I just came from a meeting of the Franklin County Commission where the three commissioners voted to change county regs to allow a coal ash landfill in the Missouri River floodplain.  I don’t know whether to scream or cry.

Shame on these three bumbling, ignorant jackasses.  From the start of this charade two years ago, the public was told not to mention Ameren or the Labadie Bottoms in their public comments because “we’re just talking about changing the regulations, not a specific case.”  Of course, the only reason they were discussing the changes was because Ameren wants to build a 400 acre coal ash dump next to their 40 yr old plant in Labadie.  Go to http://www.leomo.info to see a photo of the smokestacks in the distance surrounded by lush, beautiful floodplain vegetation and animal habitat.  During the 1993 flood, the plant was surrounded by water.

I was so impressed with the testimony and comments by members of the public this morning.  Intelligent, powerful, inspiring short speeches that made it even more incredible that these three brainless, heartless jerks could vote AYE.

I said to them as I left, “This will come back to haunt you.  Shame on you.  You cannot destroy God’s beautiful creation without it coming back to haunt you.”  

The fight is not over, but one thing for sure.  Those three will never be elected to anything ever again.  Of course John Griesheimer doesn’t care because he’s probably got a job already lined up with Ameren.  What goes around comes around.  And I’ll be happy to see the three of them reap what they have sown.

There’s a global work party going on this Sunday for environmental activists:

Patricia Schuba, one of the activists working for LEO (Labadie Environmental Organization) to prevent Ameren from building a new coal ash landfill on the Missouri River, says that there are over 7,000 events scheduled worldwide. It is the largest day of environmental action ever planned. In fact, as of Thursday only 3-4 nations were not represented. The U.S. has around 1,200 events planned. The Labadie group has said that their event is the smallest with potentially one of the biggest impacts, given the effect that a landfill would have on water resources for millions.

And what does the Labadie event involve? Plenty.

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Previous coverage:

Getting the Missouri river follow to orders

Community Theater of the Absurd

Ameren’s big guns

The execs at AmerenUE aren’t fools. They know they’ve gotta move fast because the EPA may well decide to reclassify coal ash as hazardous waste, and that decision could come as early as this fall. If that happens, FEMA regs would prohibit Ameren from putting its next landfill for coal ash on the Missouri river floodplain at Labadie in Franklin County. Right now, Franklin County regulations forbid Ameren to do that anyway, but the County Planning and Zoning Commission is proposing amendments to the current law that would give the electric company leeway to do what it wants. And if the company manages to get the landfill done before the new EPA regs kick in, the new facility might become a magnet where coal ash from other plants could also be dumped.

The spot where Ameren wants to put that landfill is smack where the floodwaters of ’93 were. And this coal ash is some deadly stuff. The equipment required on modern smokestacks to capture pollution makes the coal ash they haul out of there full of higher concentrations than ever of arsenic, lead, chromium, and selenium, to name a few. Earth Justice reports, for example, that the EPA tests show that “arsenic, a potent carcinogen, leached from one coal ash at 1,800 times the federal safe drinking water standard.”

So I drove more than an hour from home Tuesday night to attend a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting because I live downriver from that site. One man who spoke in opposition to the landfill got cheers when he said that Franklin County should do unto those downriver what it would have people upriver do unto its own residents.

But, what the hell, I’m probably worrying over nothing. The representatives from Ameren assured the naysayers that this landfill would be built on a foundation that’s as hard as concrete, instead of the soft stuff usually used to line such sites that deteriorates pretty quickly. The concrete-like substance is even an example of recycling, since it is partly composed of coal ash.(Oh. Then when it does eventually decompose, won’t it leach toxic substances into the river? Ah, but that’s many years from now. Not to worry.)

Furthermore, Ameren will build a berm around the site to keep it safe from floodwaters. What the company hopes is that the berm or levee will prompt FEMA to “remap” that area and declare that the site itself is NOT on a hundred year floodplain. One Ameren rep who spoke was so blithe about thus sidestepping sensible regulations that he characterized this plan as “regulatory gyrations.” Then he smiled.

Maxine Lipeles, of the Washington University Law School was not amused, and got a big response from the crowd when she said:

So you’ve got a scheme that can, you know you can remap this site and so it doesn’t say a hundred year floodplain, but it doesn’t take it any farther away from the Missouri river. And there’s nothing that Franklin County or anybody can do that’s gonna tell the Missouri river not to flood that site.

I’ve heard rumors that levees don’t always yield all the protection the builders promise. Ms. Lipeles pointed that out, in fact. But surely Ameren UE is trustworthy about maintaining its facilities.

Some in the audience Tuesday night were skeptical. Some were even cynical about the motives of the Planning and Zoning Commission. But me, I came away reassured. I am, however, thinking of moving to Kansas City.