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RESS May 9, 2016
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Dairy farmers need help with manure regs. By Larry Limpf News Editor news@presspublications.com
Let the birding begin Birders are arriving in the area as the The Biggest Week in American Birding begins, officially on May 6. Pictured, Diane Breier, Arizona; Janice Breier, Michigan; and LaRae Ransom, Ohio, begin their watch at the Maumee Bay State Park boardwalk. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)
Compulsive ‘doodler’ knows his subject Scott Arvin admits he’s always been a compulsive doodler. The Lafayette, Ind., native would sit in school or in meetings and start scratching things out on whatever he could get his hands on. “Early on I got started with cartoons and I would look at (Gary Larson’s) The Far Side and things like that,” Arvin said. “I used to try to copy their illustrations and I started doing my own. It was always nice to have my hand on something and try to form something on the page. It was fun and it was nice to see where you would end up.” Arvin, 45, has been doing graphic design and artwork at the Indianapolis advertising firm Williams Randall Marketing since 1997. He was hired again this year to design the cover for the award winning Biggest Week in American Birding Guide Visitor Guide, which is produced annually by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory and The Press. The BWIAB is May 6-15. Normally, Arvin said he would charge upwards of $2,000 for such a unique design, but he did this one for free. He said he
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Back then, I wanted to go sit on a beach because that’s what I thought everybody did.
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By Mark Griffin Press Contributing Writer sports@presspublications.com
has done the last four or five covers for the local event. “To me, it’s creating a voice for conservation,” Arvin said. “There are a lot of materials out there. You see flyers that look put together a little quickly, and your voice falls a little flat if you don’t have the look of professional marketing to back it up. It gives you more credibility.” Arvin said designing the BWIAB cover is “fun” and a good way for him to get
“detached from advertising and that sort of general look and being able to create things of color.” “I also think, more importantly, it’s nice to create a better visual presence for an event like this,” he said. “I think conservation and education are important. People ‘bird’ because they want to go out and experience it with people who have the same interest and other facets of their hobby. It’s a good way for people to come together for a united purpose.” Arvin attended art school at Indiana State University in Terre Haute because he wanted to become a professional illustrator. He later became interested in graphic design, and he graduated with a degree in art with an emphasis in drawing from ISU. “I went to Ivy Tech (Community College) to get into the computer side of things,” Arvin said. “It was more design related, so I was doing designs for various publications. I’ve designed everything from history books to seed bags for a seed company. Illustration is something I do more on the side, and I enjoy it a lot. I try to do it more often, but in my job it doesn’t often happen.” Arvin became interested in drawing at an early age, and he said his parents en-
A bill pending in the state legislature aims to help dairy farmers meet expected cost increases for implementing new manure regulations. The bill authorizes an income tax credit for Ohio livestock owners who make eligible investments in equipment and facilities for storing and handling manure as well as its application and transportation. The credit is capped at 50 percent of the investments made between 2005 and Jan. 1, 2020. Livestock owners are to claim the credit over five years. Eligible investments are defined as those incurred to meet state law covering manure in the watershed of the western basin of Lake Erie and to meet U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations in other parts of the state. House Bill 297 is before the House Ways and Means Committee. In his sponsor testimony last year before the committee, Representative Brian Hill, R-Zanesville, said the passage of Senate Bill 1 in 2015 resulted in costly regulations for livestock producers. That bill prohibited the application of fertilizer with nitrogen or phosphorus and manure in the western Lake Erie basin on frozen ground, saturated soil and during certain weather conditions. “The new regulations on small livestock producers are set to take effect in less than two years and will take effect for midsized producers in less than a year. This short timeframe immediately puts these farmers on-the-clock to create a plan to change their manure management practices,” Hill told the committee. The Legislative Service Commission estimates tax revenue loss to the state could reach into the tens of millions of dollars annually if the credits take effect. The state general revenue fund would bear about 97 percent of the revenue loss and the rest would be borne by the local government fund and the public library fund. The committee heard testimony from proponents last month and in February. Scott Higgins, chief executive officer of the Ohio Dairy Producers Association, said small and medium-sized dairies are being Continued on page 4
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Those companies helped their owners evade taxes, public scrutiny, legal action, or all three. Josh Hoxie See page 10
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