To the editor:

The desperation of Sunflower Electric is becoming very apparent. Not only have they been airing completely misleading radio ads basically calling their coal plants “environmentally friendly,” but now they are dangling $2.5 million under K-State’s nose and are more than happy to rip it away from them if their coal plant expansion is not approved by June. It’s obvious Sunflower will stop at nothing to get what they want even when the majority of Kansans, and a large part of the country, have clearly stated they do NOT want more coal plants.

I really have to question why people like House Speaker Melvin Neufeld and a few others who support this expansion are clinging so desperately to an unsustainable industry like coal. If Sunflower and the people supporting them put half the energy they have exerted trying to get their expansion approved instead into getting the transmission lines up, we would be that much closer to relying on wind and solar and not dirty coal.

I just have to wonder if, in all their madness to push their expansion through, they’ve even once considered what kind of planet their children and grandchildren will inherit from them? When will our children be more important than profits? I think this 19th century Cree saying says it perfectly, “Only when the last plant has died, the last river poisoned and the last fish caught, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Ann Wilson,
Lawrence