After a five-year legal battle, Lone Star Industries was issued a permit Friday to build and operate a riverfront barge facility to load cement in Sayler Park. The Louisville District of the US Army Corps of Engineers announced the approval. Cincinnati lawyer Jason M. Cohen immediately filed a motion in U.S. District Court to lift a January 2003 injunction barring construction.
The permit authorizes construction of four mooring berths, three barges, two steel storage silos, access roads and a small administration building, according to Jon Fleshman, an Army Corps spokesman. The permit contains 12 special conditions including planting a buffer area with evergreen trees, painting the 115-foot silos a natural color, and noise reduction requirements.
The facility would be used to unload bulk cement from barges to trucks. Sayler Park residents have fought the proposal since 2000, saying the noise, dust and towering silos would lower property values and block views of the Ohio River in Cincinnati’s westernmost neighborhood.