Next DNR Meeting

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources will hold the third in a series of monthly informational meetings Thursday, Feb. 9, to discuss progress made on water quality in the Black River and recovery efforts at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park near Lesterville. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at Lesterville High School, Highway 21 and Elm, in Lesterville.

River Watch

In my opinion the river is continuing to clear, still blue/green, but I can see some rocks through the shallow water. At the East Fork bridge (Hwy 21) there were two trucks from the U. S. Geological Survey with instruments in the water and a new solar powered river gauge has been mounted on the southeast side of the bridge.

Shut-Ins Cleanup

The son of a friend of mine is helping clean up the Shut-Ins and took a camera to work. Here is a photo of Jake with his truck. This truck is used to haul downed trees to the wood chipper. Part of his job is to drive this truck up the path that the water cleared on Proffitt Mt. and bring down any trees that were knocked down but that did not end up in the park. In the days to come I will post some additional photos and I have asked that Jake continue to take pictures and let us all know what is happening with the cleanup.

River Watch

Pam and I went to Farmington today and the river is still cloudy, but not muddy. So I think its good news that the mud is gone in 24 hours. On our way home we went down AA and checked out the lower reservoir again. Still blue/green and still full, so if they do have the gates open its not dropping because of the weekend rain.

Letter from FERC to Amerem

Here is a link to a letter that the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency sent to Ameren requesting data for their investigation. Its probably more than any of you want to wade through, but I found it pretty interesting. Anyone that thinks that this incident is going to be whitewashed should probably look this over.

Beautiful day in Lesterville

It was 60 degrees at 1pm and the sky was bright blue. We had over an inch of rain yesterday so the river is up, over the rocks at BRL and it is muddy again. I think that until all the silt is washed down to Clearwater Lake that each time we get a good rain the river will turn muddy. Pam and I drove up to the lower reservoir this afternoon. It is blue-green, no sign of silt in the water and the water coming out of the dam is clear. So at this point all the silt that is causing the river to look muddy is already in the river channel and is no longer coming from the lower reservoir. Six weeks have past since the upper reservoir breached and we have sixteen weeks (+ or -) until Memorial weekend so let's hope that things will look better by the time you all come back to Lesterville.

There was a truck from the Corps of Engineers parked on the East Fork Bridge on Hwy. 21 taking readings from the East Fork. During the public meeting in February maybe we will find out more about the condition of the river and projections for it in the future.

Jay vs. Matt

Pam and I got home this afternoon from our trip to Alabama. The river is a blue-green and its raining hard. We will go up to the lower reservoir on Monday and let you know what we see.
The St Louis Post-Dispatch ran an article about the dispute between the Gov and the AG over the environment.

AG + clear water

Here are two links to articles in the Park Hills newspaper.

Link One

Link Two

Man Made Flood

There is a statement in this article that makes me think that after the lower reservoir is clear that Ameren is going to release a lot of water and try to start flushing the clay from the river. While I think it is going to take a lot more water than they have stored, maybe if they do it a number of times between now and May it will make a difference. Guess all we can do is wait and see.

lower Reservoir

Ameren has started treating the lower reservoir. I'll be back in Lesterville on Monday and will post a personal observation on the reservoir and the river at BRL.

Dam Inspectioins

He is a link to an article about Taum Sauk in the Park Hills paper.

Treating the Lower Reservoir

Here is a link to an article in the Park Hills newspaper about the plan to treat the lower reservoir. Pam and I will be back in Lesterville on Sunday and I hope I can report that there is a difference in the river. While it will be nice to see the river clear up this will not do anything for the silt that has already been deposited on the bottom of the river, for that to be removed we are going to need a couple big rains.

Chamber of Commerce

Received an email this morning that a group of outfitters and campgrounds in Lesterville is forming a Chamber of Commerce and installing a phone line to take questions and direct people that want to know the condition of the river and make reservations to come down. There will probably be a web site and links from the Shut-Ins site and maybe Department of Tourism. Of course you can just stay tuned to this site for updates.

