ROCKWOOD SCHOOLS IMPACTED BY WINTER BROTHERS SAND AND GRAVEL MINE

Dear Community,

I am a parent of a Blevins Elementary student where I am Co-President of the PTO.

Hopefully you have heard of the attempt from Winter Brothers Material to mine 900+ acres next to Route 66 State Park. The Eureka Planning and Zoning Committee gave a ‘No’ recommendation regarding their request. Now Winter Brothers Material is attempting to bypass the City of Eureka by going directly to St. Louis County for approval. Their application with the county is to mine the unincorporated portion first. We are hoping you will take a stance and denounce their attempt. The passage of their request would most certainly have a negative impact on our children.

Here is a link to Winter Brother’s application with the county.

If the Winter Brothers Material applications are approved the Semi-Trucks and Tandem Dump Trucks would clog the Hwy 109 and Hwy 44 interchange making it dangerous for our children on our school buses, all of the student drivers going to and from Eureka High School, and all of the families driving their children to and from school each day.

The entrance to the mine will be located off of Williams Road. This is the same road Soetebier Park is located. Many Eureka High School students use this park for sports practice. These students are new drivers with slow reaction time and they will be forced to share a road with approximately 24 Semi Trucks and Tandem Dump Trucks coming in and 24 going out of the mine EACH HOUR.

This mine will also have a direct negative impact on home values and taxes resulting in loss of revenue to our schools. An economic study from Diane Hite shows that home values will be impacted within 3 miles from the edge of the plant in each direction. This will cover most of Eureka and into Wildwood. Based on the estimated property value loss from one of her studies, Rockwood School District is estimated to loose approximately $10 million per year from property tax revenue. I know how hard we worked on getting Prop. 4 passed for RSD and how hard Dr. Knost and Tim Rooney are working to reach the 9 year pay as we go plan. Surely a $10 million decrease in revenue each year will have a tremendous negative impact on that goal.

The public hearing with St. Louis County Planning will be taking place on June 8, 2015 7:00 p.m. in Clayton. We would very much appreciate your support on this issue. We are asking concerned parents/community members to bring your family, friends, and neighbors to this meeting and let them hear what we have to say.

A group of residents formed last year to fully research what this means for our community, we will each be presenting our findings. All we need is your support by showing up. If you feel comfortable enough to speak, please do so. If you do not, please still attend the meeting to raise your hand when asked about your stance.

Also, we are asking community members to e-mail Gail Choate with St. Louis County Planning @ gchoate@stlouisco.com. Please copy SaveOurHomesEureka@gmail.com on these e-mails so we are able to keep them for our records as we fight for the safety and welfare of our children and community.

More important than e-mails, we are asking our supporters to attend the June 8th meeting at...

St. Louis County Government
41 South Central Avenue
Clayton, Missouri 63105

Thank you for your time,
Carleen Murray