The more things change. . .

For 15 years or so, the people of Huntington's Westmoreland neighborhood along the Ohio River have fought a proposal from a company across the river to moor and clean 200 barges there.

Today, while looking in some old files for unrelated material, I came across these two articles:

Oct. 24, 1986: Mayor Robert R. Nelson said he would ask the U.S. Corps of Engineers to conduct a public hearing on the Ohio River Co.'s request for a permit to establish additional mooring for its barges along a one-mile stretch of the Ohio River fronting Westmoreland.

Dec. 12, 1986: In response to growing negative sentiment, the Ohio River Co. has withdrawn its petition to build a barge mooring facility along the West Huntington riverfront, Mayor Robert R. Nelson said yesterday.

Coal is moving out of the Big Sandy River. Huntington's Westmoreland neighborhood, at the western end of the city, is in one of the few untaken straight stretches near the Big Sandy's mouth. If this latest effort fails, another will come along. Unless the city comes up with a zoning plan or something else, sooner or later there will be barges docked at Westmoreland, because someone will learn the lessons of the past and come up with an idea that gets through the regulatory agencies. Or it will offer the city so much money that it can't afford to fight it.