CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — The strike at a Cargill corn-milling plant in Cedar Rapids is over.

More than 100 members of Teamsters Local 238 returned to work Saturday morning after the union ratified a three-year contract offer from Cargill. Workers have been on strike since Oct. 1.

The union has contended several issues during negotiations, including Cargill’s plan to outsource about 15 maintenance positions at the plant. Cargill also planned to convert two positions into salaried positions that would not be covered by the union contract.

Cargill spokesman Bill Brady would not disclose details of the deal, but said the company “attempted to address all the questions and come to an agreement that both sides can agree with.’” Union officials were not immediately available for comment.

Cargill, based in Wayzata, Minn., makes food ingredients, moves commodities around the world and runs financial commodities trading businesses. It is one of the nation’s largest privately held companies, with 158,000 workers in 66 countries.

Immigration raid leads to arrest of 7 near Le Mars

LE MARS, Iowa (AP) — Police arrested seven people in an immigration raid in northwestern Iowa.

Plymouth County sheriff’s officials said that on Thursday, they searched a hog confinement and home owned by Michael Vander Windt. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assisted in the raid, which resulted in the arrest of seven people alleged to be illegal immigrants.

Sheriff Mike Van Otterloo said the raid came after allegations that Vander Windt employed the illegal immigrants. Federal authorities took those who were arrested to Omaha, Neb.

Otterloo said three people will be charged with falsifying documents. The other four face deportation.

Increasing crops for ethanol could threaten water supplies

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to solving the fossil fuel crisis, it seems like every silver lining comes accompanied by a dark cloud. As attention turns more toward using corn and other products to produce ethanol for fuel, experts warn that increased production of these crops could pose a threat to the nation’s water supplies.

Both water quality and the availability of water could be threatened by sharply increasing crops such as corn, said Jerald L. Schnoor, professor of environmental engineering and co-director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa. Schnoor is chairman of a National Research Council panel that studied the potential impact of increased use of biofuel on water supplies. The committee report was released Oct. 10.

A stated goal is to increase biofuel production about six times, to 35 billion gallons by 2017, Schnoor said. “That would mean a lot more fertilizers and pesticides” running into rivers and flowing into the oceans, he said in a telephone interview.

Water available depends on where the crops are grown, he added. If it is an area needing irrigation, it takes 2,000 gallons of water for every bushel of corn: “That’s a high amount of water,” he said. And that’s in addition to the secondary issue of how much water is needed by the factories that produce the ethanol, he said.

What is needed is a breakthrough in technology so that ethanol can be produced from cellulose such as grass, wood and sawdust, Schnoor said. “If we could do that, it would be much better environmentally,” he said.

While Brazil is having success producing fuels from sugarcane, “we don’t have much tropical land in the United States,” Schnoor observed. Also, he noted Brazil uses waste from the cane to fuel its ethanol factories, while the U.S. uses natural gas or other fuels. The report notes that water “is an increasingly precious resource used for many purposes, including drinking and other municipal uses, hydropower, cooling thermoelectric plants, manufacturing, recreation, habitat for fish and wildlife and agriculture.”

Supplies are already stressed in some areas of the country, including a large region where water is drawn from the underground Ogallala aquifer, which extends from west Texas up into South Dakota and Wyoming.

Growing biofuel crops requiring additional irrigation in areas with limited water supplies is a major concern, the report says. The report suggests the possibility of irrigating crops for biofuel with wastewater that would not be suitable for food crops.

Other suggestions include developing more water-efficient crops and adopting agriculture practices that reduce the amount of chemical runoff.

The study was sponsored by the McKnight Foundation, Energy Foundation, National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Research Council Day Fund. The National Research Council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization chartered by Congress to provide science, technology and health policy advice.

Grafton ethanol plant to shutter

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The rising cost of corn and low ethanol prices are forcing the Alchem Ltd. ethanol plant in Grafton, N.D., to shut down temporarily, leaving about 30 people out of work, a company official said Oct. 10.

“It’s a temporary shut down, very temporary,” Alchem spokesman Rick Newman said. “We need market conditions to make it more feasible and we anticipate that very shortly.

“The price of ethanol is putting a pinch on the industry as a whole,” Newman said.

Alchem, which opened in 1983, makes about 10.5 million gallons of ethanol a year, using about 3.8 million bushels of corn, the company said. About 33,000 tons of livestock feed is produced annually as a byproduct of the ethanol, the company said.

Newman, who is the nephew of plant owner Harold Newman, said demand for the livestock feed is strong. Harold Newman said in a statement that the company expects to resume operations “s soon as economically feasible.”

Officials say high corn prices – driven by increased demand for ethanol as part of federal mandates for renewable fuels – have meant higher operating costs for ethanol plants while the price of ethanol has dropped. Construction of new ethanol plants has slowed around the country.