Spring Cleaning

Last day of February, going to be 70 degrees, so it seemed a good time for a little cleaning up. First, I've taked down the poll. The final count was 85% of those taking the poll stay at Black River Lodge. Probably no surprise in that might be a close number for returning customers at the pottery.

Second, I know that some of the past posts have dead links. Some newspapers only keep their articles available for a limited time. I'm not going to go back and remove these links, but be warned that some may no longer work if you go through the archives.

Shelley Powers has republished her Shut-Ins photos and added some new ones. If you did not read her article about the Shut-Ins visit I recommend it to you.

Enjoy the beautiful day, I know that Pam and I will.

Response to 89 Days

This is part of a comment that was left on the" 89 days" post.

Is your "89 days till..." a GOOD sign or a BAD sign? How do the
locals(BRL,Wilderness,Twin Rivers etc.) really feel about this
upcoming season? Are they seeing a decrease in reservations for
this summer yet?

It differs from place to place. First, as you have seen from poll, most of the readers of these posts are from BRL and I have not heard from anyone that is not coming back. Having said that I know that Linda is worried, but I think that is just her nature. Wilderness is in the process of changing owners. I've heard that the new owner plans on doing a lot of cabin repairs plus new carpet and furniture. I think they plan on changing their reservation plan, allowing people to pay for their room separate from their meals. So I think that Wilderness will be in a guest recovery plan for a few years and it won't have anything to do with the Taum Sauk event. A neighbor that works at Twin Rivers told me they are having a normal amount of reservations at this time. So my personal feelings are that this will be a fairly normal summer, except for one factor. If the Shut-Ins is open for day use (ie. no camping) I think that the area will see a big increase in tourism. Why? Because lots of people that have not been to the area before will want to drive down and see the damage/recovery for themselves. I know that when Pam and I went to Alabama to see Pam's sister in January we went out of our way to look at some of the Katrina damage. Just this past Saturday we had a couple from the Springfield area stop by the pottery after they had driven out past the Shut-Ins and they said they had not been to Lesterville since they spent their honeymoon at Wilderness 22 years ago. So I'm not worried about the season.

Treehugger?

Just because you care about the Black River does that make you a Treehugger?

89 Days till Memorial Weekend

Here is a photo I found on an internal web site for the Taum Sauk restoration work. The Shut-Ins are at the bottom of the photo, but what interested me is the amount of ground that is stripped of trees as you head up the river.

Poll Results - 40 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers, 3 Bearcats, 1 Parks Bluff, 1 Lesterville

Next Meeting

DNR is holding a series of meetings to update the public on the recovery effort. The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. March 16 in the Lesterville High School in Lesterville. The planning process to rebuild the park has begun and this process will include opportunity for public comment.

DNR Radio Show

Just finished listening to the KUMR show and here are the highpoints. DNR stated that they are nearing the end of the enviromental response and stabilization phase of their work and beginning the park rebuilding phase. This process involves planning for how to get the park open on a day use program this summer, but perhaps more important is the planning for how the park
will look in 10 and 20 years. The Deputy Director of DNR discussed the problems of drawing up an Emergency Response Plan that is workable in this type of event, but he felt that all agencies did a remarkable job in responding to the situation and he felt that all work was progressing as well as could be expected. Their water quality director said that he felt that the turbidy in the Black River below Lesterville was at a level that was to be expected and that it should continue to clear.

Poll Results as of Friday morning - 30 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers, 3 Bearcats, 1 Parks Bluff, 1 Lesterville

DNR on Public Radio

If you receive a signal from KUMR (Rolla 88.5 or Lebanon 96.3) you can listen to a live radio show about the Taum Sauk event Friday, Feb. 24 at 8:12am. KUMR also does live streaming on the internet for those of you outside their broadcast area.

More New Photos

DNR has posted four pages of new photos from the Shut-Ins. Yesterday as Pam and I were coming back from Ironton we went by the lower reservoir. They have dropped the level of the lake by quite a bit and the water color is a muddy green. I've been checking the turbidy results from the gauge at the East Fork bridge in Lesterville and two week ago they were running at 10 to 12 (below 1 being clear) and now they are running around 25. Maybe I can find out something about the turbity next month at the public meeting.

Poll results as of this morning - 27 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers, 3 Bearcats, 1 Parks Bluff,
1 Lesterville

New Web Page

Ameren has contracted with a firm in Springfield to put up a web site to tell the world that Lesterville was not wiped off the face of the earth and that we are working to get ready for the summer season. The first few pages of this site are up as of today. More will be added in the next few weeks.

