There’s secrecy afoot in the Missouri legislature.
Proposed Missouri Senate Bill 157 and House Bill 545 seek to conceal from the public the identities of “Major Water Users” in Missouri, as well as the amount of water they use, where they’re drawing it from and where the water will be distributed. The legislation, if passed, will create an exception to Missouri’s Sunshine Law and can even result in penalties (up to Class A Misdemeanor charges) against employees of the Missouri Geological Survey who unlawfully disclose water usage information.
While the Senate version of the bill specifies that the secrecy applies only to water to be used on agricultural land, it isn’t clear whether the House version contains such a provision.
My first (and admittedly naïve) thought upon reading of this proposed legislation was, “Why would I ever ask how much water a farmer is using?”
My second thought (the one I’m sticking with) was, “Why the secrecy?! What are people trying to hide?”
Although I wasn’t interested in asking about water usage before, I certainly am now!
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) defines a major water user as an entity that uses a minimum of 100,000 gallons of water per day, or 70 gallons per minute. While that may sound like a lot of water to us mundane shower-takers and laundry-washers, that amount of water could represent mere droplets compared to the daily usage of some businesses and agricultural entities lobbying in favor of this legislation.
An April 7 press release from the DNR gave me a clue about one category of a prospective major water user headed our way.
It seems that Missouri has been chosen by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as the site for an in-state nuclear summit.
“It’s imperative for Missouri to develop new sources of reliable energy,” Gov. Mike Kehoe said in the release.
It would be hard to argue. The statistics speak for themselves.
A 2022 study revealed that Missouri ranked third in the nation for per capita residential energy consumption, but, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Missouri uses eight times more energy than it produces.
Missouri currently has one nuclear reactor, operational since 1984. Located at Ameren Missouri’s Callaway Energy Center, near Fulton, the reactor generates 14% of Missouri’s in-state energy.
According to a Callaway fact sheet, the reactor uses 585,000 gallons of water per minute when operating at full power, with 15,000 gallons lost to evaporation and 11 million gallons held in the cooling tower basins.
That’s a heck of a lot of water. I suspect more reactors may be headed our way after the nuclear summit convenes, so brace up, fellow Missourians. We live in a water-rich state. In times of drought and the draining of aquifers elsewhere, companies that need massive quantities of water to operate are eyeballing our bounteous natural resource.
For those who remember hearing of melt-downs at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, nuclear reactors sound frightening. But, along with the increase in our energy-draining population, nuclear technology has advanced. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are the wave of the future. They’re factory-produced and can be assembled onsite, wherever there’s access to water.
As a friend often asks, “What could possibly go wrong?” We’re probably helpless to stop them.
Last week, Governor Kehoe signed legislation that will allow energy companies to charge customers in advance for projects under construction. That should help get the ball rolling for energy investors, while leaving customers to struggle paying for the reactors.
In 2019, perhaps laying the groundwork for large energy projects, former Gov. Mike Parson signed Senate Bill 391 into effect, which prevented counties from enacting more stringent regulations than the state regarding an agricultural operation and its appurtenances. We saw what happened.
That legislation allowed sludge-hauling companies like Denali to dump their foul wares in southwest Missouri without a by-your-leave.
I’m not saying nuclear reactors would fall under that same umbrella, but keeping an entity’s major water usage a secret from the public seems like a step in the wrong direction.
We all have a stake in Missouri’s water, Democrats and Republicans, pagans and Presbyterians, alike.
Sheila Harris is a long-time Barry County resident and a sales executive and investigative reporter for the Cassville Democrat with a particular interest in environmental topics. She may be reached at sheilaharrisads@gmail.com.
