Power plant sparks lawsuit

Power plant sparks lawsuit

By MARK WILSON Courier & Press staff writer 464-7417 or mwilson@evansville.net
May 12, 2006

The Sierra Club, a national conservation organization, is lending its muscle to a lawsuit aimed at forcing Peabody Energy to use cleaner technology at its proposed Thoroughbred power plant near Central City, Ky., about 60 miles southeast of Evansville.

The group, along with several Kentucky residents and the Evansville environmental group Valley Watch, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Franklin Circuit Court. The two environmental groups are also joined in opposing an almost identical Peabody project in Washington County, Ill.

"Clean Air laws require - and Americans demand - modern, state-of-the-art pollution measures," said Sierra Club attorney Sanjay Narayan. John Blair, of Valley Watch, said the lawsuit's goal is to cause Kentucky to follow the recommendations of a state hearing officer. While Peabody is not named in the lawsuit, company spokeswoman Beth Sutton said it will file a motion to intervene, arguing its case against the suit. She said the lawsuit was expected.

"The lawsuit is predictable and offers nothing new. It raises the same issues that have been reviewed and vetted in the permitting process," she said. An administrative judge for

the Kentucky Cabinet of Environmental Protection, in August 2005, found that the Thoroughbred plant's design failed to use the "best available" pollution-reducing measures required by the Clean Air Act.

In April, Cabinet Secretary LaJuana Wilcher decided to allow Peabody to build the plant without revisiting its permit. However, she recommended tightening some of its emission limits, requiring mercury emissions to be reduced 34.6 percent from the original 400 to 500 pounds a year. Environmentalists are arguing for a 90 percent mercury reduction requirement. An advisory warning people in Kentucky about mercury levels in fish suggests that women of childbearing age and young children should not eat more than one meal a week of freshwater fish from Kentucky waters. Similar advisories exist for much of Indiana.

Opponents contend that if the 1,500-megawatt coal-burning power plant is built it will have a significant impact on air quality in the region, including the Evansville area. They also argue the plant could increase the haze at nearby Mammoth Cave National Park, threatening the park's tourist revenues.

Peabody officials have said that the Muhlenberg County plant, which would be built on a former strip mine, would create 450 permanent jobs and be one of the cleanest coal-burning power plants in the country.

Environmentalists say that the impact on air quality, health and the environment from the pollution of coal-burning power plants needs to be given more consideration.

"We can't afford those hidden costs," Blair said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled in December that Vanderburgh and Warrick counties met federal standards for ozone pollution, but the area remains out of compliance with the standard for fine particle matter. Power plants are consider major contributors to both types of pollution.