The mountain of coal ash at LG&E's Cane Run Power Plant in Louisville. Photo by Beth Bissmeyer

WFPL-FM, a public radio station in Louisville, aired a three-part series on coal ash this week. Reporter Erica Peterson helped document the health problems that coal ash, escaping from Louisville Gas & Electric's coal-burning power plant and coal ash landfill located in residential neighborhoods, are causing for area residents.

The series can be accessed in whole or individual parts:

Part 1      Part 2      Part 3

The series is available to other public radio stations in Kentucky through the Kentucky Public Radio network. If your local public radio station has not broadcast the coal ash series, please ask them to do so.

Kentucky has the fourth-most toxic air among states, a newly released report found.

Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States found that 77% of the toxins overall and 89% of mercury emissions in Kentucky air come from coal-burning power plants. The analysis was jointly released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and based on self-reported data from the polluters.

Exposure to toxic pollution from power plants, including hydrochloric acid, fine particulates, mercury and other metals, is known or believed to contribute to or exacerbate a wide variety of health conditions, the report reminds us, including one or more of the following:

• Asthma and other respiratory ailments,
• Developmental disorders,
• Neurological damage,
• Birth defects,
• Cancer, and
• Premature mortality.

The NRDC / PSR report is consistent with a number of other studies, including one released in March by the American Lung Association that concluded, “Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.”

Source: Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States, NRDC, 2011

By Steve Boyce

KFTC Chairperson

How many times have you heard “experts”—folks from the coal and energy industries, and even our own legislators—say that people supporting renewable energy may mean well but are misguided since renewables can’t provide “baseload power,” whatever that means. After all, the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow all the time.

David Brown Kinloch has written what strikes me as an excellent and very important op-ed aimed at debunking “The Myth of the Baseload.” It’s well worth the read. Find it here.

Part of the reason I think it’s so good is that it explains in understandable terms some of the main challenges of generating and distributing electricity and why the traditional approach to addressing them—reliance on large centralized coal and nuclear generation plants for baseload—is not necessary. Along the way he makes clear the meaning of such terms as baseload, dispatcher and grid, and how current arrangements will have to change for distributed renewable generation to become a substantial part of the generation mix. Rarely if ever have I learned as much from reading an op-ed.

It’s the clarity of his myth busting that makes this piece seem so important. As Brown Kinloch concludes:

Clearly customer load can be met, hour by hour, primarily with renewables, without today’s baseload plants. … The problem here is not the nature of renewable resources or any technical hurdle, but rather it is getting utility planners and dispatchers to think outside the “baseload” mindset that they have been stuck in for so many years. … The need for large, centralized baseload capacity is not some requirement of the electrical power system, but rather a desire to continue to do things as utilities have done in the past, the way they know.

The transition to decentralized, clean power sources is crucial and feasible! And it’s coming! As I said, this op-ed is well worth reading.

When Workers Run Their Own Factories, Banks and Schools:
A Report on the Mondragon Coops
 
May 10, 7 p.m.
Lexington Central Library
140 East Main Street
Lexington, Kentucky

• Overview of Famous Mondragon Cooperative Movement– Centered in Spain’s Basque Country, but spreading across Europe and the Global South
• Examples of US Worker Cooperatives- California, Chicago, and Cleveland, OH
• Possibilities for Green Jobs, Green Manufacturing and Clean Energy Structural Reform beginning in Eastern Kentucky

For the past 50 years, something important has been growing in Spain’s Basque Country. It’s an organized network of over 120 factories, with their own bank, schools and research centers, involving more than 100,000 workers. They’re called the Mondragon Coops, and they are unique in that they are owned and controlled by the workers themselves—one worker, one share, one vote. They are also unique in they obtain credit from their own worker-owned bank and skills from their own university. They are thriving and growing , even in the midst of crisis, and have a lot to teach us on the possibilities of radical change in hard times.

Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national leader of the US Solidarity Economy Network, a member of Steelworker Associates, and writes for Beaver County Blue, a progressive website In the 1960s, he studied social and political philosophy at Penn State University and the University of Nebraska. He currently resides in Aliquippa, his hometown in Western PA.

