December 16, 2013
By John Hickey, Chapter Director
City Utilities (CU) is trying to build a coal ash landfill next to its John Twitty plant, on the west-side of Springfield. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) geologists had ruled out that site for a landfill, because the underlying karst topography is very porous, and heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic would leach from the landfill into the groundwater. Dye trace tests have shown that sinkholes on the proposed site drain into Wilson Creek and Rader Spring.
However, CU pulled some strings in the state legislature, and local state representative Lincoln Hough snuck an amendment onto a bill that allowed CU to sidestep scrutiny from the DNR.
Sierra Club members brought this sordid legislative maneuvering to light. Myra Scroggs, Jim Evans, Sue Skidmore, William Frye, and Tina Ballhorn went to Jefferson City and
met with a reporter from the Springfield News Leader, which then ran an expose of what happened.
Sierra Club members turned out in force for a public awareness session held by the DNR on the Missouri State University campus on November 7th. Members involved included Dr. Judy Dasovich, Lauren Bansbach, Cathy Primm, Jennifer Conner, Dan Chiles, Jim Arneson, Donna Bergen, Kent Brown, Larry Lambeth, Sarah Robertson, Myra Scroggs, Sue Skidmore, Mindy Spitz and Louise Wienckowski.
In the middle of this controversy, CU showed once again that it is sloppy with its coal ash management. CU’s Twitty plant spewed clouds of coal ash over residential areas of Springfield in October, coating cars and houses with the ash. Let’s not let CU fool us again – let’s organize to stop this wrong-headed plan, and preserve our water resources!