Photo by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
2010 ended in a great success story for some in central Kentucky—the Smith I plant has been canceled! Members of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC), the Kentucky Environmental Foundation (KEF), the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club, and East Kentucky Co-op costumers have been working for the past four years to prevent the construction of a new coal-burning power plant in Clark County, in central Kentucky, and their work has ultimately paid off, as the East Kentucky Power Cooperative has canceled its plans for this new polluter. Even better news is that they have entered into collaborative effort with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and others to research and implement new energy efficiency programs and renewable energy production.
The decision to cancel the plans for Smith 1 follows a mandate from the Kentucky Public Service Commission that the cooperative reevaluate alternatives to building a new coal plant. While environmental groups and regulatory agencies have been increasing the pressure on EKPC, the co-op’s spokesperson said that the decision was ultimately made to save money for the co-op and its customers—energy demand has actually dipped in recent years at the same time as the Smith plant’s projected cost went up several hundreds of millions of dollars.
The more economically and environmentally conservative route that EKPC is now taking involves collaborating with members of KFTC, KEF, and Sierra. EKPC has already committed $125,000 to this collaboration, which it will chair, with a representative from one of the three groups acting as vice chair. Other participants in the collaborative will include the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, the distribution co-ops which comprise EKPC, and other stakeholders.
Co-op member Tona Barkley is excited about this new collaboration: “This new openness and more democratic method will, I believe, help bring the co-ops back to their original purpose–serving its rural members in a transparent fashion. And I am very hopeful that this moment marks a turning point in Kentucky towards energy efficiency and renewal energy, both of which will provide economic and job development much greater than another coal plant would have done.”
Barkley is an example of several EKPC member-customer who have run for their board of directors in the past couple years, in order to restore the customer voice to the co-ops and assert their opinions on ever more important co-op energy choices.
As a basis for the new collaboration, KFTC plans to use resources such as recent research by the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies (http://www.ochscenter.org/documents/EKPC_report.pdf). The Ochs Center study cites home weatherization and other energy efficiency measures as being able to cover about 53% of the generating capacity of Smith. Another 35% of the generating power of Smith could be made up for in small-scale hydropower installations at opportune locations throughout Kentucky, many of which can be installed where there are already existing dams, meaning minimal impact to the already altered river ecosystem, whereas a new coal plant along the river would have necessitated a coal ash landfill in river-side wetlands and increased hazards of arsenic, mercury, and other metals in the drinking water supplies of Winchester, less than ten miles downstream, as well as Lexington, also nearby. Overall, the Ochs Center estimated that these energy efficiency and renewable energy measures can provide almost 9,000 new jobs in Kentucky.
“Resources can now be redirected and the window opened to collaboration on clean energy alternatives letting the sun shine in on a New Power tomorrow; a tomorrow where rural electric cooperatives work shoulder-to-shoulder with their communities making electricity more affordable through energy-efficient housing and renewable energy sources.”—Steve Wilkins, co-op member and Berea, KY resident
<<More information (hyperlink: http://www.kftc.org/blog/archive/2010/11/18/breaking-news-smith-plant-cancelled)>>.
I appreciate your energy and dedication to this worthy cause. We need to keep the younger generations aware of the environmental destruction that occurs with toxic energy sources that depletes the soil and pollutes the food chain. It is at the grassroots level with children that we can promote positive environmental change. You are the seeds that will renew the future of planet Earth!