Please be advised

The Ameren UE plant, located just east of ALSA, has submitted a proposal to the Corp of Engineers. Their plan is to build a conveyor system and barge depot for unloading petroleum coke and loading dry ash and slag into barges. This barge depot would be almost 1 mile long and cover 12 acres of water. It seems very likely that we would see a large increase in barge traffic/maneuvering in the general area of ALSA. If somebody doesn't say something about it, this plan is likely to go through without even having a public hearing. Please make your feelings known.

The mailing address is

US Army Corps of Engineers
Attn: CEMVS-CO-F (Charles Frerker)
1222 Spruce Street
St. Louis MO 63103-2833

Get further information, phone numbers and maps at the Corps of Engineers Web Site.

Article that appeared in the Post Dispatch

The following material is republished with the permission of
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The article is copywrited (2000) St. Louis Post Dispatch

St. Louis Post Dispatch Web Site

Ameren wants to build barge depot to haul coke to power plant on river
By Peter Shinkle
Of The Post-Dispatch


Ameren Corp. wants to build a barge terminal on the Mississippi River to deliver petroleum coke to a power plant in St. Charles County, but conservationists contend the plan would mar the river's scenic beauty.

Ameren is seeking a permit to put a 4,400-foot-long barge holding site on the Missouri side of the river near its Portage des Sioux power plant. The company also wants to use public land to build an elevated conveyor system to move the petroleum coke from the shore to the plant's coal yard.

Across the river lies the Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway, a federally designated area that stretches for 50 miles along the Great River Road. Majestic limestone bluffs and green spaces line the road, which is the hub of the area's thriving tourist industry. Marinas and boat ramps are scattered along the riverbank, and recreational boaters ply the Mississippi not far from barges and towboats.

On the Missouri side, the land is mostly low and flat, a swampy area under water here and there. Just offshore from the power plant, which is north of the confluence with the Missouri River, Ameren wants to keep as many as 76 barges, or enough to cover roughly 12 acres of the river.

"It's unsightly," said Annie Hoagland of Godfrey, a member of the board that oversees the scenic byway. "How many places do you want to go for a vacation and see a huge, giant conveyor and 76 barges? It's the antithesis of what we're trying to do there in preservation along the river corridor."

Even billboards are banned in the scenic byway, she noted.

Wayne Freeman, executive director of the Great Rivers Land Trust, a conservation group based in Alton, calls the power plant and its two towering smokestacks the "only eyesore" in the area. Now, he said, Ameren wants to make it worse.

"Have you ever seen an attractive barge?" Freeman asked.

Susan Gallagher, a spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Ameren, denied that the barge facility would detract from the scenery and said the facility would seldom hold 76 barges, a figure she described as a maximum.

"Barges have been part of the river for years. We have not done a heavy-duty study of this. But we have experience with other barge-loading facilities," she said, adding that critics "may be exaggerating the impact on the landscape."

Indeed, there is plenty of barge traffic on the river in the area. Last year, about 60,000 barges, pushed in groups by about 6,500 towboats, moved up or down the river past Alton, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The conveyor system proposed by Ameren would be about as tall as a towboat, Gallagher said.

"It's not all that intrusive," she said.

The plan would reduce the costs Ameren pays for fuel for its plant because the coke is cheaper than coal, Gallagher said. Petroleum coke is waste from steel manufacturing or crude-oil refining.

Ameren also is seeking to diversify the plant's fuel supply. The barge plan also would reduce pollution caused by shipping petroleum coke to the plant by truck, she said. Each barge carries the equivalent of 58 truckloads of coke, Gallagher said.

The Corps of Engineers, which regulates barges on the nation's rivers, has made no decision on Ameren's application.

But the corps has given some hints that it is not sympathetic to concerns Illinois environmentalists expressed about the project's impact on the scenery.

Charles Frerker, a project manager with the corps, said in a June e-mail that two islands in the river, and the fact that the river is a mile wide near the power plant, would make it "nearly impossible" for people driving along the Great River Road, or Route 100, to see the project.

"A driver's attention should be on the road while navigating the turn, not trying to pick out features on the opposite river bank," Frerker wrote to environmentalist Jim Bensman.

He went on to rebut concerns about the beauty - or lack thereof - of barges.

"Seeing navigation as a visibility or aesthetic impact is a matter of opinion. Many individuals stop to watch barges traveling the Mississippi," he wrote.

Corps officials met Aug. 24 with conservationists and Ameren officials and agreed to give the public two weeks to submit comments on the matter.

After Ameren filed its application for the facility earlier this year, the corps posted the application on its Web site and announced that the public could submit comments from May 30 until June 20.

Hoagland said that she learned of the project only recently and that she believes the corps failed to distribute notices to enough people, particularly landowners in the area.

The byway council also received no notice, she said.

But the corps did send the announcement to local mayors and others who have requested such announcements, said Jennifer Watkins, executive assistant to Col. Michael Morrow, district engineer in charge of the St. Louis District.

Hoagland, who said she has had to contend with smoke from the power plant since it was completed in 1968, said she is concerned that the plant's plan to burn more petroleum coke may increase the amount of sulfur dioxide it releases. Sulfur dioxide contributes to acid rain.

Mike Menne, manager of Ameren's environmental safety and health department, acknowledged that petroleum coke contains about four times as much sulfur as most of the coal the plant burns.

He said that after the Portage des Sioux plant got a permit to burn petroleum coke in 1998, the plant actually reduced its sulfur dioxide emissions from about 55,000 tons to 44,000 tons per year. That was partly because the company had to burn more low-sulfur coal in order to get permission to burn the petroleum coke, he said.

"We're burning more low-sulfur coal at the plant than in years past," he said.

In addition, under the proposal, the plant would not sharply increase its burning of petroleum coke, Menne said. The amount of coke in the fuel stream at any one time will rise from a maximum of 5 percent to 10 percent, he said. The plant mixes petroleum coke with used tires and coal to make fuel.

E-mail: pshinkle@postnet.com\ Phone: 314-862-2180

The following is a letter I sent to the Corps....

Regarding public notice No: p-2230
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Attn: CEMVS-CO-F (Charles Frerker)
1222 Spruce Street
St. Louis, MO 63103-2833


Dear Sir,

I am writing regarding Ameren UEs proposal (p-2230) to build a conveyor system and barge depot on the Mississippi river bank at their Sioux Power Plant.

My interest in this project stems from the fact that I am the secretary/treasure for Alton Lake Sailing Association (ALSA). ALSA is registered with the state of Missouri as a non-profit organization. We have leased and maintained the area just west of the Sioux Plant since the early 1960s.

I first learned of the proposed project when I read an article about it in the August 30 edition of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

News of the proposed Ameren project is disheartening. While the visual aspects of this plan are depressing it is the issue of safety for recreational boaters that concerns me most. It seems very probable that the proposed barge depot will result in a considerable increase in barge activity in the area. Besides an increase in barge traffic we now face the prospect of navigating sailboats in and amongst barges maneuvering at or near the place where we sail.

ALSA and our neighbor Valley Sailing Association represent two of only a few sailing clubs in the metro area and the only ones on the river. For a nominal fee and some work contribution, anyone owning a small boat or with an interest in small boat sailing may use our facilities, learn how to sail, partake in club social events and generally have a safe wholesome place to recreate with family and friends.

Both clubs have, in recent years, dealt with abnormally long spring flooding and an increase in traffic (of all types) on the river. The additional, significant issue of a near by barge depot, causes me concern about the future of small boat sailing as a recreational option in the St. Louis Area.

Return to ALSA web site.

Site Last Updated Sunday, 04 February, 2001. 17:36:24