Kentucky on Filthy States List

Filthy States List Has Been Released More than a dozen states have been identified as "filthy," according to the Natural Resources Definition Council. The NRDC has announced the "filthy 15 states" across the country based on toxic coal-ash waste produced by dirty coal-fired power plants. There are more than 100 plants across the United States. KENTUCKY ranks .14 State New Plants Coal Waste Kentucky3 410,548 Coal-fired power plants produced more than 126 million tons of contaminated coal waste in 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, according to figures reported to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. NRDC estimates show that the waste produced in a single year contains nearly 100,000 tons of toxic metals. Thats just the waste from plants already in operation. But coal plant developers want to build more than 80 more coal-fired plants that would produce millions of tons of additional waste. No federal regulations govern the storage of the coal waste, even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined as far back as 2000 that rules were needed. In alphabetical order, the states with the most coal-ash production include Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming On the web: http://www.nrdc.org/energy/coalwaste/alt--newplantsummary.asp The numbers presented assume that proposed plants if built would be conventional coal-fired plants. Of the proposed plants included in the national data set, 13 might use gasification, a process that results in a different form of waste, with a much lower environmental risk. (Copyright 2007 Newsroom Solutions, LLC) Delivered by Newsroom Solutions RNS-03-18-09 0645CDT