ExperienceBlackRiver

Poll results as of 8am Wednesday - 23 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers,
3 Bearcats, 1 Parks Bluff, 1 Lesterville

Ameren and Toops Family Settle

Here is a link to an article in the St Louis Post about the settlement between Ameren and the Toops family.

River View

Here is what the river looked like at 1:00pm from the shuffleboard court at Black River Lodge.

Latest Poll Results 18 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers, 3 Bearcats, 1 Lesterville

New Photos

Here is a link to a page of photos that Ameren posted about the clean up at the Shut-Ins. I have had a request to post some photos from the new bridge. Its sky is clear this morning so I will go down around 11 and see what I can get.

Please take part in the poll if you haven't done so, as of this morning these are the results -

13 BRL, 1 Wilderness, 3 Twin Rivers

Black River Poll

I've placed a poll on the right side under Archives. Please take a moment and let me, and others know where you stay when you come to Lesterville. I've had emails from some of you and many of you are old friends of Peola Valley Pottery, but it would be nice to know the variety of readers of this blog.

After the first day it's 10 for BRL, 3 for Twin Rivers, and 1 for Wilderness.

New Video

If you have a high speed connection here is a link to a 5 minute video of the restoration work at the Shut-Ins.

Weather Report - Thursday afternoon we had a short, but very hard rain. The river did not muddy up, still clear in the shallows and blue/green in the pools. This morning we woke to about an inch of snow and it's still snowing.

HELP! Send an Editor

The following was copied (without permission) from the Feb.16 Reynolds County Courier.
The person being interviewed and the reporter won't be identified to protect the guilty.

There's a lot of disappointment because of the river's conditions. It's going to take a number of years as far as I'm concerned, and from what the future forecast has, that this summer's going to be dry. And that river is not going to be floatable, although, I take that back. It will be floatable; but it will be a dirty float. It will be nothing like we're used to, and there'll be a few people come down, but not many this year, and we'll lose a lot of business because of it.

At this point in time, everybody keeps talking about the East Fork that's coming into the Shut-Ins. And not a whole lot is being highlighted on below the river where everybody-the businesses and everything are the main concern, not only in Reynolds County, but other counties such as Iron...The Black River itself in Lesterville is one of the sights they come and just sit by it for a day. They don't have to do anything else. But that's not going to be available and it's going to be hard to tell how long it will be before it is. It's affecting the community heavily. It is seasonal, and it is the livelihood of his community.

Congressional Record

Our representative, Jo Ann Emerson, place the following in the Congressional Record recognizing the efforts of nine local people on the morning of December 14, 2005.

• Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the heroism of nine individuals in Missouri's Eighth Congressional District whose quick thinking and brave actions saved the lives of a family of five.

• In the early morning hours of December 14th, a billion-gallon flood from the Taum Sauk Reservoir swept through the Johnson Shut Ins State Park. Park Ranger Jerry Toops, his wife and their three children, ages 5, 3, and seven months, were awakened to a harrowing scene as the freezing cold floodwaters crashed through their home and carried them all away.

• Their rescuers were immediately set into motion. Mr. Josh McCarty, Mr. Gary Maize, Mr. Tyler Wright, Mr. Robbie Jordan, Mr. Ryan Wadlow and Fire Chief Ben Meredith of the Lesterville Fire Department, Reynolds County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Fox knew the Toops family had been in the path of the flood and raced to the scene. Also on the scene was a good Samaritan--Mr. Greg Coleman--a truck driver who had been stranded on the roof of his semi truck and heard Jerry Toops calling for help from a tree. He called the local emergency dispatcher and, as soon as the icy water receded, met the fire department and set out to find the family. Mr. Butch Walker, a neighbor, used his truck to clear a path through the flood debris for the emergency responders. They found the five members of the Toops family alive, but in urgent need of medical care.

• On the ensuing ambulance rides, the lives of the three children hung in the balance. Their parents, the county, the State and the Nation all prayed that they would survive. They did. But a moment later, a minute's delay, or a notch less of urgency and the outcome could have been grim for the Toops family, laying in their nightclothes on the cold, wet ground.