We will also be joined by Sara Pennington, the new power campaign organizer for KFTC who will share the work being done to reform energy cooperatives in eastern Kentucky.

A short discussion will follow the presentation

Sponsored by:

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
The central Kentucky chapter of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice

Contact Person: Janet Tucker, jlynjenks@qx.net

During debate in the U.S. House of Representatives on a budget resolution, Rep. John Yarmuth defended the people and land of Appalachia. He asked his colleagues to vote against an amendment that would de-fund the U.S. EPA's authority to implement rules to keep coal companies from poisoning the waters that flow through communities where coal is mined.

You can view Yarmuth's floor speech here.

The amendment was one of number Republican-sponsored amendments to keep the EPA and other federal agencies from doing its job. It was directed specifically at EPA's guidance on in-stream conductivity. Since many streams in eastern Kentucky are already so badly polluted, under the rule no new pollution could be permitted until the streams recover.

Despite Yarmuth's effort, the amendment passed 235-185.

A similar amendment – to de-fund EPA’s authority to veto valley fills permits under the Clean Water Act – also passed, 240-182.

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler also voted against the amendments but Kentucky's four Republican representatives – including Rep. Hal Rogers whose constituency is being poisoned by this pollution – voted for the amendments.

Another amendment that passed would "prohibit the use of funds by EPA to develop, propose, finalize, implement, administer, or enforce any regulation that identifies or lists fossil fuel combustion waste as hazardous waste subject to regulation." This targets an EPA effort to start protecting communities – such as the neighborhoods around a coal ash dump expansion in southwestern Jefferson County – from exposure to coal ash toxins.

In this case, Rep. Chandler joined the Republicans in passing this amendment, 239-182.

KFTC and Witness For Peace have joined together over the last three years to forge closer connections between coal-affected community members and miners in Appalachia and in Colombia. Foreign corporations, mainly American ones, mine millions of tons of coal in Colombia every year, even though Colombia does not use coal for its own electricity. And, 80% of coal mined in Colombia is exported to the United States. To bolster this exchange, every year Colombians visit Kentucky and KFTC members visit Colombia.

Coal miners Raul Sosa and Jose Brito, members of Colombian coal mining unions representing workers at American-owned Drummond coal company and multi-national Cerrejon coal company, visited Kentucky in October. KFTC and Witness For Peace co-sponsored the trip as a part of an ongoing Appalachia-Colombia exchange. 

Unionists in Colombia face increasingly numbers of violence and threats from private security forces hired by foreign extraction companies, many of which are American. Raul was fired from Drummond after working as a union leader. As some of his union leader colleagues have been murdered over the last few years, he fears for his personal safety.

Raul and Jose meet with Kentucky coal miners and KFTC members in Whitesburg.

During their time in Kentucky, Raul and Jose toured eastern, western and central parts of the state. They visited a mountaintop removal site, spoke with community members and miners about the impacts of coal mining, toured an underground mine in Henderson, Kentucky and visited the Cane Run coal ash dump with directly affected KFTC member Jes Deis. 

Raul, Jose, Amy and Darrell Shelton, 4 miles down into an underground mine

In Whitesburg, a KFTC member asked Jose and Raul whether they thought surface or underground mining was worse for health and the environment. Jose's responded, "All types of coal mining are bad...We shouldn't argue over whether underground mining or surface mining is worse for the environment. We need to focus on the fact that we have shared struggles against a common enemy - transnational corporations that don't have our interests at heart."

Jose and Raul also spoke to crowds in Bowling Green and Louisville. During their talks, they detailed human rights abuses inflicted on coal miners and community members in Colombia and discussed their vision for a better future. Jose mentioned sustainable agriculture and wind generation companies as two possible economic development opportunities for his community. He focused on the shared struggle that Kentuckians have with Colombians in working towards these solutions.

"It's time we start thinking together like brothers and sisters. What we have to do is learn how it is that we can live together in this world, how we can live in balance with nature, with people."

If we all come together there are solutions out there we can find. We have taken one of the first steps - we have admitted the problem and we are now walking the same path to find the solution."

Learn more about the Appalachia - Colombia connection here. You can join the delegation to Colombia next year!

