Had the most unbelievable conversation with 2nd District Commissioner Ann Schroeder at Robller Winery yesterday. She told me the commission’s decision to take up amending the county’s landfill use regulations had nothing to do with Ameren’s interest in building a 400-acre coal ash landfill in Labadie Bottoms. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the utility’s plans became public at the same time they were deliberating on this issue.

I have no doubt that Schroeder is sincere in her recollection of this timeline. The public record may even show that the land use amendment was on the agenda before reports of Ameren’s plans became public. I don’t know. But if there is no connection between the commission’s actions and Ameren’s proposed landfill then why does the amendment they wrote go to such great lengths to define coal ash waste storage? If the land use regulations have no connection to the landfill project why did Ameren legal have such a huge presence at all of the public hearings on this particular issue? If it’s just a coincidence why did so much of the discussion revolve around how high to build the levy around the very landfill Ameren is coincidentally proposing? And why did Ameren’s lawyers court the two commissioners who eventually ended up voting yes instead of Ann who voted no? It’s a ridiculous assertion. It may have started out not having anything to do with Ameren, but it sure as hell didn’t end that way.

She went on to say that it was a mistake to make this about Ameren and not to focus on the general environmental impacts the regulations will have on the county in the future. But this makes no sense either. The two things are inseparable. The future environmental impacts the amendment will have on the county is part and parcel to Ameren’s plans to build a toxic coal ash waste dump in a floodplain in the county.  And as I recall it there was plenty of focus on the future impact this decision would have and it didn’t change the outcome one bit. Ameren got pretty much everything it needed from the county (for now).

I started to tell her no one is ever going to believe that the commission was not paving the way for Ameren to legally build a coal ash waste dump where it once could not under the guise of updating the county’s general land use regulations, but she walked away. Said she needed a drink.

But none of that really matters now. Coincidence or not, what matters is the people of Franklin County still do not want this coal ash waste site in the Labadie Bottoms floodplain and the votes cast by 1st District Commissioner Terry Wilson and Presiding Commissioner John Griesheimer will allow that to happen. There needs to be political consequences for those votes at the ballot box. If there isn’t, then all the activism to stop it was just background noise. We learned a lot about the hazards of coal ash but so what?

This is now, and has always been, a local political issue, not a legal issue, not a philosophical issue, a local political issue that demands a local political remedy. Anything else is just throwing sticks at the castle wall.