If not for these nine men with their training and determination, acting fast, in the dark, frozen moments after the flood, one, some, or all of these five lives would have been lost. It is this character, selflessness, and reliability for neighbors in need that make Southern Missouri a wonderful place to live. They are heroes of whom we are proud, though they would say they are just doing their jobs or doing what anyone would do in their position. Yet they responded without hesitation, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude. I commend them today in the U.S. House of Representatives and thank God for their great deeds.

Missouri Division of Tourism

Tourism Department has gotten on board in getting the word out that most of us in Lesterville are fine and preparing for the summer season. Here is a link to thier web site.

Land in the Ozarks

Ever want to buy some land in the Ozarks. The National Forest Service is proposing to sell 22,000 acres at various sites around southern Missouri. I assume that if this gets approved that the sale will be over the internet. All of this land is small parcels that are not connected to larger chuncks of the NFS lands. Here is a link to the NFS site. Forested land near Lesterville seems to sell for $400 to $600 a acre, a lot depends on access and quality of the timber.

First Hand Account

Here is a link to a great article that Shelley Powers wrote after visiting the Shut-Ins last week. Please take the time to read this, there are a lot of photos with the article, and I think you will learn more than from all the newspaper articles that I have posted.

Going Fishing?

In all that has been published about the Black River there has been very little about the aquatic life. I asked a Conservation agent about the fish last Thursday and he said he did not have any data, but he felt that there had to be some impact on future generations. So here is a link to an article that addresses some of these issues.

New Photos

Shelley Powers left a comment that she had posted some new photos from last weeks media tour. Those of you with a slow dial-up connection like the old potter will have to go get a cup of coffee (in a Peola Mug) while this link loads.

If you clicked the link in the first paragraph and it didn't work, try again its working now.


This link is another way to see Shelley's photos.

Ameren Stats

Here is some of the information that Ameren handed out at last week meeting

More that 600 truck loads of Mulch has been given away

Two air curtain destructors are being used to burn woody debris

Over 2000 truck loads of silt have been removed

Over 1300 truck loads of woody debris have been removed from the campground and mulched or burned

Exposed rebar has been cut from concrete debris to make the work site safer

Campground area being prepared for seeding

Concept plans for river restoration ongoing. Plan to be presented at the March public meeting.

Another Article

Here is a link to the Park Hills newspaper which had a good article about Thursdays meeting.

DNR Meeting and Park Tour

The meeting last night was well attended. Each agency involved in the cleanup had a table with video or computer slide shows explaining what was going on. Channel 2 and 4 from St Louis had their satellite trucks set up in front of school and 5 was in a lower parking lot. Channel 12 from Cape and 3 from Springfield were at the Shut-Ins earlier in the day. For those of you not in St Louis here is a link to the article in the Post about the Shut-Ins tour.

I got to talk to the DNR people that were involved in water turbidity. If you click on the River Gauge Data link on the right and look at the last graph you will see that the data goes back and forth between 10 and 12. They said that if they had a sample from last summer that it would read below 1. However, if you were to take a gallon jar down to the river at BRL right now and fill it and hold it up, it would appear clear. From the bridge it still looks blue/green.

I talked to a representive from DNR who stated that they still don't have any drinking water at the Park. I thought they had a well system, but they took water from the East Fork and had a small water treatment plant that supplied water to the campground and the rest of the park. That water treatment plant was destroyed and they have not made a decision on how or when it will be replaced. That also means that they have no sewer system at the Park. So I'm sure that if the park reopens on a limited basis this summer it will be with a lot of porta-potties.

Finally, for those readers from Black River Lodge, I saw Gil and Linda at last nights meeting and they thanked me for these efforts and asked that I say HI! to everyone. And remember, only eight weeks till the hummingbirds are back in the valley.

Newspaper Links

Here are two links to newspaper articles about todays activities.

Park Hills

Kansas City

TV Tonight

Reminder that for those of you in the St Louis area and Cape Girardeau that there will be an update on the cleanup at the Shut-Ins tonight on local TV. The media is being invited to tour the Shut-Ins from 2pm to 4pm today. Its a cold day but the sky is clear so there should be good light for the cameras. For those in other parts of Missouri, I wouldn't be surprised if your TV stations didn't take a feed from one of the St Louis stations with the story. Tomorrow I'll let you know what I find out at the public meeting that will be held at the school tonight at 7pm.