UPDATED: Check the bottom of this blog post for news updates as they come in.

We have some great news to announce: The coal-burning power plant proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) has been canceled by the utility.

EKPC has entered into an agreement with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Kentucky Environmental Foundation, the Sierra Club, three individual co-op members, the Kentucky attorney general, and Gallatin Steel (EKPC’s biggest industrial customer). Under the agreement, EKPC will halt its plans for the proposed coal-burning power plant in Clark County by abandoning the permits it needed to proceed with construction. The cooperative also committed $125,000 toward a collaborative effort in which the public interest groups, EKPC and its member co-ops, and other parties will work together to evaluate and recommend new energy efficiency programs and renewable energy options.

This is a new day for Kentucky’s rural electric co-ops, and a great step toward new power for Kentucky. KFTC member Steve Wilkins, a Blue Grass Energy co-op member, has been active in the campaign to stop the Smith plant and bring new power to the co-ops. About today’s agreement, he said:

The Smith coal-fired plant meant nearly a billion-dollar investment and a further 50-year commitment to dirty power. Canceling the plant is a breath of fresh air. Even better, resources can now be redirected and the window opened to collaboration on clean energy alternatives letting the sun shine in on a New Power tomorrow; a tomorrow where rural electric cooperatives work shoulder-to-shoulder with their communities making electricity more affordable through energy-efficient housing and renewable energy sources.”

KFTC members, along with our allies at the Sierra Club and the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, have been very active in urging EKPC and the distribution cooperatives to pursue energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions instead of the Smith plant. Studies have shown that clean energy technologies would be a cost effective way to meet EKPC’s demand, while also reducing financial risk to customers, generating jobs throughout the region, and benefiting health and the environment.

KFTC members are excited by the news. Tona Barkley, a member of Owen Electric Cooperative who ran for her co-op board of directors earlier this year, shared her thoughts:

“I say Hallelujah! I believe this decision by EKPC is the right one for Kentucky. I am heartened by this new development and the commitment EKPC has made to work in a collaborative fashion with co-op members and the other parties to the agreement. This new openness and more democratic method will, I believe, help bring the co-ops back to their original purpose--serving its rural members in a transparent fashion.  And I am very hopeful that this moment marks a turning point in Kentucky towards energy efficiency and renewal energy, both of which will provide economic and job development much greater than another coal plant would have done.”

The four main provisions of the today’s agreement include:

• EKPC will withdraw all the permits it needs for construction of the Smith plant, including its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, air permit and dredge-and-fill permit.
• EKPC will form a collaborative with KFTC, our allies, and other key stakeholders to expand the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs by the co-ops.  
• KFTC and our allies will dismiss a number of lawsuits and administrative challenges that are currently pending against EKPC.
• KFTC and our allied groups will not oppose EKPC’s effort to recover costs already spent on the plant.

Many people involved with this campaign are especially delighted with EKPC’s agreement to lead and fund a collaborative effort to expand the co-op’s use of energy efficiency and renewable energy. This working group will include representatives from KFTC, our allies, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, the distribution co-ops, plus other key stakeholders. EKPC has agreed to provide initial funding for the collaborative’s efforts, including up to $100,000 for studies of wind resources or other forms of renewable energy. The group will meet at least quarterly to evaluate and recommend cost-effective clean energy solutions.

KFTC members earlier proposed a set of ideas in a plan called “Renew East Kentucky” that could become a focus for discussion within the collaborative. This plan describes clean energy strategies that could create thousands of new jobs in eastern and central Kentucky for construction trades, engineers and electricians, while also helping customers to save energy and money.

“Sometimes it can feel like you are a voice in the wilderness,” said KFTC member Randy Wilson, who emphasized energy efficiency during his run for Jackson Energy’s board of directors in 2009. “But it’s important to get involved and keep pushing for solutions. Now we have a chance to work together with the co-ops to create jobs here at home while at the same time helping people save energy and money.

Folks throughout Kentucky, both in the co-ops and out, have worked toward this moment. Each and every action you took helped create the conditions for this good outcome!

