Nov 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kim McGuire St. Louis Post-Dispatch


Ginger Gambaro's book club was slated to dissect "The Hummingbird's Daughter" by Louis Alberto Urrea one night in late September.

But the novel didn't end up dominating the conversation. Instead, the book club's members seized on a local hot topic: Ameren UE's plan to construct a 400-acre coal-combustion waste landfill at the nearby power plant located in the Missouri River bottomlands.

Gambaro and the other members knew all about the dangers associated with coal ash as a result of the 2008 disaster in Tennessee, where an impoundment failed and sent a toxic soup of heavy metals into a nearby valley, fouling local water supplies and destroying three homes.

They began to worry. Then, they decided to organize. Less than two months later, the Labadie Environmental Organization formed and more than 65 people turned out for their first public meeting.

Their mission? "Save Our Bottoms."

"We came to a quick consensus," Gambaro said. "We don't want this landfill."

Now, they are joining a growing opposition to a form of toxic waste that had largely been outside the public spotlight before the Tennessee catastrophe. Consequently, utilities now face potential regulations that might make it more difficult to dispose of the waste, which is produced in enormous quantities each year.

Earlier this year, Ameren submitted its initial application with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to construct the landfill at its Labadie plant. Last year, the plant produced more than 350,000 tons of coal combustion waste -- about twice the typical amount of its other plants.

Local residents worry the plant may end up accepting waste from other Ameren facilities should the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decide to impose tough new disposal rules.

"It's certainly a possibility," said Mike Menne, Ameren's vice president for environmental safety and health.

Driving the need for the Franklin County landfill, company officials say, is the fact that the two ponds that currently store waste on-site are quickly nearing capacity. Also a factor are future plans to install scrubbers at the plant to reduce sulfur dioxide pollution, which will create a new kind of sludge that must be stored.

While Labadie group members say they understand the company must do something with the coal ash, they don't understand why the utility company wants to build a landfill in the middle of a flood plain, so close to the Missouri River where old farmsteads and expansive new homes share prime realty.

They worry the landfill may leak, polluting local ground water supplies.

"A lot of the local farmers we talked to remember how the area looked like a lake during the 1993 flood," said Kay Genovese, a member of the opposition group whose family has owned property near Labadie since the early 1960s.

Ameren is studying how ground water flows through the area, which is currently protected behind a levee.

In addition to ground water monitors, the landfill would have at least three liners to prevent any pollutants from leaching off-site. The landfill would be built about three feet above 1993 flood levels, company officials say.

Still, Labadie Environmental Organization members say they'd like to see Ameren consider recycling more of the waste.

Menne said in 2008 the company recycled more coal ash waste at its Labadie plant where some is processed at an on-site concrete plant. But he said the demand for coal-combustion waste is fickle.

Currently, there are no national standards governing the storage and disposal of coal ash. Instead, it is regulated by the states, which have wildly different rules.

The EPA is considering regulating coal combustion waste for the first time.

But that action could cloud the future of waste recycling. One option is designating coal ash as hazardous waste, which would lead to strict storage and disposal rules.

"If that happens, no one would want the stuff," said Menne about waste recycling.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has reported that EPA is also considering declaring wet waste as hazardous and dry waste as nonhazardous material.

If that happens, Ameren might choose to redirect coal combustion waste from some of its other plants to the proposed Labadie site, which would only accept dry waste, company officials confirmed this week.

The impoundment that collapsed at the Tennessee plant contained a wet slurry. Recent estimates indicate the cleanup from the spill could cost more than $1 billion.

Under Ameren's plan, the Labadie landfill would open in 20-acre cells. Menne estimated it would take about five years to fill up each cell. The landfill would open in 2013.

On Monday at 6 p.m., the utility plans to hold an open house at the Labadie Elementary School to discuss the plan.

Labadie Environmental Organization members are planning to challenge the plan as it winds through the state department of natural resources, which holds the final permitting approval.

"We don't believe this is the appropriate place for this kind of waste when you think about long-term health and safety," Gambaro said. "And just because they're storing on-site now, doesn't mean it's safe.".

(c) 2009, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services