Interesting!

Here is an article about two problems and maybe one solution.

River Valley District

I attended a meeting of a new organization, the River Valley District. This organization is going to try to promote the area from Caledonia to Lesterville. I think one of the best parts of the organizaton is it will give all of us a chance to meet other business owners. I've been selling pottery in Lesterville for 22 years and yet I met seven other tourist related business owners for the first time. So I can't predict what sort of success we will have, but I feel that my contributions are going to be worth the effort. There is concern in Lesterville that the shortened summer season caused by the earlier starting date for schools and the higher cost of gas is going to create problems for the Black River tourist trade. I feel that because of our distance from St. Louis that the River Valley area will remain a popular place to get away for a few days.

Upper Reservoir

On my drive to the Shut-Ins this past Sunday on Highway N I was surprised that the Upper Resevoir is no longer visible. There were only a few places (21 between Centerville and Lesterville, and Highway U) where the Upper Reservoir could be seen. I don't know how many feet the top of the reservoir has be lowered, but it is enough to make it disappear from N.

Plan and Survey Problems

If you are like me and participated in the first Shut-Ins survey, then you will probably not be able to access the redevelopment plan or take the current survey plan on the internet. I hope that DNR will be able to provide some sort of workaround for this problem.

Thanks

I know that many of you that read this blog are also customers at the pottery during the season. I just wanted you to know that I just wrote a check for $725.00 to the American Cancer Society. This represents the sales of the Relay for Life Christmas ornament that we make and the chances on the "old bridge" table raffle. We will draw the winner of the table next Monday and I will post the winner on the blog. Thanks for your continued support of the pottery.

Bold and Exciting

Those are the words that I would use for the proposed design for rebuilding the Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. There are a number of very exciting ideas in this design. The park's camping area is going to be moved to an area north of the park entrance, off Highway M. This is the current site of the equestrian trail and a large campground for RVs, tents, scouts, and horse owners is proposed. The park will have a new entrance road, picknic grounds, park office and store and a number of other features at the north end of the current park area. One advantage of this design is you will be able to visit the park and play in the river even if the Shut-Ins is closed because of the number of visitors. Anyone who has tried to visit the park during the summer has experienced waiting in line for someone to leave so you could get in, under the new plan there will be other things to do while you wait. There will be a new road from Highway N leading to an overlook at the scour left by the Taum Sauk event. And you will be able to hike in the scour. They are even proposing having a shuttle bus system from the campground to the main park area and then to the scour area. So I encourage you to go the the parks web site and look at the plans and let DNR know what you think. Sounds like they want to get started in early fall and have some areas open by next summer. I sure liked what I saw.

Dry Spell Over

As of 7pm Sunday we have had 3 inches of rain and more is on the way. The entire county is under a flash flood warning. I will have a lot to say about the plans for the Shut-Ins as soon as it stops storming. I was impressed with the plans and hope they can get started soon.

Rainy Day

Started raining around 7am and started to clear at noon. About a half inch total. Bad Saturday to be on vacation, but a good day to sell pottery.

Taum Sauk FAQ

Here is a link to an Ameren FAQ page that I found interesting. Make sure you read the question 6 about the reservoir.

Lower Reservoir

Here is a link to a DNR site that has some great photos of the Lower Reservoir.

Tourism and Wi-Fi

Two things this morning, an article in the Mt. Echo yesterday detailed plans for a new organization, the River Valley District. This is an effort to combine the Lesterville Black River businesses with the Arcadia Valley businesses in one promotional organizaton. There is a meeting in Arcadia next Wednesday and I will attend and let you know what develops. Second, there was a news release that Bennett Springs State Park is installing Wi-Fi. I'll be interested to see if that is on the plans for the Shut-Ins. Question, would you bring your laptop or Blackberry to Lesterville if Wi-Fi were available at the lodge or campground that you frequent?

More Work at Upper Reservoir

Ameren has notified FERC that the consultants retained by Ameren's property insurer, Rimkus Consulting Group, were drilling borings near the Upper Reservoir. The original plan was to drill three core samples to a depth of 75 feet. However, after the first boring, the plan was changed to seven borings to a depth of 30 feet. This work is being done as part of the geotechnical invistigation for a possible rebuild of the Upper Reservoir.

Lower and Upper Reservoir Update

Ameren has posted a page of photos of the work being done on the Lower Reservoir. There is also a page of information on the work about both reservoirs. The last paragraph was very interesting to me.

More Shut-Ins News

Here is a link to an article in the Kansas City Star about the redesign of the park. Other news, we had another half inch of rain on Sunday afternoon, so things are not as dry as earlier. With schools starting this week we are expecting a big drop in visitors to the pottery. I'll let you know how things turned out after a few days.

Work Goes On

Here is a quote from a letter to FERC

On behalf of Union Electric Company, doing business as AmerenUE, transmitted herewith are
five copies of the RCC Mix Design Program Work Plan associated with the referenced project
for your review and commemt.
This letter and attachments contain Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEIl) because
they address issues involving potential rebuild options for Taum Sauk. As a result, AmerenUE
requests that FERC treat this information as confidential.

Note - RCC stands for roller compacted concrete and there was an earlier letter that mentioned studying whether the rock that makes up the Upper Reservoir could be used as aggregate for the RCC.

Blast Plan

Ameren and FERC are corresponding on a Blast Plan for the Upper Reservoir. As I read FERC's letter to Ameren the plan is to drill a number of holes and fill them with explosives. The blasting is being done to work on a demonstration foundation plan for a new reservoir.