• 

  100 - 200 folks attended the public hearings for the Smith plant’s air and dredge-and-fill permits, asking the agencies to consider the clean alternatives to the coal-burning plant

• KFTC members supported their fellow members who ran for their co-op boards of directors, helping to gather thousands of petition signatures and speaking up in support of democracy and clean energy in the co-ops

• Many of us throughout the region scheduled meetings with and made calls to their local co-op directors, informing them of alternatives to the Smith plant and moving some toward a cleaner energy vision

• Hundreds of Kentuckians sent letters to the Kentucky attorney general, asking him to speak up on behalf of Kentucky co-op members before the Public Service Commission

• Members throughout the state have spoken with their local media, offered quotes for news stories, been interviewed for radio shows, and sent in numerous letters to the editor and op eds in support of clean energy in the co-ops and a better Kentucky

• Members hosted house parties and spoke with neighbors, and groups, and colleges about the risk of the Smith plant and the potential for the clean energy alternative.

• And too much more to list here...

KFTC members have much to be proud of, and are thankful to our allies, including the Sierra Club and the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, who have recognized from the beginning that this hasn’t been a campaign simply to stop a coal plant, but a movement of Kentuckians taking action for clean energy and a better future for Kentucky.

Now we can all say, as Randy Wilson said at I Love Mountains Day two years ago, “We were there when we started to turn this thing around!”

UPDATED: This section will be updated periodically with news coverage of the Smith plant cancellation.

• Nick Engelfried, Just Means, "Electricity Co-op Chooses 'New Power' over Coal Energy and Emissions." This blog post puts the Smith plant cancellation in a national context.
  
• Sue Sturgis, Yes! Magazine, "In Coal Country, a Win for Clean Energy." This blog was also posted on Facing South, the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies.
  
• Ronnie Ellis (with reporting from Bill Robinson), Richmond Register, "EKPC drops plans for coal-fired Clark County plant." This article also appeared in the Ashland Daily Independent, the Morehead News, and other papers throughout the state.
  
• James Bruggers, Louisville Courier Journal, "East Kentucky Power cancels Clark County plant" In this article, EKPC spokesperson Nick Comer said the decision was largely based on the economy, but "acknowledged that pressure from environmental groups played a role."
• Scott Sloan, Lexington Herald Leader, "East Ky. Power abandons plans for controversial power plant"
  
• Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post, "BREAKING: Kentucky Cancels Coal Plant, New Power Movement Electrifies Grassroot Alliance"

by Howard Myers

Reprinted from Peaceways, the newsletter of the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice.

On Sept. 15 Bob Koester of Ball State University spoke at the University of Kentucky, describing his school’s transformation from burning coal to becoming a geothermal energy driven campus. Their geothermal project is the centerpiece of Ball State's commitment to being carbon neutral by 2030, demonstrating how a modern-day research university adapts to today's energy climate.

For the number crunchers, Koester described how to finance this transformation by leveraging endowment dollars, industry grants, and state and federal dollars. That investment is paying dividends at multiple levels:  for example, once implemented, the geothermal system will save $2 million annually.

Also, major energy businesses are partnering with Ball State, drawn by the university’s commitment to sustainability. And the university’s curriculum prepares their students for jobs in the green economy.

Each month students, staff, community members, faculty, and the president meet as a committee of 30 to assess progress toward their 2030 goal. Demonstrating sustainability of another kind, today the students, faculty, and community drive an effort that began with the leadership of the university’s administration. Ensuring a sustainable future makes Ball State a very good neighbor indeed: the region is getting positive quality of life reviews because of that vision and initial leadership.

I left the presentation convinced that the UK Administration and Board of Trustees now have a blueprint. The question is: do they have the courage to embrace a carbon neutral future?

UPDATE: At Tuesday's public hearing (see more below) the Army Corps of Engineers announced they have extended the deadline and are accepting written comments on the Smith plant's dredge & fill permit until June 18. Comments may be be submitted to the Corps via email: lrl.regulatorypubliccomment@usace.army.mil 

Click here for information to help you compose your comment.

_________________________________________________

More good news on the Stop Smith campaign. Tuesday night, about 125 people attended a public hearing on a proposed permit that would allow East Kentucky Power Cooperative to impact Kentucky waterways and wetlands with coal ash. Of the 32 people who took the microphone, 31 opposed EKPC's plan to build a new coal-burning power plant in Clark County.