Welcome to Mulchville

According to the Ameren web site they have chipped about 122,000 cubic yards of downed trees at the Shut-Ins. That is enough mulch to cover a football field fifteen feet deep. Since they have to get rid of this stuff it is available for free and so is delivery. So I would estimate that there is at least 100 dump trucks of mulch that has been dumped at the south end of the BRL field and more back by the maintence shed. There is some at Lenny's and a large field between the Library and the old Bess Stop gas station. So by the time all of you return to Lesterville we ougth to be the mulch capitol of the Ozarks.

P.S. It's snowing in Peola Valley this morning, the first snow of 2006. Won't amount to much and it is real pretty. I always think that the first day of spring is March 5. That is the day that the Phoebes return to start repairing last years nest. Most people don't know about Phoebes, but they are a great little bird that come back to the same nest each year. We usually have about five nests here at the pottery and forge.

Big Deal, New Neighbors

Wilderness Lodge has been sold to the Flowers family. This sale includes Riversedge Campground and Black River Floats plus the 1200 acres that surround the lodge. Closing on this deal is expected in the next 30 days. For those of you that go to BRL, this is the same family that bought the Adam's Farm across the river from the lodge two years ago. They also own Lost Trails, a large private estate a few miles down the river. So we welcome the new owners to the valley and wish them the best of luck in this venture.

New Ameren Web Site

Ameren has posted a new web site with information about the clean up efforts.

Lesterville News

The Springfield News-Leader has a great article about the current situation in Lesterville and the work at the Shut-Ins. Also the newly formed Black River Chamber of Commerce has a phone number, 573-637-2508, and a new web site. I have a link to their site under the links list on the right. Also here is the link to the press release about water clarity from DNR.

Thanks a Thousand

As of last night over 1,000 people have visited this site since December 25. Thanks for your interest and concern over the Black River and the Lesterville area. There have even been site visitors from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Romania, Spain, Australia, Isreal, Portugal and Tiawan. As long as I can find news, good or bad, I will post it. Here is a link to an article about the rivers clarity.

Need Your Help

Ameren has said that they are going to run some ads about Lesterville/Black River. I get the St. Louis Post (except Sunday) so if any of my regular readers in KC, Springfield, Columbia, Jeff City, ect sees one of these ads would you please email me. Don't know how they will approach this, but would like to know how far and wide it goes. Thanks

Big Vac

The Fen area of Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park is a delicate bog like area that is filled with rare plants. To clean up this area all the downed trees and limbs were removed my hand and now the ground is being cleaned with this special vacuum.

Ameren sets up Lesterville Office

Here is a link to an Ameren press release concerning Black River businesses. While this old potter is not worried about how many berry bowls he might sell this summer, there are many local businesses that are worried about the season. I think everything will be just fine, but who really knows. Stay tuned.

More information about the lower reservoir

Yesterday I learned the name of the company that treated the lower reservoir, Sweetwater Technology from Minnesota. Here is a photo of the boat that applied the alum to the water.
It took 20 tanker trucks, 14 from St. Louis and 6 from Georgia to bring the chemicals that were applied to the water.

River Watch

First another photo from Jake, this shows a large machine that provides extra air to a burn pile. As to the river, Pam and I went down to the landing in front of Wilderness. I took a hoe so I could rake some of the gravel at the bottom of the river. The good news is that there is very little silt on the bottom of the river at that spot. The river still appears blue/green but when you are down near the water you can see the bottom. I hope that at next weeks meeting I can talk to some of the water quality folks from the geological survey and see if they can tell me why the water appears as it does, but I feel that by summer that the river will be back close to normal.

Any geeks out there?

Here is a link to the data that is being collected from the East Fork at Lesterville. Think I must have slept through this class. It does show that the turbidy (cloudiness) of the water is going down and they are dumping a lot of water out of the lower reservoir.

Trip to Lesterville?

A number of families have made weekend trips to see the reservoir and the river at the lodge. Just wanted you to know that we will have the pottery open on Saturday and Sundays from 9am to 4pm. I know that this weekend doesn't look as nice as last, but if you do come down and want to talk about the river please feel free to stop by the store. I think that we will be able to have it open most weekends till we open full time in May, but if you are coming down later, send us an email or give a call and see what out plans are.

TV Coverage

First here is another photo from the cab of Jake's truck of the Shut-Ins landscape. In addition to the DNR meeting next week for the public, the news media is being invited to tour the Shut-Ins from 2pm till 4pm on the 9th. So I assume that those of you that receive a TV signal from St Louis will get some news coverage.