Manchester man fined for campground work in flood plain

A rural Manchester man began to build a campground near Lake Delhi and continued construction without getting permission for the work in a flood plain, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The state recently fined Randy Less $2,500 for the violation.

Less is an owner of property that straddles the Maquoketa River upstream from where it is dammed to form Lake Delhi, a snaking body of water that occupies about 450 acres in Northeast Iowa.

Because Less’ property is in a flood plain, he is required to obtain permission for the excavation and other work that would create his campground for recreational vehicles, which is expected to include a bar near the river, said Jeffery Schwierjohann, an Iowa DNR environmental specialist who investigated the situation.

Changes in flood plains have the potential to affect how water flows when there is flooding and require permits from the state and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Someone reported in April that Less was eliminating trees from the property and placing concrete blocks along the river, according to a recent Iowa DNR order.

At the time, Less claimed that someone he hired to do the work had already obtained permission, but that was not the case. Despite the state telling Less to pause that work until he obtained permission, “Mr. Less stated that he would not cease development of the site,” the order said. The work continued for two more weeks before Less complied with Iowa DNR requests.

Schwierjohann said Less has since been “making progress forward on what we have asked.”

The recent order assessed the $2,500 fine and required Less to comply with state and federal regulations.

Less was sentenced to up to 15 months in federal prison in 2017 for polluting a tributary of the Maquoketa River with ethanol and for failing to pay more than $600,000 in payroll taxes at his former ethanol plant in nearby Hopkinton, according to federal prosecutors. The illegal ethanol discharge happened in July 2013, and the payroll tax violations occurred from 2009 to 2012.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.