St. Louis Director of the Streets Department Todd Waelterman says the system is fair.

“My guy that’s doing these interviews is a band guy, and he’s passionate about helping these people displays themselves,” says Waelterman. “He actually sits down with them and helps them and guides them.”

Waelterman says no auditioners have been denied a permit this year. And last year, he says they turned down a man who wanted to juggle flaming bowling pins for safety reasons.

“He gets some people coming in with instruments and they only know two songs, he’s like ‘hey, we’ll give you a permit for 30 days, but I want you to come back in 30 days and you need to know half a dozen songs or you’re going to bored these people.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the city saying the fact that there is a screening process is un-American and violates the first amendment — free speech. “The supreme court has said many times that artistic performances are within the heart of the first amendments protection,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU.

Rothert adds, “most cities, especially most big and vibrate cities do not require permits for street musicians at all.”

“Meteorologists nailed this. The storm came in hot and heavy. We endured four or five hours of heavy snow,” St. Louis City Street Department Director Todd Waelterman said at a press briefing Thursday night, adding that arterial roads were beginning to open up.

“We anticipate by the morning, we will have Hampton flowing three lanes each way, all the streets open,” he added.

Missouri Department of Transportation spokeswoman Becky Allmeroth said over 200 MoDOT trucks and 450 employees were on duty Thursday night. That included a new crew which took to the streets at 7 p.m.

“If people wait until tomorrow morning, conditions will improve vastly,” Allmeroth said. “If they do need to go out, make sure they leave in plenty of time, leave plenty of space between them and the vehicle in front of them. The later they can wait and put off their trip the better because conditions are just going to keep improving overnight.”

Allmeroth added that at least one lane on every interstate was getting by as of 7 o’clock Thursday night, a sharp contrast to conditions Thursday afternoon. “We had vehicles and tractor-trailers that were getting stuck and jackknifing and one tractor-trailer going sideways and blocking two or three lanes. Then traffic is gridlocked and our plows are usually stopped right behind the mess.”

“The greatest problem we’re finding is, we have so much snow so fast, we’re creating quite a windrow on the side of the road,” Waelterman said. That windrow has made it difficult for motorists changing streets or trying to get on the highway. “So until those windrows are beaten down by traffic, people are going to have to use caution going across them and getting them smoothed out or you’re going to get hung up on them.”

On the other side of the Mississippi River, Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Joe Monroe said there have undoubtedly been some backups. “It’s a slow go. We’re still covered, there’s no two ways about it.”

“We have a couple places, particularly in a multi-lane section, where [cars] want to get sideways. The backup is not that the car is blocking all three lanes but, in their effort to get themselves right, people are afraid to get around it.”

Meanwhile, MetroLink passengers were told Thursday night to expect some inconveniences.

“We will terminate the blue line which runs from Shrewsbury over to Illinois,” Metro CEO John Nations said. “You will be able to ride it from Shrewsbury to the Forest Park-DeBaliviere station but if you want to continue east at that time, you’ll just need to switch to the red line to continue to Illinois.” He added that Metro bus delays lasted as long as eighty minutes.

As for the area’s most vulnerable citizens, crowds were expected at the city’s overflow homeless shelter at 12th Street and Park, according to St. Louis City Human Services Director Bill Siedhoff.

“We had 83 people last night. I fully expect we’ll probably have well over 100 tonight, just based on the numbers I’m seeing at two of the warming centers that we have here in the city,” he said.

The storm had major ramifications for Lambert International Airport, grounding 167 arriving flights and 156 departures, more than half of the airport’s daily traffic. American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United, US Airways, and Air Canada all cancelled their remaining flights Thursday afternoon. Questions remain about flights scheduled for early Friday and commuters are asked to check the airport’s website for the latest information.

By Bill Newmann

“A man should look for what is and not for what he thinks should be.” — Albert Einstein

Forestry boss Greg Hayes says this dump doesn’t exist.

By all appearances there is a landfill craftily tucked within the trees at the St. Louis compost facility in Carondelet Park. But according to the city official in charge of the site, the dump  doesn’t exist.

