http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1117172736&ref=brem#!/events/326484604057242/

It's funny how statistics are just numbers, there is no emotional attachment. That is, unless a good friend becomes one. A nice gentleman that lives about 100 yards from the ash landfill @ Cane Run had a stroke 2 weeks ago. Nitrogen oxide (combustible particulates) I'm sure contributed to his medical issue. He just came home today and is happy to have gotten to the hospital in time, got the clot busting shot and rehabilitated quickly. But isn't it sad that because he lives near a power plant it is acceptable to our government that he has to breath dirtier air than the rest of Jefferson County. The government (ran by the corporations - the 1%), the politicians bought and paid for by the lobbyists deep pockets, have determined that coal ash needs to be protected from the people, not the other way around. We, the 99% need to step up now, before it's too late.

LG&E Fined up to $26,000 for Coal Ash Problems at Cane Run

LG&E Fined Up to $26,000 for Coal Ash Problems at Cane Run
by Erica Peterson on November 4, 2011

Louisville Metro Government has fined Louisville Gas and Electric for several violations surrounding equipment malfunctions at the company’s Cane Run Power Station.
In the Notice of Violation, the Air Pollution Control District fines the company $26,000, but notes the company could enter in a settlement with the district and undertake remedial action. If LG&E chooses that option, the settlement amount would be $19,500.

The APCD cites three specific violations—all surrounding excess emissions of coal ash at Cane Run. During six days in June, July and August, an equipment malfunction at the sludge processing plant sent clouds of dust into the air, causing a nuisance to neighbors. The district also found that the company failed to take reasonable measures to prevent the release of ash into the neighborhood on three dates in July, and failed to report excess emissions from the plant on four days in August.

WFPL Series on Coal Ash Contamination at LG&E Cane Run Plant

The Coal Ash Series, In Full

Erica Peterson July 22, 2011| 

Coal ash series in full here

You can’t see the smokestacks of the Cane Run Power Station from Stephanie Hogan’s home, even though she lives a block away. And while the power plant isn’t visible, it’s still a looming presence in Hogan’s life.
“Oh, he breathes so bad, he sounds like Darth Vader.” Hogan shakes her head, and her two-year-old son Cody wheezes. “You ain’t even been running.”

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.