Shut-Ins News

Here is an important news release about the future of the Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. I hope all of you that visited the park this summer will take the time to let DNR know what you think about their plans. I'll report after attending one of the open houses what I found.

Rain and Trees

We had about 1.25 inches of rain this afternoon and evening. On the drive to Farmington today I would say that the number of dead trees has doubled since last week.

Another Record

This time it's the hummingbirds. In the last seven days we have used 32 pounds of sugar, that's a record. However, today we only mixed 8 quarts, so I think that a lot of the birds started south this morning. We'll know more in the next few days.

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know

Here is a link to a recent article about the survey of the Taum Sauk event.

Rain Finally

We had a quarter inch this morning and three forths right after lunch, so a full inch in eight hours. Don't think it will help the low river but the plants and flowers should perk up. Someone mentioned today that they had never see so little water going through the Shut-Ins. This will probably help the Lower Reservoir clean up.

Little Rain

They had almost two inches of rain up toward the Shut-Ins but we only got a tenth at Peola Valley. Talked to one of the workers at the Lower Reservoir, he said they are still making a channel for the East Fork to drain towards the dam before they start actually removing the clay.

Rumors and Observations

Rumor - One of the bigger Lesterville businesses is considering making changes because of the early start to the school year. Camp Taum Sauk has already altered its long time schedule because of this problem. Kids have to be back for school and camp staff and wait staff are also made up of college students that are also starting earlier. With higher energy prices I think that the tourism industry is in for a rocky time in the years to come.

Observation - One of my customers yesterday commented on the lack of canoes in the river on Sunday afternoon. They said it was great for them, but they wondered about the effect on area businesses.

Rumor - One of the campgrounds only has 25 reservations for the Labor Day weekend and the person telling me this has camped in Lesterville for over 25 years and she felt there were fewer campers here this week than anytime in her experience.

Observation - When Pam and I went to Farmington on Monday we couldn't believe the number of dead and dying trees in the hills along Hiway V outside of Pilot Knob. With a number of low rain summers in a row I wonder if we aren't going to begin to see some forest fires in the next few years.

Big Muddy

This is what the Lower Reservoir looked like this afternoon. All the heat and sun should be great for drying out the silt that was deposited on the bottom after December 14.

Real Good Times

The Peola Valley Pottery had more sales in the last five days than in any week in our 22 year history. So much for those people that predicted that "no one is going to come to Lesterville and get in that dirty river." The only down side to the Black River area right now is the lack of rain and the high temperatures. So thanks to all of you that visited the pottery last week and help set a record!

Good Times / Bad Times

As Pam and I prepare for the end of what will be a record week for the pottery I note the irony of an article in The Mountain Echo. It details the drop in visitors to Johnson's Shut-Ins from 41,000 in June of 2005 to 17,980 in June of this year. I know that a lot of my loyal customers that had not visited the Shut-Ins in years are going out to see what happened to the park. But for those that only want to have fun in the river and rocks at the park I'm sure they are finding other places to play. The following article from the Columbia paper was printed in a number of newspapers.

As with so many things, the strange politics that make up everyday life in Missouri prevent this state from rising to the top. My local TV station (from Cape Girardeau) is filled with adds for various attractions in Alabama. Assume they would not continue advertising if people didn't leave this area to vacation in Alabama. I also get the New Mexico magazine. This great magazine is written by state employees and published by the state government. It seems to me that Tourism in Missouri is divided into a lot of small organizations that are not working toward the same goal and most are underfunded. I was excited when I heard about Missouri Ozarks Regional Explorers. But after attending one of their conferences and seeing that their web site was not current and even omitted some of the major tourist attractons in the Lesterville area and there is no one person promoting this effort I think its just another failed Missouri attempt.
There is no web site for Reynolds County. The web site for Iron County is full of old data and not one that you would want to visit often. Even the state park web sites lack a lot of visual appeal. So we all just go bumbling along and if the right people come through the door of our business we have a great week.

Ten Quarts to Go Please

Not only is this the busiest week for sales at the pottery, in addition we mixed ten quarts of sugar water for the hummers yesterday. There is a frenzy to fatten up before the flight towards the Gulf coast and we are using over twenty pounds of sugar a week now.

In other news, Ameren announced its second quart earnings and by my calculation they took a
12 million dollar expense for the Taum Sauk work.

Lower Reservoir

The CBS station (KFVS) in Cape Girardeau ran a story about the Lower Reservoir and the East Fork last night. If you have a high speed internet connection you can click on the video for some dramatic photos of the reservoir. Of course the news team was to lazy to drive two miles down Peola Road to film hundreds of people in a clear (mostly) river having a great time on a real hot day.

Upper Reservoir II

Ameren continues to do engineering work on a new reservoir design. They have reported to FERC that they are carrying out geophysical investigations at the site of the Upper Reservoir. This would involve using various instruments to determine the density, structure, and possible fault lines in the geology of Proffitt Mountain.

Somethings Fishy

Here is a press release from DNR about the fish in the Lower Reservoir. The info that caught my eye is the prediction that the Lower Reservoir will be nearly empty by the end of the week. I'll try to get up and take a look.

Down Hill From Here

The first week of August is usually our busiest of the summer. The next three weeks are better than average, but it is unusual for any week to beat this one. So with this 100 degree heat it is nice to start thinking about things slowing down and seeing some fall temperatures. I get so busy making and firing pots at this time of the summer that I don't have time to talk with other businesses to see how they are doing. But as I've stated before I think this has been a fine summer.