Topeka — Environmentalists want more time for the public to comment on a proposed 895-megawatt coal-fired electric power plant proposed for southwest Kansas.
Hearings scheduled across state this week
Public hearings on Sunflower’s draft permit will be:
Monday at Blue Valley Northwest High School, 135th Street and Switzer, Overland Park.
Wednesday at the Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium, 2025 East Iron, Salina.
Thursday at the Joyce Auditorium at Garden City Community College, 801 Campus Drive, Garden City.
All meetings will start at 2 p.m. and continue no later than 5 p.m. If needed they will reconvene at 6:30 p.m. and continue until all comments have been submitted.
A copy of the draft permit is available online at www.kdheks.gov/bar/index.html.
Opposition rally
People opposed to the proposed 895-megawatt coal-burning power plant will rally before today’s public hearing in Overland Park.
Bruce Nilles, a Sierra Club official opposed to coal-fired plants, will be among the speakers.
The rally is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. at Blue Valley Northwest High School, which is where the public hearing will be held beginning at 2 p.m.
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that represents the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club, said not enough information about the plant’s impact on air quality has been released yet.
And it said “recent advances in pollution control technology and changes in the federal regulations governing air pollution must also be considered in this permitting process.”
The period for written public comment on the proposal started July 1 and is set to expire Aug. 15. Earthjustice has requested a 60-day extension.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment may decide this week whether to grant an extension, officials said.
The project’s developers, Sunflower Electric Power Corp., said it would leave the decision up to KDHE.
There has already been one change in the public comment period.
Last week, KDHE said that meteorological data that Sunflower Electric Power Corp. used in air pollution dispersion modeling did not adjust for differences in time zones.
KDHE said it will take approximately 30 days to receive the revised information. After that data is reviewed, KDHE will issue an additional public comment period and hold an additional public hearing. But there has been no word on when that will be yet.
Meanwhile, there will be three public hearings this week on the project, which has been the focus of a heated political battle for three years.
In 2007, Sunflower Electric and its partners had proposed two 700-megawatt plants near Holcomb. Under the proposal, most of the power would go to out-of-state customers.
But KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby shocked the utility industry by denying the permit based on concerns about the health and environmental impact of climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions from the plant.
Supporters of the project in the Kansas Legislature tried to overturn Bremby, but they were blocked by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
However, when Sebelius left her job in 2009 to join President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, the second political shock was delivered when incoming Gov. Mark Parkinson signed a deal that would allow Sunflower to build one 895-megawatt plant.
Comments
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preebo (anonymous) says…
"...the second political shock was delivered when incoming Gov. Mark Parkinson signed a deal that would allow Sunflower to build one 895-megawatt plant."
As much as it dismays me, this was a politically savvy move on the part or Parkinson. By inking this deal, he has automatically reduced future emissions by reducing the number of plants by half. If this issue was left to the incoming administration (Brownback???), there would be no debate. Bremby would be out and there would be some industry lackey in there singing in both new coal-fired plants. By taking this issue off the table, Parkinson did the most progressive thing (for Kansas) he could. It essentially comes down to this...one plant vs. two and no new renewable power sources in the state.
Again, not my ideal situation, but considering the alternative, this was the best solution given Kansas' political landscape.
merrill (anonymous) says…
From Union of Concerned Scientists
Coal plants are the nation's number one source of global warming emissions--emitting more carbon dioxide than all our cars, trucks, SUVs, and buses combined. Unfortunately, a new plant is now being proposed in Holcomb, KS.
Instead of making a huge, new long-term investment in this climate-destructive energy technology, we should be investing in the state's own wealth of renewable resources.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has announced the details of three hearings next week for the proposed Sunflower coal plant. Please attend and speak out against the facility.
Despite having already lost this battle back in 2007, the coal industry has managed to lobby this proposed plant back into our state. Now, you can help once again to stop this new coal plant from being built. Attend a hearing next week:
Overland Park
Monday, August 2
2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Blue Valley Northwest High School
135th and Switzer
There will be a special rally with Sierra Club's Bruce Nilles at 1:30 before the hearing begins. Please come early to attend!