Tourism

Here is a link to an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. While many of the businesses in Lesterville do not have a web site, it bothers me that those that do don't have any information
about the Taum Sauk flood or the condition of the river on their sites. I have provided information since the afternoon of December 14. I know that those of you that love the river and come back every year just want to know that is happening. I will continue to try and keep you informed of everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Ameren News Release

Here is a link to a news release from Ameren about September incident and clean up efferts.

Damage ?

Had a note last night from someone that just found this site, asking about damage to Black River Lodge. So for those of you just finding this site I'll restate that there is no damage to any lodge or campground below the lower reservoir. The only damage is the silt in the East Fork and the main river. In fact I should post that Park's Bluff, Horseshoe Ranch, Sutton's Bluff, and Brushy Creek Resort all have clear water flowing by since they are on the middle or west fork of the river. If you are new to the site you can click on the archive links and read all the posts going back to the first day of the flood. I think all the links in the older posts are good, although some newspapers only keep their articles on the web for one month and we are five weeks from the day that the upper reservoir failed.

Missouri Mud Wrestle

Here are two artilces about the Taum Sauk investigation.

Kansas City Star

Springfield News-Leader

Governor's Letter to Ferc

Here is a link to the letter sent by Missouri's governor to FERC.

Ameren letter in Mt. Echo

There is a full page letter in todays edition of the Mt. Echo (Ironton's Weekly Newspaper) from the CEO of Ameren, thanking all the agencies that helped on December 14 and after. I'll try to find a link to this (the Echo is not online) and if I can't find it I will post part of the letter myself.

Letters to Ameren

There is a lot of information on web, but finding it takes a while. Here are letters (orders) to Ameren from DNR.

Order Number 1

Order Number 2

Order Number 3

FERC Letter

Here is a link to the letter that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sent to Ameren after learning of the September overtopping.

Two Big Stories

The St Louis Post Dispatch had two big stories about Taum Sauk. First there is a disagreement between Missouri's Governor and our Attorney General about how to investigate the Taum Sauk event. Second is an article about the desire of Ameren to rebuild the upper reservoir. I can tell you that the community of Lesterville is split over the idea of rebuilding. On one side you have those that realize that the property taxes that Ameren pays are a major contributor to the well being of Lesterville School. I have heard numbers up to 60% of the school is paid for by Ameren. On the other side are those that don't want to ever see this type of event again and don't trust that Ameren will build and opperate a safe facility.

Ameren's Projected Losses

If I've read Ameren's web site correctly they are projecting a loss of .07 to .12 cents per share for Taum Sauk. At 186,600,000 shares outstanding that makes the loss between $13,000,000 and $22,000,000. Stay tuned.
Note - According to the St Louis Post Dispatch this loss is for electric generation only, it does not include the cost of repairing the Shut-Ins and other property damaged in the flood

Ameren's Earning Guidance

Here is a link to Ameren's Earning Guidance.

There is only one reference to Taum Sauk, "However, we anticipate that earnings in 2006 will be negatively impacted by increased coal and related transportation costs and the lack of the availability of our 440 megawatt Taum Sauk pumped-storage plant."

I'll try to see if there is anything in the conference call about Taum Sauk.

Lots of Numbers

I was laying in bed this morning unable to go back to sleep because of a lot of numbers running through my old head. First, in Cooper's email he states that he wants to lower the elevation of the upper reservoir by one foot. "Moving the current operating level from 1596 to 1595 wouldn't be popular. I'm not sure what that would mean in $$ of generation." Well I don't know either, but one foot would be about 18 million gallons and that would run the generators for about six minutes. In hindsight I'm sure that is not a lot of retail electricity.

Second, the pumps send three million gallons of water up to the upper reservoir each minute. So to fill that last foot before it over flowed would have taken six minutes if both pumps were working. But Pump #2 stopped 33 minuets before Pump #1 stopped, so in the last half hour 1.5 million gallons per minuet were going up. No one knows yet how long the dam was being over topped before the wall gave way, but for some time 1.5 million gallons each minute were going over the top. Once the wall gave way it took 12 minuets to drain the reservoir, that is one hundred million gallons per minute that were going down that hill.

Well I'm going to go have breakfast. Since today is not a state holiday I'm sure there will be additional information about the action that may be taken against Ameren.

