern about the possible increase in water usage with the proposed underground carbon dioxide pipeline project. He spoke about a couple of his wells being damaged living close to the ethanol plant in Grand Junction and was worried that with the additional water usage with the pipeline project, he had asked the Board to monitor that usage. County Attorney Thomas Laehn said that the only permit process for water usage would be through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources but that the Board could structure a monitoring system.

The Board then heard a presentation from the Executive Director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition Luke Hoffman about a recent economic impact study with Jefferson as a specific case study. He went over some of the local figures that were included in the statewide report and offered the coalition’s services to be a resource and contribute letters of support for grant opportunities. Hoffman asked about several funding possibilities within the county that could be used to repave the 14 miles section on the Raccoon River Valley Trail. The Board said that most of the tax increment financing (TIF) funds were spoken for mainly with road projects and the county was bonded heavily with the new county jail and emergency communication tower projects.

Jamie Daubendiek, who is an advocate for the trail and as head of Jefferson Telecom contributed funds through their foundation in support of the case study within the overall economic impact report, said that people from Des Moines have told him that they will not take the trail up to Jefferson due to the condition of the pathway. Greene County Conservation Director Tanner Scheuermann said that when the trail was originally built, the loop was not established and if the path can be repaved then they could capture those cyclists to come to Greene County off of the spur to Jefferson.