WINONA, Minn. – The Winona County Board unanimously rejected an Army Corps of Engineers proposal to haul dredged river muck four miles up the ridge from its storage pile in Homer to a quarry. The Army Corps proposal had pitted two Homer groups against each other. People in Homer itself don’t like that the towering sand pile that the Corps has built. The pile obstructs their Mississippi River views. People along County Road 15 don’t want heavy trucks going up and down the steep, narrow road with many blind driveways to the abandoned Yaedtke Pit. The permit that the Army sought would have moved 168,000 cubic yards up the ridge to the quarry over several months with 500-plus truckloads. The Road 15 group notes that quarry could accommodate 500,000 cubic yards and could become a dump site for the Corps for years with thousands more truckloads.