Salina
Wednesday, August 4
2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium
2025 East Iron
Garden City
Thursday, August 5
2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
801 Campus Drive
Click here for more information on the hearings. If you can't attend one of these hearings, or even if you can, please also submit written comments to the KDHE before August 15: SunflowerComments@kdheks.gov
Sincerely,
LuCinda Hohmann
Midwest Field Organizer
merrill (anonymous) says…
Why would any smart rate payer or tax payer approve of billions of tax dollars to be spent constructing and insuring these polluting money holes? YES our tax dollars!
Conventional sources know the financial risks and cost overruns are too great to even consider the risk of financing coal or nuke plants.
Taxpayers fund the toxic monsters and private operator rake in billions of profit dollars.
Wind,solar,hydropower and geothermal would provide better bangs for the bucks,provide way more jobs across the state and bring on new economic growth far quicker. A new toxic coal plant will take years AND years to complete. Coal power is toxic and obsolete.
independant1 (anonymous) says…
It's a cheap source of energy, with proper technology to clean up emissions as much as possible, we should exploit it. Or should we export our coal to China?
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) replies…
It's only cheap as long as the extensive environmental damage it causes doesn't have to be factored in.
Bob_Keeshan (anonymous) replies…
There should be a Godwin's Law for message board discussion of energy or the environment:
As an online discussion of energy grows larger, the probability of someone bringing up China increases.
independant1 (anonymous) replies…
Sorry bout that, it was rather gratuitous.
Boston_Corbett (anonymous) replies…
The problem that is that unlike the Godwin law, which refers to the eventual evoking of Hiter or Nazism on any unrelated debate, the issue of the economic impacts of CO2 reduction schemes can not be separated from the issue of the economic impacts between the Chinese and other large economies.
RonHolzwarth (Ron Holzwarth) replies…
"As an online discussion of energy grows larger, the probability of someone bringing up China increases."
Yup. The Chinese don't have so much trouble getting their new coal plants built, there's not much oversight, and we buy the products produced with their cheap energy.
Meanwhile, the pollution on the Earth's atmosphere knows no boundaries.
puddleglum (anonymous) replies…
People keep forgetting that the only ones to benefit fromt this stupid plant are the customers living in Colorado. That's right, the state that won't allow them to build on their land, wants cheap energy set up right across the border...Nobody in Kansas gets anything out of this, except the 18 jobs (whee) that will be created by the plant-and those people are already employed by the company. neat.
so you can talk all you want about how much you hate liberals, hate Al Gore, think that global warming is a democrat farce, of whatever-fact is: nobody wins with this
labmonkey (anonymous) replies…
An economically poor part of the state benefits greatly from this. Bringing out of state money into the state is a good thing. Power plant workers make a lot of money, which in turn they spend in their community, which enriches the whole area. I don't know where you get this 18 job figure, but you are sadly mistaken. It will create at least 80-100 jobs that will average $80K per year... That is alot of out of state money being spent in that community. This is not to mention the temporary economic boom the area will receive with construction of the plant.
Elrond (anonymous) says…
"Wind,solar,hydropower and geothermal would provide better bangs for the bucks,provide way more jobs across the state and bring on new economic growth far quicker."
merrill=Liar
independant1 (anonymous) says…
Let's let those that want to pay more buy the expensive energy, let the market decide.
Solar/Wind generated energy, not much bang for the buck the technology just won't support itself financially. I dare you to try to get license to build hydro plant. Easier to get approval for coal.
gccs14r (anonymous) says…
Anyone who wants a coal plant should have to sequester his share of the emissions in his living room.
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…
merrill, are brownouts still a good way to enforce energy conservation?
jayhawklawrence (anonymous) says…
I think we have talked this issue to death and I am satisfied to go along with the governor on this issue for now.
We cannot just stop using coal. There has to be a transition period.
That being said, it is the oversight that tends to be missing when Republicans control the kind of regulations we are using to monitor these companies that concerns me.
