Great Rivers Habitat Alliance W I N T E R
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P R E S E R V I N G T H E 1 0 0 -Y E A R C O N F L U E N C E F L O O D P L A I N S I N C E 2 0 0 0 | VOLUME 12, ISSUE 2
Port of Lincoln Claims to be Moving Ahead
Policy Updates
Maryland Heights: Maryland Heights continues to move toward officially selecting and adopting a preferred option for development of the area north and west of Highway 141 and the Page Avenue Extension. Unfortunately, all of the proposals being considered are bad (though some worse than others). Once they have made the necessary internal stormwater improvements, they are expected to again move full-steam ahead on destroying thousands of acres of farmland in order to use tax subsidies to pay for the region’s newest mega-development. Using tax dollars to subsidize the destruction of this irreplaceable floodplain would be shameful. GRHA will continue to oppose these plans in whatever way we can.
In early October, representatives of Port of Lincoln, USA announced on their Facebook page that the project in Lincoln County was ready to move forward. They stated that the project would begin applying for permits in three months and are hoping to begin construction within one year. If you have been following our work at Great Rivers Habitat Alliance (GRHA), you know how destructive this project will be to the surrounding area. The proposed Port of Lincoln is a 7,120-acre development in southeastern Lincoln County. While it will maintain some greenspace within the development area, the large majority of that land will be paved over as part of the development. It is all – and we mean all – currently within the irreplaceable floodplain. Can you imagine the flooding harms that will occur in this region if they are allowed to take 7,000 acres out of the floodplain and pave it over with concrete or asphalt? The traffic consequences of the project will also be devastating. It will result in an enormous increase in truck traffic all along the local highways in Lincoln County and St. Charles County. The primary vision for the port is to serve as a logistics, warehouse, and distribution
center, and that means truck and barge traffic clogging the highways and rivers. This project will cause enormous habitat destruction. There will be light and noise pollution 24-hours-a-day along America’s greatest river and busiest flyway. This section of Missouri is one of the most important agricultural and recreational hubs of the Midwest. It can serve those vital purposes while simultaneously serving as invaluable floodplain for water storage and habitat restoration. It cannot do any of those things if it is paved over. Please join Great Rivers Habitat Alliance in vehemently opposing this project proposal which will undoubtably destroy this land, its resources, and our heritage.
Sny Island Levee District: Great Rivers recently wrote to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and strongly encouraged the agency to take action against the Sny Island Levee District and other levee districts along the Mississippi River with improperly high levees. We have encouraged many other nonprofits to exert similar public pressure. FEMA is the agency with the authority to enforce the levee heights laws that several levee districts in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa have so far flouted. On a related note, the efforts to change Illinois’ floodplain development rules to allow these improperly high levees to be granted through the backdoor have been unsuccessful, at least for 2018.
Great Rivers Hosts Park CleanUp Along Meramec River
Supreme Court: GRHA is always working with our allied organizations, such as the National Wildlife Federation, American Rivers, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, to monitor environmental legislation, regulatory changes, and court decisions. We will continue to fight for sensible environmental policy, stronger regulations limiting floodplain development and new levees, and maintaining rules mandating clean water for all.
GRHA and Open Space Council would like to thank Missouri-American Water for giving us the grant to fund the clean-up, as well as Luby Equipment Company, which generously donated the construction equipment that allowed us to remove much of the heavier trash. Other agencies and businesses that supported the event include St. Louis County Parks, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, R & R Sanitation, and the Metropolitan Sewer District.
Upcoming Missouri 2019 Legislative Session: Great Rivers Habitat Alliances’ priorities include once again seeking policy changes that authorize the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to implement statewide floodplain rules. Another statutory change we support would allow rural Missouri counties to enact their own tighter floodplain development requirements if they so choose. Finally, we will continue to pressure for enforcement of violations of levee height rules by Missouri levee districts.
GRHA and The Open Space Council for the St. Louis Region co-hosted a park clean-up at Robert Winter Park in south St. Louis County on October 27. The park, which is right along the Meramec River, has been closed to the public since the Flood of 1993. To put it bluntly, the park was a disaster. For the clean-up, 65 dedicated volunteers showed up to remove scores of tires, dozens of industrial barrels, and thousands of empty soda bottles and beer cans. The pictures of the event in this newsletter will tell the story better than words can describe.