On Monday, St. Louis Forestry Division Commissioner Greg Hayes denied the dump site’s existence, which was first reported by the The Journal of Decomposition last week [What a Dump!, July 10].

Hayes’ denial comes on the heels of a response from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that draws into question the legality of Forestry’s  Carondelet Park landfill. In a response to a request under the Missouri Sunshine Law, DNR verified that none of the required state permits have been issued for the unacknowledged dump.  DNR is the state agency that regulates solid waste disposal.

Renee Bungart, DNR’s public information officer, was unavailable for comment earlier this week regarding the department’s policy on investigating illegal landfills.

Hayes and St. Louis Streets Department director Todd Waelterman were originally contacted because their agencies share joint responsibilities for the city’s composting site in the park. Both men denied that workers bury any trash on the premises.  Hayes and Waelterman were adamant, however, that they would personally visit the site to investigate the goings-on.

Amid the park trees, the landfill that “isn’t there.”

Though the Streets Department uses the facility to drop off organic waste materials, the Forestry Division runs the operation. Hayes says he’s been down to the compost yard several times in the past week and spoken with the city employee that works there. Based on his inspections, Hayes says he sees no  problem with the way operations are proceeding, or with the condition of the refuse-riddled compost Forestry provides for city residents.  He acknowledged that “there is some random trash” at the site, but it is insignificant.

City officials deny illegal dumping in Carondelet Park. The clearing in the background is the location of the alleged illegal landfill.

Cloaked by a grove of trees just beyond public view at the  free-compost site in Carondelet Park, the city Forestry Division is covering up its real dirty work.

by Bill Newmann

With the first bloom of the crocus, the foragers begin to descend on the southeast corner of Carondelet Park with shovels and pitchforks in hand.  Among the gardening set, a visit to the South St. Louis compost pile is a rite of spring.

The pilgrimages, which continue throughout the growing season, have the down-to-earth purpose of adding soil nutrients to front yard rose beds and backyard tomato patches.  Not surprisingly, urban gardeners and  landscapers who participate in this humble ritual have long showered perennial praise on the St. Louis Forestry Division for the free compost and mulch it offers.

There is a dark side to Forestry’s green image, however.

The free compost – tons of it – is littered with every kind of trash imaginable. A stench fills the air next to a fetid clump of trash that has accumulated under a piece of heavy machinery.  Nearby, a green flip-flop protrudes from one compost pile. A hairbrush lies next to another.  Besides the abandoned footwear and the filthy article of grooming, there are countless fast-food containers, Styrofoam cups, plastic water bottles, and aluminum cans.

But the trash isn’t limited to the compost heaps.

The clandestine dump in Carondelet Park.

Hidden just out of public view, shrouded by foliage, an excavation site has been carved into a nearby slope.  Half-buried tree stumps are visible at the edges of this clearing.  The dry, barren ground here is tightly packed and bits of rubbish are strewn on its surface, including an expired Metrolink pass.  Tracks indicate that a bulldozer has recently graded the site.

The building and operating of a landfill requires passing a rigorous permit-approval process, says Dave Berger, the executive director of the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District. Berger says he  doubts the city would violate this law.

But  evidence suggests otherwise.

Forestry has apparently been quietly operating a landfill in the park for some time, which raises questions as to whether the city is in violation of the Missouri solid waste disposal law.  Enacted in 1972, it outlaws unregulated dumping by requiring local governments to utilize responsible trash disposal practices. The law also mandates that  dump operators register with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The history of how this part of Carondelet Park became a dumping grounds goes back decades and involves a pact forged between the Forestry and Refuse Divisions.

The odd-couple of city agencies began their Carondelet Park affair in 1992 in the aftershock caused by Missouri Senate Bill 530, which banned yard waste from landfills.  In response, Refuse, the agency responsible for city trash collection, started hauling mountains of yard waste to the park.  As a part of the joint program, Forestry Commissioner Gary Bess – now Parks Department director – placed Forestry’s composting arm in charge of managing the debris.  Later, Bess expanded the operation to another site on Hall Street in North St. Louis.

