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Flood recovery will involve sand, silt, debris removal

It’s more than just high water that could prevent planting on Midwest farmland. Flooded farms appear at the moment to simply be covered by water, but Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says receding water will reveal tons of debris.

Taking care of that land, getting it cleared and ready for production again, that will be something that is solved next week, it won’t be solved next month,” Naig told reporters Thursday in Sidney, in the southwest Iowa. “It’ll take quite a bit of time to do that.”

There are still many up-stream tributaries that have yet to crest, and with nowhere for water to go, Naig said people should remain vigilant.

“We went from frozen ground to saturated ground,” he said. “This is water running over a saturated sponge at this point.”