The Republicans have never taken any responsibility for the weak oversight that resulted in the BP disaster.
None of these politicians is ever around to say they are sorry for any of the mess they contribute to causing. Poltiics is a beast.
independant1 (anonymous) replies…
This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. (Will Rogers)
DougCounty (anonymous) says…
These Sunflower Power moochers haven't paid back 30 million dollars of restructured and taxpayer loans on their existing power plant. The main reason I see that they are going back to the public trough for this new project is to try to build their way out of their existing debt by securing more publicly backed loans to build a new unit(s) and selling the power to Colorado, who will buy it because their regulators won't let them build more power plants to clog up the front range with more sprawl.
What do we get? Mercury downwind, more Ogallala Aquifer water used up, 7 million tons of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere to boost our temps, plus a surplus of dirty electricity made from Wyoming Coal that will make it more difficult to produce Kansas produced wind and solar. And if the EPA or congress kick in the cap and trade/CO2 limits, they'll either pay through the nose for exemptions or have to pay through the nose to sequester the CO2, which means the end of cheap electricity from coal.
It ain't a done deal yet, folks; this plant stinks and we're downwind from it, so wake up and smell the coffee and write in your comments before the August 15th deadline.
jhawks1510 (anonymous) says…
Ideally, clean energy would be great, and we wouldn't have to burn organic fossil fuels to generate our energy, but we cannot get there from here. We have to have an all of the above energy policy, it's a fact of life. Some of the environmental groups on the left (not all of them in fairness) will come up with any thinkable reason why not to build a coal plant, or a nuclear plant, even if a mountain of evidence and studies are presented to them verified six ways 'til Sunday that environmental impacts would be minimal...very disingenuous on their part.
We are a very energy hungry nation. We do need to learn how to conserve. We do need pollution controls lest we turn ourselves into the environmental disasters occuring in China or what happened in parts of Eastern Europe. But we do need energy in all its forms. I personally loathe having to spend our dollars on oil from unfriendly nations.
Maybe one day we'll be able to develop a solar wafer than can convert 3/4 or more of the sun's rays directly into electricity, or have clean, self-sustaining, controlled fusion reactors that could provide energy ad infinitum, but that's not today, nor at least for a few decades.
oneeye_wilbur (anonymous) says…
Nuclear power is the way to go. Foreign countries way ahead of the US. China will take our coal from Wyoming and continue to make plastic toys from the recyled pop bottles from the US. China likes to make money. America is not smart enough to compete anymore.
With little power in the US, the country and it's inhabitants will be in the dark. For most of the Lawrence population, being in the dark is nothing new.
Is merrill running his computer with a treadle from an old sewing machine? Of course not, Lawrence is green and the old machine got scrapped into the metal heap. Now the metal is being shipped to China to make a new lawnmower for merrill, using our coal to fire the lawnmower plant and smelter. Lawrence continues to get dumbed down in the gene pool of intellect.
mcontrary (anonymous) says…
Kansas seems to love spewing nasties into the atmosphere. Since this plant is in western Kansas, it will dump those nasties all across the state before crossing into states that lie to the east. Perhaps the lack of concern for the environment and health effects on the populace downwind of the plant are associated with our being a red state where such concerns are secondary to those of big business.
independant1 (anonymous) says…
Yup, the 'all of the above energy policy' jhawks1510 statement rings true unless we want to depress the economy even more.
The_Big_B (anonymous) says…
Everybody that fought nuclear power ... you get coal instead.
Pyrrhic victory?
QuiviraTrail (anonymous) says…
We have enough wind potential in the Sunflower State that we don't need to build more coal-fired plants (esp. since the power from the proposed plant would go to Colorado and the pollution would go to Kansas).
independant1 (anonymous) says…
Delay is tried and proven environmentalist tactic to slow progress. Used freely, all the time.
Yeoman2 (anonymous) says…
Wrong title (again)
"Environmentalists want more time to torpedo coal-fired plants to provide more electrical capacity and cause general chaos and disorder with brown-outs and black-outs!"