Governor calls for legal action

Its being reported tonight that Missouri's Governor is calling on the Attorney General to file civil or criminal charges against AmerenUE in connection with the incident involving its Taum Sauk Reservoir last month. This won't clean up the river, but will make a lot of people happy.
Stay tuned!

Disturbing Article in the St Louis Post Dispatch

Here is a link to an article about the past problems at the Upper Reservoir. I would imagine that the Attorney General will now get involved is this investigation. I addition to his legal responsibilities, I know that Jay Nixon and his family have vacationed in Lesterville because they have visited the pottery on a few occasions. If lack of action by Ameren managers led to this catastrophe I think there is going to be hell to pay. I'm not a happy camper this morning.

On a Lighter Note

Yesterday was the grand reopening of the Black River Ice-Cream Parlor. Donna and Terry Foster added a nice dinning room to the east side of the building and remodeled the kitchen. They are now serving lunch and dinner as well as the complete menu of ice-cream treats from the past. We went to dinner last night and the place was packed. So next time you are in Lesterville stop by and give this place a try.

Speaking of being in Lesterville, yesterday we had two families stop by the pottery while they were down to see the river and the damage up at the Shut-Ins. If you come down before May give us a call and see if we are open. Pam and I are leaving this Friday for a trip to Mississippi and Alabama to visit family. So we will not be here for the next two weekends.

Ameren Earnings Guidance 2006

Ameren is holding a conference call on Tuesday, January 17 to present its earnings guidance for 2006 to Wall Street. They will have a webcast available on their web site www.ameren.com after the conference call. I'll be interested to see if they discuss their expenses for the clean up at the Shut-Ins and the rest of the area. My best guess is that it is costing them about $500,000 a week to deal with the aftermath of the flood.

Treating the Lower Reservoir

Missouri has given Ameren permission to treat the Lower Reservoir with a chemical, Alum, that will cause the clay that is floating in the water to drop to the bottom of the reservoir. Ameren has until Tuesday to submit a detailed report on this action. Once the reservoir is treated it should only take a few days for the water to clear. While this will not help clean up the lower river near the lodges it will make sure it doesn't get worse. The only thing that is going to help the lower river is enough floods to wash the clay down to Clearwater Lake. We had a hard short rain early Thursday morning and when I went to town yesterday at 11am the river was up at the bridge and it was muddy again, not cloudy green. So each time we have some higher water the clay will get stirred up and cloud the water, but it will also head a little further south which is good.

Earlier Trouble at Taum Sauk

Here is a link to a story on KSDK about a problem at Taum Sauk last September. The St Louis Post Dispatch had an article on their web site about this by Saturday afternoon.

Monster Machine

The star attraction of the machinery that it being used to clean up the Shut-Ins park is a Vermeer Tub Grinder. This machine is so large it took a special order from the governor to get it transported to Reynolds County. The grinder burns 50 gallons of fuel an hour and is working from sunlight to dark, seven days a week. It grinds enough mulch in fifteen minutes to fill a large dump truck.

DNR Meeting

Over 200 people were at the Lesterville school gym for the second monthly meeting conducted by DNR about the restoration of Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park and the Black River below Lesterville. Those of you in St Louis had some TV coverage of the meeting as the satellite trucks from 2, 4, and 5 were set up to send in their reports. After some opening remarks about the work over the last four week a DNR spokesman presented a slide show about the work at the park. The primary work has been cleaning up all the downed trees and removing all the soil that covers the roads and parking lots. They described the current work as environmental stabilization. trying to build barriers to keep the silt out of the river. There is no fresh water or waste water treatment at the park now and it will be a while till these are available. They are still trying to get the park open to the public for day use by summer.

Questions that have not been answered are.

Are they going to treat the lower reservoir with chemicals to remove the fine clay that is clouding the water.

Is there anything that can be done about the river below Highway 21 near the lodges and campgrounds. They did say that testing has not turned up anything bad in the river, it is just
ugly with a lot of fine clay clouding the water.

Will they rebuild the campgrounds at the Shut-Ins on higher ground.

The next meeting is February 9 at the Lesterville school. I will continue to try to find links to informative artices about the progress at the park and the condition of the river.

There is a lot of local concern that those of you that come to Lesterville each summer might sit this year out because of the condition of the river. I hope you reconsider because many of the local businesses probably could not survive a bad summer season. So come on back, just don't buy a new swimming suit.

