East St. Louis Mayor Emeka Jackson-Hicks talks with Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker. The mayor has been named to Pritzker’s Job Creation and Economic Opportunity Committee.

Area leaders named to Pritzker transition committees

A dozen Metro East area figures have been tapped by Illinois governor-elect J.B. Pritzker (D) for transition committees; made up of subject-matter experts who will advise the incoming administration on major issues facing the state.

Forty-Eighth District State Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) will co-chair Pritzker’s Educational Success Committee and will also serve on his Budget and Innovation Committee — charged with addressing the state’s ongoing fiscal challenges.

Sen. Manar championed legislation to revise the state’s school funding formula and helped reform the state’s lead economic development agency to make it more accountable, a Pritzker new release notes.

Also named to the education committee are Dale Chapman, president of Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey and Ed Hightower, executive director of the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities Foundation in Edwardsville.

Appointed to a Job Creation and Economic Opportunity Committee are East St. Louis Mayor Emeka Jackson-Hicks and Alicia Slocomb, manager of the Belleville Main Street program. An off-shoot of the Greater Belleville Chamber of Commerce, Belleville Main Street is a not-for-profit organization established to promote renovation, economic growth, and business recruitment and retention in Belleville’s downtown area.

One Hundred and Sixteenth District State Rep. Jerry Costello Jr. (D-Smithton) has been named to Pritzger’s Agriculture Transition Committee. Also appointed to that committee are Glenn Poshard, former president of Southern Illinois University and one-time Democratic candidate for governor, and Juan Luciano, president and CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, which operates grain terminals in Granite City and Sauget.

Appointed to Pritzker’s Health Children and Families Committee is Larry McCulley, the president and chief executive of the Sauget-based Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation, which operates Touchette Regional Hospital in Centreville, Kenneth Hall Regional Hospital in East St. Louis, and 35 Metro East medical offices.

Named to the governor-elect’s Powering Illinois’ Future Committee on energy issues is Mary Vandevord, president and CEO of the Mascoutah-based HeartLands Conservancy.

Serving on a Restorative Justice and Safe Communities Committee are two St. Clair County officials: State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly and Circuit Clark Kahalah Clay.

The Prairie State Energy Campus is a 1766 megawatt coal plant, the largest in Illinois, is near Marissa.

Report: Groundwater contaminated near power plants

Unsafe coal ash disposal has “severely” polluted the underlying groundwater around four Metro East power plants, according to a new report from a coalition of environmental groups.

“Cap and Run: Toxic Coal Ash Left Behind by Big Polluters Threatens Illinois Water,” issued Nov. 29 by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice, Prairie Rivers Network, and Sierra Club, found unsafe levels of one or more toxic pollutants (shown in parentheses) in wells and ponds around:

The Baldwin Energy Complex in southwestern Illinois, just outside Baldwin, (arsenic, boron, cobalt, lithium, manganese, and sulfate);

The Prairie State Energy Campus is a 1766 megawatt coal plant—the largest in Illinois—near Marissa, about 36 miles southeast of St. Louis. Owned and operated by Prairie State Generating Company (arsenic, cobalt, lead);

The long-closed Venice Station in Venice, (arsenic, boron, manganese, and sulfate); and

The retired Wood River Power Plant in Wood River, (arsenic, boron, lithium, molybdenum, and sulfate).

Pollution from the coal-fired power plants is not only contaminating local groundwater supplies but likely seeping into major regional water sources such as the Mississippi River.

“The Kaskaskia River is quickly becoming the river with the most coal ash, as it has over four coal ash ponds at Baldwin and the rapidly filling coal ash landfill at Prairie State,” the report assesses.

The 1766-megawatt Prairie State coal plant—the largest in Illinois— has been in operation for only six years, but already stores almost twelve million cubic yards of coal ash in a massive, 750-acre coal ash landfill. The coal ash landfill is already the second largest in the state.

In all, 13 million cubic yards of coal ash is stored at the Baldwin site; enough to fill up the Empire State Building ten times. The coal ash ponds at Baldwin are directly adjacent to the Baldwin Cooling Lake Pond, a state fish and wildlife area.

The Wood River site, like Baldwin, has at least four coal ash ponds.

The report notes that while a “capping” process is generally used to seal off coal ash ponds from the atmosphere; the coal ash ponds and generally unlined and contaminants can still seep into groundwater and local waterway – in some cases “for centuries,” according to the report.

The environmental organizations hope Illinois will enact new laws on remediation of coal ash pollution.

The report was made possible by 2015 federal regulations that require utility companies to publicly report groundwater monitoring data on their websites, beginning this year.

The complete report can be accessed at https://illinoiscoalash.org/read-the-groundwater-report.

Ranks of minority police officers in region growing

At least 13 minority police officers have been hired over the past two years as the result of a new initiative to build trust between law enforcement and various sectors of the community, according to The Leadership Council of Madison County (LCMC).

Launched in 2016, the council’s “Making Madison County a Better Place for Citizens” program is designed advance diversity in law enforcement by encouraging the recruiting, hiring, retaining and promoting of officers that reflect the communities they serve, according to an LCMC statement.

So far, as a result of the program, African-American, female, or other minority individuals have hired by area police agencies, including those serving South Roxana, Roxana, Alton, Pontoon Beach, Edwardsville and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

The Roxana Police Department hired its first African-American officer in September, according to Chief Will Cunningham.

The LCMC includes representatives of the Alton, Edwardsville, and Madison/Venice branches of the NAACP, the Madison County Urban League, Coalition of Concerned Citizens, 100 Black Men of Alton/Godfrey, the Riverbend Ministerial Alliance, as the Glen Ed Ministerial Alliance as well as a number of area government office holders and police officials.

The effort is formally supported by state Sen. Andy Manar and Sen-elect Rachelle Aud Crowe; state Reps. Jay Hoffman, Katie Stuart and Monica Bristow; U.S Congressman Rodney Davis; Chief Judge David Hylla, Judge Kyle Napp, Associate Judge Jennifer Hightower of the Madison County Circuit Court; State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons; Madison County Sheriff John Lakin; SIUE Police Chief Kevin Schmoll; SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook; President Dale Chapman, Lewis and Clark Community College president; the law firm of Simmons Hanly Conroy; and police chiefs across the county..

Madison County offers new park funding

Madison County Park Enhancement Program funding that used to go to the Collinsville Area Recreation District (CARD) is now going to be redistributed in the form of grants to municipalities and local parks and recreation districts, according to county Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler.

Based on population, the Madison County Department of Community Development estimates the City of Collinsville could qualify for an additional $115,000 in park funding; the village of Maryville, $35,000; Glen Carbon, $2,500; Pontoon Beach, $500; and Collinsville Township, $15,000.

Amid controversy over fiscal management issues and a substantial debt load, voters opted to dissolve CARD, a three-decade old special taxing district, during the Nov. 6 election.

–Metro East Area News Briefs–