The proposed coal-burning Smith power plant would be built by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC), a non-profit electric utility that provides power to 16 rural electric cooperatives across 87 KY counties.

The Stop Smith Campaign is a collaborative effort by several organizations, including Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, and the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club.

We believe that the proposed plant is unnecessary, expensive, and harmful. And we believe that better alternatives exist to help Kentuckians save money and energy. 

Background on EKPC

In 1935 only 10% of American farms had access to electricity.

That year, as part of the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration (now called the Rural Utility Service) to provide low interest loans for companies to provide electric service in rural areas.

But even those low-cost federal loans were not enough to get many existing electric companies to extend service to rural America. 

So, rural communities organized themselves by forming rural electric cooperatives. These non-profit co-ops took advantage of the low-interest federal loans to bulld power plants and construct power lines. From the very beginning, the cooperative's mission has been "to improve lives, not to make a profit."

We are focusing on 16 rural electric cooperatives in Kentucky that together serve about half a million customers in 87 counties. Thirty percent of all households they serve have an annual household income under $20,000.

These 16 cooperatives are called "distribution cooperatives" because they own the power lines that distribute electricity to their customers. They don't, however, generate that electricity.

In 1941, these cooperatives banded together to form another cooperative, called East Kentucky Power Cooperative, or EKPC.

EKPC is different from the local co-ops because it is a “generation and transmission” utility. That means it is responsible for generating and providing wholesale electricity to its member co-ops. EKPC owns four coal fired power plants in Kentucky. And now they intend to build another.

Why the Smith plant should not be built

Harmful to our air

Harmful pollutants that will come from the Smith plants’ smokestacks include:

• 365 tons of soot, which can cause severe respiratory problems.
• 1991 tons of sulfur dioxide, the main cause of acid rain.
• 1858 tons of nitrogen oxides, a key chemical in the formation of dangerous ozone pollution.
• 53 tons of volatile organic chemicals.
• 2655 tons of carbon monoxide.
• More than 50 pounds of mercury, a potent neurotoxin.

All figures are per year, according to the KY Division for Air Quality’s draft permit for the Smith plant.

According to a 2004 study by the Clean Air Task Force, every year in Kentucky, exposure to pollutants such as mercury and soot emitted by coal-burning power plants:

•  Kills 745 people
•  Puts 639 in hospitals
•  Causes 1,022 heart attacks
  

Coal combustion contributes to a number of diseases and health problems, including: asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

Infants and children are highly susceptible to the pollutants emitted by coal-burning plants, and in Kentucky, more than 800,000 children live within 30 miles of a power plant, the area where the greatest health impacts are felt. Pollution from burning coal can impair children’s nervous system development, intelligence, and lung development.

Harmful to our water

Over the next thirty-three years, the coal plant would generate 16,569,300 cubic yards of coal ash.

This ash would be left at the plant. Coal ash contains a wide variety of toxic contaminants, including lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc, selenium, and arsenic. Many of these compounds are neurotoxins; others are carcinogenic. Improperly stored coal ash has contaminated drinking water in at least eight states, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, and has been linked to harm to ecological and human health. According to an EPA report, the cancer risk from exposure to arsenic near coal landfills, for instance, is as much as fifty times higher than the agency accepts.

According to EKPC’s own documents, during the first twelve years of operation, EKPC does not intend to apply for landfill permits, but will instead use coal ash as "structural fill," dumping it into wetlands and streams near the Kentucky River.

It has not committed to designing these fill areas according to the protective standards normally applied to landfills. EKPC has also not submitted plans for the landfills it intends to build later on in the plant’s life.

The coal plant would impact more than over 14 miles of streams, burying a bit under half of these streams under coal ash.

Many of these streams are headwaters, a stream type particularly important to water quality. Roughly five acres of wetlands, which filter sediment and pollutants, will also be impacted. As a result, in addition to adding toxins to the watershed, EKPC’s plans impair the ecosystem’s ability to recover from the effects of this pollution. Although EKPC plans to attempt to mitigate some of this damage, mitigation projects have a mixed track record and cannot replace lost resources.

EKPC plans to draw millions of gallons of cooling water from the Kentucky River and from a massive new reservoir it will build on Bull Run.

Cooling water intakes draw in and kill fish and other aquatic species; hot water outfalls can also do damage. And, as the World Resources Institute recently documented, electric power plant water withdrawals, which amount to roughly 40 billion gallons of water a day in the Southeast, can intensify drought and water supply issues.

The Kentucky River is already impaired by mercury in some sections and suffers from pollution from septic systems and other industrial sources. Adding still more pollution to the basin, particularly during a time of increasing droughts, puts still more pressure on a treasured and crucial resource. 

There is a better way

As an alternative to building the proposed Smith plant, an investment in a combination of energy efficiency, weatherization, hydropower and wind power initiatives in the EKPC region would generate more than 8,750 new jobs for Kentucky residents, with a total impact of more than $1.7 billion on the region’s economy over the next three years.

This approach would meet the energy needs of EKPC customers at a lower cost than the proposed coal plant. Unlike projected economic activity that would result from construction of a new coal-burning power plant, investing in EE and RE would result in jobs and benefits across the region rather than in a smaller geographic area around the site of the proposed coal burning power plant.

Over a three year period of construction and implementation, efficiency and weatherization initiatives would create nearly $1.2 billion in economic activity and more than 5,400 jobs. The development of small scale hydropower generation at 20 sites in the region would create more than $500 million in economic activity and more than 3,300 jobs. Jobs in efficiency, weatherization and renewables are safe, stable and community-based. They can’t be shipped overseas, and are spread across many sectors: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction, engineering, and generation.

More Information

Click through the following presentation to learn more about the campaign to stop the proposed Smith plant and promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in the rural electric co-ops served by EKPC: