LG&E Announce Possible Retirement of Coal Burning Power at Cane Run!! James Bruggers-CJ

Possible closures at power plants

Cane Run, Louisville, LG&E. Began commercial operation in 1954. Three of six units already retired. Three remaining units, which began service in 1962, have a generating capacity of 563 megawatts. Plant burns 1.3 million tons of coal per year. 
Green River, Central City, KU. Began operation in 1950. Two units have a generating capacity of 163 megawatts. Burns about 400,000 tons of coal each year. 
Tyrone, Versailles, KU. Began operation in 1947. Three units. Two oil-burning units already retired and one coal 75-megawatt coal unit has been mothballed.

Neighbors of Cane Run plant worry about health impact of coal ash by James Bruggers-Courier Journal

Coal ash and scrubber sludge are combined at the landfill at the Cane Run power plant. The landfill is very close to many homes in the area. City has confirmed coal ash collected on at least one home, and more testing is to occur. LGE wants to expand the landfill. (Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal) April 12, 2011 / cj/cj

Mountains are leveled in Eastern Kentucky to produce coal, but one Louisville neighborhood has been watching a different kind of mountain grow — one made of waste from burning coal at a power plant.
“We call it Coal Mountain,” said Kathy Little, who has lived for 32 years in Claremore Acres, which is in the shadow of Louisville Gas & Electric Co.'s Cane Run power plant along the Ohio River.
When we first moved out here, you could look over and see Indiana,” she said. Now that view is blocked by the rising pile of coal ash and scrubber sludge — some 650,000 pounds of coal-burning waste in 2009 alone, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory. “In drier times, you can see ash just blowing off the top.”
Some residents have been so concerned about the potential impact on health from the ash that they have been calling on state and local regulators to investigate their complaints. Testing by the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District has found evidence of ash in the neighborhood.
Given those concerns about the existing landfill, Little and many of her neighbors are worried about LG&E plans to build a new, 140-foot coal-burning waste landfill on 60 acres at the Cane Run plant.
LG&E, which still needs state Division of Waste Management and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval to proceed, has said the new landfill is needed because the existing one will run out of room in about three years. The company says the new landfill, like the existing one, will not harm residents.
Neighbors have their doubts.
“It's dirty and nasty,” said Debbie Walker, who lives on Cane Run Road directly across from the existing dump. While grass grows atop much of the dump, a large, black area in the front where new waste is placed remains uncovered.
The residents' concerns focus mostly on the potential hazards of coal-burning wastes, which contain a mixture of toxic metals and other compounds. They say it has blown onto their cars and homes, and gets into their windows.

Something in the air- LEO Article about Mrch 17 Clean Air Rally at Cane Run

 

March 23, 2011

Something in the air

New EPA air standards prompt rally, industry reaction

BY JONATHAN MEADOR

Less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency issued new national mercury and toxic air regulations for power plants, roughly 30 residents of southwest Jefferson County — home to LG&E’s Cane Run Road coal-fired power plant and EPA-designated “high-hazard” coal ash pond — gathered to rally for cleaner air and protest the utility’s ongoing intention to build a new 5.7 million-square-foot ash landfill near low-income residential neighborhoods located there.