This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 8, 2011 - Environmental groups may have their final opportunity tonight present their case against amending Franklin County's land-use code to allow landfills, such as a coal-ash site Ameren Missouri is proposing.
The second public hearing before the county commission on the issue is taking place at 6 p.m. tonight on East Central College's campus. Franklin County's commissioners have proposed changing the county's land-use code to allow landfills to handle utility waste. Environmentalists oppose it because they're worried about the potential for coal ash to leak from the landfill into the water supply.
Recent tests performed by county officials on Ameren coal-ash samples found that levels of potentially dangerous chemicals were below toxic levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Labadie Environmental Organization has argued that the procedure Franklin County officials used to test coal-ash samples from Ameren shouldn't be trusted because it underestimates levels of potentially dangerous metals, such as a cancer-causing form of the metal chromium.
But Presiding Commissioner John Griesheimer told the Beacon Tuesday afternoon he didn't know there was any other kind of test. He said he merely asked for a firm to test the ash, but didn't know what other tests there were.
Said Griesheimer: "When I did the test, I didn't know there was any other kind of test. All I wanted to do was test the fly ash in the cinders. All I did was call the labs and said I needed a test. I didn't know what other tests there were. I relied on them to test the material. That's all that happened. If there was another test out there, I wasn't aware of it. If I knew about it, I would have had it done."
The attacks on the testing represent environmental groups' latest salvo in their quest to halt Ameren's landfill. Controversy has raged for months over the proposed landfill, which Ameren wants to builds near its Labadie coal power plant.
Opponents and Ameren representatives have already sparred over the toxicity of coal ash, the effectiveness of the landfill's safeguards and whether it would be safe to build the site in a floodplain.
Opponents also said at the first public hearing, back in December, that Ameren should wait until the EPA hands down new, stricter rules on coal-ash regulation later this year. Ameren said its landfill would comply with any new EPA regulations. Opponents also want the commission to appoint a scientific advisory committee to study the issue further.
The county is expecting a long list of speakers tonight. Witnesses at tonight's hearing, much like at the December hearing, will be limited to five to seven minutes. And like last time, they won't be allowed to discuss Ameren's specific proposal because it hasn't been filed with the county yet, Griesheimer said.
Opponents of the landfill argue that they should be able to discuss Ameren because the regulation would apply only to Ameren.
"I know it sounds weird and kind of dumb, but there is no application from Ameren yet," Griesheimer said. "All we're dealing with tonight is the regulation."
Puneet Kollipara, a Washington University student, is a freelance writer and a former intern at the Beacon.