This "dredge and fill" permit - also called a 404 permit - would allow EKPC to impact more than 14 miles of streams including 210 stream channels and nearly 5 acres of wetlands, burying about half of these waterways that feed into the Kentucky River under toxic coal ash.

Many speakers focused on the dangers of mercury in the coal ash and other potential long-term effects. The Army Corps of Engineers will consider the comments in deciding whether to grant the permit.

John Patterson, who owns land adjoining the site, said he worries about his family and how the plant will affect future generations. "This is something that, quite frankly, is scaring me to death."

Patterson said Kentucky has an opportunity to be a leader in innovative energy technology. "The eyes of the nation really are upon us," he said.

Miranda Brown, also a Clark County resident, worries about her drinking water. "94 percent of my drinking water comes from the Kentucky River," she said. Brown gets her water from Winchester Municipal Utilities, which has intakes near the site where coal ash will be dumped.

"The people of Clark County know better than to defecate in our own water. Can we trust the Army Corps of Engineers to do the same?" Brown asked.

Only one speaker, William Quisenberry of Winchester, expressed support for the plant, saying it would bring good jobs and that he trusted EKPC and the state to keep the plant safe. But many other speakers disagreed, saying energy efficiency and renewable energy would produce many more jobs. They also cited the recent Gulf oil spill and the Kingston coal ash spill as examples of industry and government not doing their jobs to ensure safety.

Allies KFTC, Kentucky Environmental Foundation and the Sierra Club offered free mercury testing at the hearing to call attention to the already high mercury levels in Kentucky waterways.

If you missed the hearing, you can replay KFTC's live blog of the event, and watch video clips from the hearing at this link: http://www.kftc.org/blog/archive/2010/06/08/live-blogging-smith-404-permit-hearing

For more information about the hearing, follow these links:

Winchester Sun article: http://www.winchestersun.com/stories/2010/06/09/loc.105845.sto

Lexington Herald Leader article: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/06/08/1298302/dozens-oppose-proposed-power-plant.html

WKYT video clip: http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/95923954.html

_____________________________

More photos from the hearing:

  

  

  

  

     

The proposed coal-burning Smith plant is refusing to die.

Your voice is needed to end it once and for all!

The coal-burning Smith plant proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative is the living dead. 

It's taken hit after hit in recent weeks from the work of KFTC and our allies – we've had some good success. For example, EKPC has temporarily pulled its request for financing approval, a major audit said the plant is the "biggest risk" EKPC will face in many years, and the U.S. EPA has objections to the state-issued air permit .... yet, EKPC is marching on, seeking a permit to put millions of tons of coal ash from the plant into Kentucky's streams. It's time to tell EKPC and state officials to pull the plug and stop wasting taxpayer money. It's time for good, local, clean energy jobs instead.

You can help stop this coal zombie:

Attend the public hearing held by the Army Corps of Engineers next week, Tuesday, June 8, at 7 p.m. in Winchester. Stand with folks from all over the state to demand a clean alternative to the Smith plant. Help say it's time to end this toxic project once and for all. 

Click here if you're considering attending the hearing.

Background

This hearing is our time to make a public demonstration of our opposition to a federal permit that would allow EKPC to impact 14 miles of waterways, burying about half of them under hazardous coal ash. And, it's time to stand up once again in support of the clean and less-costly alternative of energy efficiency, weatherization and renewable energy. All Kentuckians, whether you receive your power from EKPC or not, are stakeholders in this process as the plant would contaminate the air we all breathe and the water we drink. Already, every waterway in Kentucky is already under a fish advisory warning due to mercury contamination from coal burning power plants. Click here to download a flyer with more information about the hearing and the impacts of the permit.

Now is the time to say, “Enough is enough!” The solution is simple and clear. Energy saving and renewable energy programs won’t need a permit because they won’t pollute our water. We must use this opportunity to speak out, letting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EKPC know that this clean energy solution is the just and healthy choice, not only for EKPC ratepayers, but for all Kentuckians.

Share our Facebook event about the hearing.  If you are on Facebook you can invite your friends to the event.