Central Iowa

The Des Moines area’s first-ever lawn watering ban helps Central Iowa Water Works keep up with nitrate removal to provide safe drinking water to 600,000 people. Over the next decade, CIWW aims to increase its treatment capacity by 25%.

There is not a shortage from water sources in the area, but treatment facilities are struggling to keep up with high levels of nitrate in the rivers that supply the system.

Since the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Perry closed in June 2024, some former employees have pivoted to new careers. But the 8,000-person community is still recovering and working to fill the gap left behind by the largest employer in town.

The Iowa Arboretum and Gardens near Madrid in Boone County celebrated the opening of its $2 million Adele and Dean Bowden Treehouse Village Wednesday.

A long-anticipated connection between the Raccoon River Valley and High Trestle trails in central Iowa opens on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Less than 0.1% of Iowa's tallgrass prairie remains today, which once covered 85% of the state's land prior to European-American settlement.

Tyson Foods is shuttering its pork processing plant in Perry on June 28. Community leaders are trying to make it easier for workers and their families to stay in the community and find new opportunities.

Officials now say four people were killed and at least 35 were injured in the storm that destroyed dozens of homes in the southwest Iowa community.

A bill passed in the Iowa House would ban guaranteed income programs such as the UpLift pilot program currently underway in three central Iowa counties.

A ballot proposition asks voters if they support changing the structure of the Pella Public Library Board of Trustees. The change would limit the board’s authority over the library and give the city council more control over library policies and decisions.