Residents to continue fight against Huntington barge dock - Business, Government Legal News from throughout WV

The battle over a proposed Ohio River barge fleeting area in a residential neighborhood of Huntington is moving to a new arena.

The Huntington District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday granted a permit to Huntington Marine Services of South Point, Ohio, to build a fleeting area for up to 72 barges along about a mile of riverbank in Huntington's Westmoreland neighborhood.

Huntington Marine has been seeking the permit since the 1990s, but public opposition and a court case have slowed the progress of the project.

Now that the Corps has issued its permit, the member of Huntington City Council who represents the neighborhood says she and others will use the zoning process to stop the project.

"Since I am now a member of the Huntington City Council, I have talked with several members of the council saying that they are supporting us," councilmember Joyce Clark said Thursday.

The Huntington area is a focal point for coal shipments on the Ohio River. Several million tons of coal come out of the Big Sandy River each year. The coal is trucked to docks on both the Kentucky and West Virginia sides of the Big Sandy and loaded onto barges. Small boats take the barges a few at a time out to the Ohio River, where they are parked until they can be picked up by larger boats to take them to power plants or to export ports.

The Huntington area has several barge fleeting areas already, including at least one in a residential area. But people in the Westmoreland neighborhood, which consists of the part of Huntington in Wayne County, say they want nothing to do with the dust, noise, light and safety problems that can come with barges in their area.

Huntington Marine spokesmen were not available for comment.

Huntington Marine has sought to build a dock at Westmoreland since the 1990s. Its mot recent permit application was filed April 26, 2011, to build a 90-barge fleeting area. During the public comment period, the Huntington Sanitary Board expressed concern about how the fleeting area would affect the outfall of the sewage treatment plant at the lower end of the area and a combined stormwater-sewer outfall at the upper end.

The permit as issued reduced the fleeting area to 72 barges maximum.

Mike Hatten, regulatory project manager for the Huntington District, said the permit decision ends the Corps' involvement in the project.

The Corps decided the levee between the houses and the neighborhood and the distance between the shoreline and the residences provide a sufficient buffer for noise and light.

Clark said the neighborhood was not surprised by the Corps' decision.

"We sort of expected it because we knew that the (Corps) commander was changing and he would probably make a decision before he left," she said. Some of our (neighborhood) association members weren't surprised it went this way because Huntington Marine has consistently responded to what our objections are."

Clark said barge fleeting areas are not suitable for residential neighborhoods, and people in Huntington who live near existing fleeting areas say they are disruptive to their lives. Along with the noise of diesel engines and the sound of steel barges banging against each other, barges are a safety hazard, she said. Young people will swim around them. From time to time they drown when they are caught in the river currents around a barge, she said.

And there is the coal dust that blows off the barges, even empty ones, she said.

Westmoreland is on a truck route through Huntington, and it has mainline CSX tracks running through the neighborhood. Clark said those are different, as the coal trains go through town without stopping, compared with the barge fleeting area where barges will be parked.

The next step of the fight rests on the fact that Huntington Marine needs for the part of the riverbank in the dock area to be rezoned from residential to commercial-industrial, Clark said. That requires going to the Board of Zoning Appeals and then to the City Council for a variance, she said.

Years ago, the city signed a lease with Huntington Marine allowing it to build on the riverbank. The lease says the company will obtain necessary zoning variances, but it does not commit the city to providing them, Clark said.

It is in that venue that the fight to stop the dock will continue, she said.

Clark said the Westmoreland Neighborhood Association will meet at Spring Valley High School near Huntington at 6 p.m. Friday to discuss the permit and how to fight the dock project through the zoning process.