By Véronique LaCapra, St. Louis Public Radio
St. Louis – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding an open house in Belleville, Illinois, on Wednesday to discuss its proposal to reinforce Mississippi River levees with coal ash.
The Corps wants to repair levee slides between Alton and the Illinois community of Gale, just south of Cape Girardeau.
St. Louis District spokesman Mike Petersen said the Corps is proposing to inject the levees with a slurry of lime and coal ash that would harden into a concrete-like substance.
"Fly ash has actually been in use since about 1995 by the Corps of Engineers to repair similar issues with levees further downriver, in our Memphis District," Petersen said. "And they've had great success with it for about 15 years."
The Corps has used the same method to repair Kansas City District levees.
Coal ash contains heavy metals like arsenic and mercury, but the Corps says existing studies suggest environmental impacts would be minimal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering whether to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste. The public has until this Friday to comment on EPA's proposed coal ash regulations.
The meeting on the Corps' coal ash levee-injection proposal is being held from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Stone Lodge, 401 Bellevue Park Drive.