East Fork near the Shut-Ins

I've been searching for an aeriel photo of the Shut-Ins area and finally found one. To orient those of you that have been to the park, we are looking north. Highway N runs across the photo and there is a temporary road coming off N and leading to the east side of the river. What looks like a pond is the scour hole that was formed by the force of the water coming down the mountain. What is important to me in this photo is the new river bed heading to the lower left that goes through one of the campground areas. You can see the original river bed along the right side of the photo. I hope that we can learn from DNR tomorrow night what the plans are to put the river back on its original course. Additional aeriel photos are posted on the Johnson's Shut-Ins site.

Send the Sun

This is the first rainy day since the December 14 flood, plus its 38 degrees. Guess I'll start working on my taxes. More news will be posted after Thursdays meeting.

Shut-Ins News

Here is a link to an excellent article about the work at the Shut-Ins. The river at the lodges continues to run a cloudy blue-green and since we have not had any rain, as the river drops the bank is covered with about an inch of slimy mud. This is going to take a while to return to
the "crystal clear" river we all love.

Ozark Trail

There are lots of different interests effected by this event. Here is a link to the folks that build and maintain the Ozark Trail, which was damaged by the flood and is closed through the Shut-Ins.

Public Meeting

DNR has announced that there will be a public meeting about the progress at the Shut-Ins Thursday, January 12 at 7pm at the Lesterville School
Link to the press release.

New Information about the Reservoir

New information has been released about past inspections of the Taum Sauk Reservoir.
If you are looking for links from the December posts click on December under Archives.

Ameren Meeting

Last night about 60 people from Lesterville meet at the school with representatives of Ameren. The meeting was conducted by Dave Fitzgerald. Dave was the Taum Sauk plant manager from 1999 to 2002 and was known by most of those at the meeting. With Dave were five other employees of Ameren including a VP, manager, and engineers.

It was reported that Ameren had hired an engineering firm from the east coast to first determine why the overflow sensors failed and then to make recommendations on rebuilding the upper reservoir. It was felt that this work would take all of 2006 and that if the decision was made to rebuild that work would begin in 2007 and be completed sometime in 2008.

Ameren stated that they were committed to restoring Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. They have begun to remove soil and trees from the roadways and parking lots. As of the 5th they had removed 2000 cubic yards of soil. They stated that as they get closer to the shut-ins that most of the work will have to be done by hand. They are also draining the six acre pond that was formed at the base of the mountain by the force of the water coming down the mountain. This is being done to make sure that any silt that is in the bottom of this pond is not washed into the East Fork.

Ameren has applied for permission to treat the lower reservoir with a chemical (floculant) that will cause the fine clay particles that are suspended in the water to clump together and fall to the bottom of the reservoir. At present all the water being released from the lower reservoir is clouded with this fine clay and clouding the river for miles down stream. They felt that the only action that could clean the river below Lesterville was to hope for a couple of spring floods. So for those of us that love our clear river we hope for continued mild and dry weather through March so that the work can continue on the Shut-Ins and then a couple of good April/May floods to clean out the lower river near the lodges and campgrounds.

New Photos

Just found this site with some more photos, plus there are two videos for those of you with high speed internet.

New Photos

The state has posted new photos of the recovery effort. There is going to be a public meeting at the Lesterville School Thursday at 7pm with representatives from Ameren. I will post information from this meeting on Friday.

Shut-Ins Entrance

Pam and I went out to the Shut-Ins area this afternoon. Here is a photo of the park entrance off Highway N. There is a project office, security office, and a lot of state cars. The area where the water came down the mountain can be seen left center. A steady stream of dump trucks was coming and going loaded with the mud and silt that was washed off the mountain and into the park.

Happy New Year

Pam and I just got back to Lesterville after partying in St Louis. The river is still cloudy, but we can tell that it is clearer than when we left on Saturday. I talked to a friend that has a farm near the Shut-Ins and he said that Ameren had been ordered to remove all the large rocks that are in the park and take them back up the mountain to the upper reservoir area. They are going to use the gash in the mountain as a road to get the stuff back up the hill. Pam and I are hoping to go out towards the Shut-Ins tomorrow. Lee