About 45 people gathered outside Great Plains Energy Inc.'s downtown offices Wednesday to protest the company's plans to build two coal-fired power plants along the Missouri River near Weston.
Building the plants so close together -- one each in Kansas and Missouri -- and so close to the existing Iatan plant near Weston would create excessive health and environmental risks, said Susan Brown, chairwoman of Concerned Citizens of Platte County Inc.
The group said it timed its protest to coincide with Environmental Protection Agency public hearings on policies to control emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from power plants.
Brown said that Great Plains, the holding company of Kansas City Power & Light Co., wants to build the plants to generate power it would sell on the unregulated market but that this region doesn't need the additional power.
"So we get the pollution, but other states get the power," Brown said.
Great Plains Energy spokesman Tom Robinson said that the company hasn't made a final decision on where to locate the plants and whether they'll produce regulated or unregulated power. Kansas City-based Great Plains Energy should decide by year's end, he said.
"With regards to the concerned citizens, we always have and will continue to address the concerns of our stakeholders," Robinson said.
He noted that the company's Hawthorn Unit 5 plant, near Front Street and Interstate 435, was identified as the cleanest coal-burning power plant in the country in the report of the National Energy Policy Development Group in 2001. The company's new coal-burning plants will be at least as clean as Hawthorn Unit 5, he said.