FERC Meeting

The meeting last night was very well attended. There were four representatives from FERC, three from DC and one from Chicago at the meeting. The meeting started with a powerpoint presentation by Paul Rizzo on the design of the new upper reservoir. Mr. Rizzo's firm has designed and built some of the largest Roller Compacted Concrete dams in the world. They also had a video of the "pouring" of the test pad at Taum Sauk to see if concrete made from the existing dam rock would be up to required strength. I talked to Mr. Rizzo after the meeting and was told me that once they are given permission to start work that the concrete work will go on with two 10 hour sifts a day for six days and the seventh day will be used for equipment repair. They hope to be able to place 6000 cubic yards of RCC per day.

The public comment part of the meeting consisted of about a dozen local citizens. For the most part is was an Ameren love fest, with everyone imploring FERC of approve the dam rebuild because the Ameren taxes were so important to the Lesteville area. One person did make a lot of comments about the problems in the East Fork and problems with past decisions that were made by Ameren. Another speaker asked FERC to ignore the "environmental wackos and urban intellectuals" and only listen to the real local people. The meeting only lasted half the allowed time.

I found it interesting that no one from Ironton, Ellington, Annapolis, or Bunker was present to speak. That's what happens when you don't have any money to give out. When there was money they wanted to be considered in the "we were injured also" group. But now that we are into the "should be rebuilt" phase we're back to it only matters to Lesterville.

FERC will be receiving comments by mail until April 12.

One final thing, did any of you out there find any news coverage about this meeting or the one earlier in the day in Jefferson City. Looks like the media have forgotten about this story.