Author(s): MARK WILSON Courier & Press staff writer 464-7417 or mwilson@evansville.net
Source: Evansville Courier & Press
Date of Publication: December 31, 2004

Developers of a proposed power plant to be located in Henderson County, Ky., met with Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce officials this spring to allay concerns about pollution from it. Vanderburgh and Warrick counties do not comply with federal air quality standards for ozone and fine particle (soot) pollution. A partner in the Louisville, Ky.,-based ERORA Group said Wednesday that the project is moving forward and that an application for an air pollution permit likely would be filed in the next few months.

The proposed 1,000-megawatt Cash Creek power plant would be near the Henderson-Daviess county line on 2,000 acres of reclaimed coal mine land that would supply it with fuel. John Blair, president of the local environmental group Valley Watch, said the project will have a negative impact on the region's air quality. He urged officials from area communities to come together to oppose the plant and said that if it moves forward, Valley Watch will oppose it.

However, a Chamber of Commerce official said Thursday that he felt good about the project after the meeting with the power plant developers. Dick Kuhn, vice chairman of the chamber's board for governmental relations, said the developers met locally with a group of about 25 business and industry persons.

"We were concerned that they were proposing to build in such proximity to Vanderburgh County. We sort of came into the meeting maybe with a little bit of a chip of our shoulders," Kuhn said.

He said that the concern was that despite the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent designations of Vanderburgh and Warrick as violating air quality standards, that significant local efforts to clean up the air would be undermined by a new power plant across the Ohio River. "I was skeptical. I was ready to call them on a few issues," Kuhn said. "By the time I left the meeting I did not have that feeling at all. Whether this part of the country likes it or not, federal energy policy is going to be to use coal-burning power plants for the next 50 years."

Extensive coal fields in the area make it perfectly suited for power plants, he said.

Kuhn said he is satisfied that the developer and state and local regulators are making a good faith effort to create as clean a power plant as possible.

He said new power plants such as Cash Creek and Peabody Energy's proposed Thoroughbred plant in Muhlenberg County, Ky., might actually be good for air quality because they would eventually be able to replace other aging, inefficient power plants.

?2003 The Evansville Courier Company