In theory it was a good plan. But problems developed from the outset because it was impossible to keep the yard and household waste separate.  Inevitably, some residents deposited household and hazardous waste into yard-waste collection containers, a practice that has plagued the program for the past 20 years.  In addition, the Streets Department collects curbside leaves in the fall, which accounts for other manmade debris getting mixed up with the organic matter, says current Forestry Commissioner Greg Hayes.

In other words, the mixed-waste snafu threw a monkey wrench in the works from the beginning,  forcing the city to hire crews to sort the rubbish from the organic waste.  The worst loads were estimated to contain up to 90 percent trash and were taken to a transfer station on Hall Street south of the city’s north-side composting operation. But that level of effort was short lived. News accounts from 1992, only months after the program’s inception, quote Bess as touting cutbacks in his sorting crews.  Manpower and budgetary considerations were already taking precedent over the proper handling of the mixed waste.  Judging by the current trashy conditions, Forestry is still running its Carondelet operation with a skeleton crew.

In 2009, Hayes outsourced Forestry’s composting operation to St. Louis Composting Inc., a private company that has leased the city’s Hall Street site. Despite privatizing the composting duties, Forestry continues to oversee the Carondelet Park location.  Hayes denies the existence of a landfill there and says the amount of trash at the site is incidental.  If enough ever accumulates, he says, he is sure it is taken to a proper landfill.

Meanwhile, the Refuse Division, which is part of the St. Louis Streets Department, racks up $7 million in landfill tipping fees annually, according to its own figures.  Not surprisingly, Refuse constantly faces pressures to reduce costs by decreasing the volume of solid waste. The city agency has been scrambling to find creative ways of realizing these savings for years.

On Monday, St. Louis Streets Department Director Todd Waelterman told the Journal of Decomposition that he intends to inspect the Carondelet Park site. Waelterman says that burying waste in Carondelet Park is not one of the city’s authorized cost-saving measures. ”There is no official landfill,” adds Waelterman.

Despite the official denials, it is clear that waste materials have been buried in the cleared-out area of the otherwise wooded hillside adjacent to the park’s most heavily traveled thoroughfare.

Getting to the bottom of who is responsible for this mess, however, may be more difficult than digging up and removing the waste itself. That’s because the city’s combined methods of dealing with municipal yard waste are far less delineated than the neat rows of trash-laden organic matter at the Carondelet Park site.  Instead, the unmonitored practices represent a muddy confluence of waste streams, where two city agencies’ responsibilities murkily overlap.

Drivers cutting through the park at rush hour can’t see the dump site because it is camouflaged by underbrush.

A close-up of the city’s compost blend

But hiding the eyesore from plain view is the lesser of evils.  Sinkholes elsewhere in the park attest to the prevalence of karst topography, which means the subterranean composition of the area is riddled with limestone holes similar to a block of Swiss cheese.  Burying waste here is a bad idea because any hazardous materials will ultimately enter the ground water and flow into the Mississippi River.

Given its proximity to the compost piles, there is a likelihood that the location has been a convenient dumping ground for trash that’s been inadvertently carted to the site.  In short, there is a high probability that rather than paying additional city workers to sort it, or have the rubbish shipped to the Refuse Division’s transfer station on nearby Gasconade Street, a decision was made to simply bury it in the park.

As it stands, the dumping of  trash-laden organic waste material continues undeterred, while the Forestry Division pawns off its sorting duties on the green-thumb crowd by giving the trash back to them gift wrapped in compost.  At least some of the trash that Forestry can’t recycle back to the unwitting public has ended up interred in the unregulated dump at the perimeter of the compost site.

If anybody at City Hall knows what is buried at the clandestine Carondelet Park dump, they’re not saying. Berger, the Missouri solid waste official,  seems to speak for everyone when he says, “It’s hard to believe the city would be doing something like this.”

A dumpster at the site