County cooperation

Rae Wagoner/GM

Representatives from Lyon, Livingston and Crittenden counties took a tour of some important spots in Lyon County last week. This was the final stop on a five-county joint familiarization tour.
“We’ve already been to Crittenden, Livingston, Trigg and Caldwell counties,” Lyon County Judge Executive Jimmy Campbell said. “We’re just trying to get familiar with some key parts of neighboring counties so that we can work together, and work more regionally. We’re stronger as a region than any one county can be by itself.”
Campbell said that economic development and financial incentives for new or relocating companies generally fall within the purview of assorted county and city government officials, and it is their responsibility to know what ‘the county next door’ has to offer.
First stop on the Lyon tour was the Eddyville Port Authority. This is the only public riverport in the nine-county Pennyrile area. “It’s a diamond in the rough,” said Chris Sutton from the Pennyrile Area Development District office.
The port has had several good years financially recently, Sutton said.
“2004, 2005, and 2006 were really good years for the port. We applied for three grants, just hoping we’d get one of them, and it turned out we got all three.”
The grants Sutton referred to were a $200,000 Community Economic Growth Grant (CEGG) in 2004, one for $250,000 from the General Assembly in 2005 (a result of House Bill 380), and a $300,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority (federal money obtained through Sutton’s office) for much-needed dredging.
“The dredging was absolutely critical,” said Port Director Jay Hunt. “Our bay had gotten so shallow that the barges could not come in fully loaded, and it was getting to the point that it would be too shallow for barge traffic [if it hadn’t been dredged].”
The dredging project, which started in November 2007, displaced more then 30,000 cubic yards of sediment from the bay into holding ponds built for that purpose. Barge traffic now flows into and out of the port with ease, which is a welcome change for riverboat workers.
“There were some companies that would not even send their tows in here because they kept getting stuck in the mud,” Hunt said. “These companies make their money transporting commodities, and they lose money every time one of their boats gets stuck, or can’t turn around because the bay is so shallow.”
Hunt said the port now boasts over 2,200 feet of shoreline and the bay has 12 feet of “draft.” Draft is the term used to describe the distance between the bottom of a fully loaded barge and the bottom of a body of water.
“Summer pool is 359 feet, and winter pool is 354, so at 342 feet we have 12 feet of draft and the boat companies are much happier, which means we will get more business through the port,” Hunt said.
The Port Authority is one of Lyon County’s best kept secrets. The facility has three tenants– Agri-Port, Peavy, and Rottgering Marine.
Agri-Port, based in Hopkinsville, deals primarily in fertilizer and liquid fertilizer. “They bring in twelve thousand tons or so at a time,” Hunt said. “They keep those four liquid fertilizer tanks full, too.” Each liquid tank holds over a million gallons. Last year, Agri-Port offloaded over 44 barges of dry fertilizer at 1,500 to 1,800 tons per barge.
Peavey Grain operates a grain moving and storage operation. Most years, Peavey runs between 120 and 140 barges of corn, beans and wheat through the port, depending on how productive the year was for area farmers. Peavey stored over 650,000 bushels of corn on site, which is later dried and shipped south to New Orleans. Farmers from the area bring their crops here at harvest time, and Hunt said the trucks are sometimes backed up for miles. It takes about 70 semi trailers to hold the contents of one barge, Hunt said.
Rottgering Marine operates a boat repair service for all sorts of watercraft.
The port’s location along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway puts it in a unique position to transfer freight going from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Canada and beyond.
The next stop on the tour was Mineral Mound State Park. More than just a golf course, the park has huge potential for development, and plans have been in the works for quite some time for a private developer to build townhomes and possibly even a gated community.
Judge Campbell pointed out one of the proposed locations for a possible “super ramp” needed to attract large fishing tournaments. Soon after he took office, Campbell facilitated the installation of a ramp in Kuttawa, but it is simply not large enough to accommodate the kinds of tournaments who would like to come and fish Lake Barkley. “We need facilities for 200 tournament boats, plus our regular recreational boats,” Campbell said. Campbell was proud to show Fred Brown, Judge Executive for Crittenden County, and Chris Lasher, Judge Executive for Livingston County, the newly paved and striped parking lot at the Kuttawa ramp.
“We needed this,” he said. “Tourism is a huge part of the economy in Lyon County, and tournament fishermen make up a large number of our visitors. We don’t have to have a lot of spec buildings, we don’t have to provide infrastructure or educate these fishermen’s kids – all these guys want is a good boat ramp and dock.”
FWL Outdoors estimates that tournament fishermen spend $180 per day when fishing a tournament, and expert Ron Lappin shoots higher with an estimate of $350 per day. With the price of fuel, those estimates could reach an all time high this summer.
Mayor Butch McCollum and Councilman Rudy Bennett were on the tour and they were proud to show off the Kuttawa Walking Trail. The views from high atop Kuttawa Mountain can be reached via this 2 mile walking trail that is mostly paved. Picnic pavilions reward hikers for reaching the summit. The “mountain” is also home to repeaters and towers for the county and both cities’ towers.
The last stop on the Lyon County tour was Barkley Dam and Powerhouse. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Barkley Dam was created (beginning in 1959) on the Cumberland River just a few miles from Kentucky Dam. The dam was built for both flood control and power generation. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the dam and powerhouse are closed to the public.
John East, power plant manager, gave the contingent of officials a tour from “top to bottom” of the powerhouse. From the cavernous bottom floor, located almost 100 feet below the surface level of Lake Barkley all the way to the top of the spillways, East spared no detail in explaining the whys and hows of the power plant operation. Operations manager Tim Fudge, who oversees the powerhouse, the two locks, and shoreline management and Jamie Holt, power project specialist, helped fill in the blanks.
The generators are nearing the end of their life expectancy and are due to be replaced beginning in 2010. The project will take at laest ten years, East said, and power production will not be affected.
“We’ll do them one at a time,” he said.
The dam’s control room has the ability to control waters far beyond the reach of Lyon County. Holt showed visitors how operators here control two powerhouses in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., using remote technology.
“They work one shift, days, Monday through Friday at the powerhouse up there,” Holt said. “The rest of the time they advise us they are switching to remote status and we control their powerhouses.” On the Canadian border between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, the powerhouses there do not rely on a dam for the water velocity to generate energy. The lakes in this canal have what locals call “natural rapids” which flow fast enough to power the turbines.
The county tours are one part of an ongoing effort by the five counties – Lyon, Livingston, Caldwell, Crittenden and Trigg – to strengthen the ties of our region and work together to attract more industry, and therefore more jobs, Campbell said.

Juvenile charged after school search

Jody Norwood/Editor

An unannounced search using canines at Lyon County Schools resulted in one arrest Friday.
Officers charged a 17 year old student after officers found “a pipe used for smoking marijuana” inside a vehicle. The juvenile was charged with possession of drug pariphanalia.
“We brought five dogs in and we searched all three schools inside and cars outside, [both] students and faculty,” said Eddyville Police Sgt. Jaime Green. “Students were not in the classroom when the dogs searched.”
Two police service dogs from the Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement were used, as well as one each from the Allen County Sheriff’s Department, Mayfield Police Department and Eddyville Police Department.
“We had KVE officers assist us who were not handlers,” Green said.
While one charge was made, another eluded officers.
“When I was walking across the parking lot I stepped on a pack of cigarettes,” Green said. “In the pack I found what was marijuana.”
Although the search was unscheduled with school administrators, Green said it was at their request.
“The school asked for it,” Green said. “We’ve had several cases open in the school regarding illegal drug activity. We’re trying to keep drugs out of the schools.”