Meramec Park Lak

[Bass Enforcer]

I do have to preface this topic by saying I'm not promoting this "old idea," but I thought it would be an interesting topic, as some members may have lived through this very controversial time. The 1960's (not long before my time by the way.) I'm talking about damming the Meramec Rivèr. These dams would have impounded approximately 23,000 acres of the river and several other small creeks and tributaries of the major river basin. Thus making it about 40% the size of lake of the ozarks. The project was at one time voted in by the people,to my understanding.

What ultimately "sunk the deal" (no pun intented) was an endangered bat species. I believe most of the projected flooded land was purchased by the core and later sold at profitable margins. This being some of the added frustration amongst the locals. I just wonder.....if the project was proposed today,and....if it weren't for the expense of the land, would this pass today? I do believe that there could be many advantages to it by creating jobs and resources such as electric,and additional revenue for the state, as well as flood control. Just to name a few. Though I realize there could be negative results as well. What would out the other,we may never know. My best friend's dad was a huge push against it. Emmitt Schlueter was his name. For those of you who are not familiar with this project just Google "Meramec dam proposal." Very interesting story, and as I said earlier, "very controversial" but an interesting read.

I bring this up just to hear from those who lived through it. What were your thoughts or maybe even involvement?

[moguy1973]

Lots of threads on this topic on this web site....Al Agnew on here was one of the big opponents to it and has a lot of first hand knowledge.

Here is the approximate area that would have been flooded by the darn, which includes a lot of the Huzzah and Cortois as we know them today.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meramec_Lake_v3.svg

There were several other smaller dams proposed along the Meramec, Bourbouse, and Big Rivers also and they can all be seen here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=meramec+lake&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go&uselang=en

[Greasy B]

A book called Passages of a Stream by James P Jackson cronicles the pro, anti dam battle. It's an interesting story.