CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – An East Coast port strike could be just days away, and that could mean spending even more at the grocery store and for other goods here in Iowa.

Workers at the ports along the East Coast are set to strike October 1st.

Around 45,000 dock workers on the East Coast are likely to go on strike for the first time since 1977.

But according to supply chain experts here in Iowa, even if the strike doesn’t end up happening, the damage is already done.

“Apple watch, they’d usually use a port maybe in New England to serve that market, they’ve already diverted their shipments,” said Dr. Andy Anderson, UNI supply chain management professor.

In anticipation of a possible strike, ships on the sea right now are going to the West Coast instead of the East coast.

That means a lot of ships need to take a long detour, which could pose a big risk for any perishables being shipped.

“So what we saw in 2015 with the [West Coast] port strikes is that we saw a lot of things just rotting in their containers because there were so many delays,” Anderson said.

Another factor is that ports on the west coast will be handling ships that normally go to the east coast, which could lead to a big traffic jam for ships on the East Coast.

“West Coast cannot handle the entirety of all these five major East Coast ports, the volume,” said Jade Chu, UNI supply chain management professor.

Delays for perishable products mean trips to the grocery store will be more expensive.

Plus, with the holidays coming up, lots of goods that would be shipped in time for holiday shopping are now potentially being delayed.

“So something that’s small and high in value like an iPhone probably isn’t going to be impacted that much, but if you have something that is much larger and lower value, then you’re going to see a big impact,” Anderson said.

While he still expects shelves to be stocked here in Iowa, delays and some scarcity mean higher costs.

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The state of Iowa is suing a Washington state company and its executives for allegedly dumping tons of old wind-turbine blades around Iowa, in violation of the state’s solid-waste laws.

The lawsuit alleges that over the past seven years, Global Fiberglass Solutions has failed to properly dispose of decommissioned wind-turbine blades and stockpiled them at multiple locations across Iowa.

The lawsuit, filed in Iowa District Court for Jasper County, seeks payment of civil penalties and a court injunction to prevent any additional violations of the state’s solid-waste laws.

More: MidAmerican has removed tornado-collapsed turbines, but repair, replacement work ongoing

Global Fiberglass Solutions and its CEO, Donald Lilly, are named as defendants in the case, as is Ronald Albrecht, one of Global’s corporate officers. The defendants could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit claims that General Electric, which provides parts and equipment for wind turbines, and MidAmerican Energy, which owns wind turbines in Iowa, each hired Global in 2017 to recycle their decommissioned wind-turbine blades.

MidAmerican and General Electric paid Global “millions of dollars,” the lawsuit alleges, to cut up, transport, and recycle the blades. Typically, such blades are about 170 feet long and weigh roughly 16 tons.

Rather than recycle the blades, the lawsuit claims, Global instead dumped roughly 1,300 of them at four locations around the state: Newton, Atlantic and a site in Ellsworth that was used to store blades that were originally dumped in Fort Dodge.

At one time, the lawsuit alleges, there were about 868 blades stored at the Newton site, which was a parking lot for the former Maytag factory. In Ellsworth, Global allegedly dumped 400 blades in a field, directly on the ground. In Atlantic, 22 blades were dumped in a field, directly on the ground, according to the lawsuit.

State says company never posted bond ensuring blades would be recycled

In 2018, according to the lawsuit, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources began fielding complaints about the Newton site. In 2020, the department sent Global a notice of violation related to the sites in Fort Dodge and Newton, indicating the blades were not being recycled as claimed and had simply been discarded. Later that year, a similar notice was issued regarding the Ellsworth site.

In December 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Global agreed to a consent order obligating the company to “take a number of concrete steps to purchase, install, and commence using recycling equipment” to process a certain percentage of the blades according to a series of deadlines.

The company also was required to post a $2 million surety bond to defray state expenses should the DNR be forced to remove and dispose of the blades because of Global’s lack of compliance with the consent order.

The DNR then agreed to extend the deadline for posting the bond until April 1, 2021.

Global never posted the bond, according to the lawsuit, and so the DNR ordered Global to stop accumulating wind-turbine blades in Iowa and to remove all of the blades scattered at the disposal sites. Global didn’t comply with that order and in July 2021 the matter was referred to the Iowa attorney general’s office for legal action.

The state’s lawsuit against Global was filed thie week of Sept. 22, three years after that referral. It seeks a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each day the company was out of compliance with Iowa’s solid-waste laws.

State records indicate MidAmerican has removed and properly disposed of the blades once located at the Ellsworth site, while General Electric has removed the blades from Atlantic and Newton — a task that was completed in June this year.

Global and its executives “dumped and abandoned 1,300 decommissioned wind-turbine blades in stockpiles across the state,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a news release.  “We are taking action to hold them accountable.”

Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.