ENERGY, AIR AND PUBLIC HEALTH PROGRAM
PROJECTS 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
ENERGY
Victory in Fight over Proposed Coal-fired Power Plant North of Kansas City
Great Rivers’ Victory Paves Way for Historic Settlement that Will Make Air Cleaner and Reduce Global Warming Pollutants
Since 2004, Great Rivers attorneys have been representing the Concerned Citizens of Platte County (“CCPC”) and the Sierra Club in their efforts to stop Kansas City Power and Light (“KCPL”) from building a new coal-fired power plant (“Iatan2”) in Iatan, just north of Kansas City. In 2004, KCPL got leave from the Public Service Commission (“PSC”) to hold public “workshops” with the aim of building consensus around the new plant. After the workshops, however, KCPL went behind closed doors with a number of parties, primarily other utilities and industrial energy users, but also the Sierra Club and CCPC. The result was a negotiated agreement called a “Stipulation and Agreement,” which allowed KCPL to build the plant with assurances that they could recover the cost from ratepayers; KCPL also made concessions obligating them to do modest amounts of wind generation and energy efficiency.
KCPL hoped to get rubber stamp approval from the PSC by presenting it with a unanimous Stipulation and Agreement. But the Sierra Club and CCPC, alone among the parties, refused to go along. In 2005, the PSC accordingly held a four-day hearing at which Great Rivers represented CCPC and the Sierra Club, but the result was the same — unqualified approval of the whole package by the PSC.
In 2006, Great Rivers appealed the PSC’s approval of the plan to the state trial court and again the stipulation was upheld. Later in 2006, we appealed the approval to the state Court of Appeals, Western District, which ruled in our favor on February 27, 2007.
Our appeal focused on the unprecedented procedure of a utility using a stipulation to settle what was, at the time, an uncontested case (the workshop proceedings); we argued the law says that there is nothing to settle until there is a contested case before the Commission. The Court of Appeals agreed that the PSC lacked jurisdiction over a contested case commenced by a stipulation.
Two days after the Court ruled in our favor, KCPL came to the bargaining table, and almost three weeks later, on March 19, Kansas City Power & Light came to a landmark settlement that will fully offset the carbon dioxide pollution from its new, coal-burning power plant north of Kansas City. This settlement breaks new ground for utilities in their attempts to deal with global warming in that for the first time a utility is pledging to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.
(Although our suit was settled by the Court’s opinion, there were still suits pending against KCPL over the new plant in other courts and handled by other attorneys. The Washington University Interdisciplinary Environmental Law Clinic was handling a case against KCPL over the Department of Natural Resource’s air permit issued to KCPL; a private attorney in Kansas was handling the Sierra Club’s suit against the Kansas Corporation Commission for its approval of the same stipulation that the Missouri PSC approved.)
The settlement allows for KCPL to continue building Iatan 2. However, in exchange for this, KCPL made unprecedented commitments to reduce the air pollution from its plants and to offset the 6 million tons of CO2 Iatan 2 is expected to contribute to global warming over its lifetime. KCPL, the Sierra Club and CCPC agreed to work cooperatively toward the overall goal of reducing KCPL’s CO2 emissions from all their operations to 20% below the 2006 level. KCPL specifically committed to taking the following actions:
KCPL also agreed to several community investments:
In an ideal world this plant would not be built, but for the time being coal-fired electricity is legal. This Collaboration Agreement is a step in turning the tide against coal and diverting investment from dirty power to renewable generation, conservation and the efficient use of energy.
To read our press releases, click below.
Citizens Win in Coal Power Plant Battle--February, 2007
Missouri Appellate Court rebuffs Kansas City Power & Light's attempt to deny public participation in rate hike decision. Read More
August, 2005. Great Rivers completes four days of hearings before Public Service Commission on Kansas City Power and Light's plan to build new coal-fired power plant in Platte County, Missouri. Read the report of the expert witness Ned Ford
Fighting a Coal-Fired Power Plant Proposed for Norborne, Missouri
Associated Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (AECI) has plans to build a 660 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Norborne, Carroll County, between Columbia and Kansas City. AECI sought a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. This triggered the National Environmental Policy Act, and USDA had to issue an environmental impact statement (EIS). Great Rivers filed comments on the Draft EIS on behalf of the Concerned Citizens for Carroll County and the Sierra Club, and Great Rivers filed comments on the final EIS in August, 2007.
Great Rivers stressed the need for energy conservation and efficiency measures and asked USDA to consider how carbon regulation in the form of a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system will affect the price of electricity fueled by coal.
To its credit, AECI has taken an enlightened view of energy efficiency and is buying the entire output of Missouri’s first three wind farms. We hope they can be dissuaded from building the Norborne plant.
In February, 2008, AECI announced it would not build this plant.
Great Rivers Files Comments on Associated Electric's Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for Proposed New Coal-Fired Power Plant for Norborne, Missouri (March 15, 2007)
Read Concerned Citizens of Carroll County (C4 Association's) Comments
Fighting Pollution Caused by Hydropower Plant
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center and Missouri Parks Association Sue Over Taum Sauk. Read the Press Release
(December 11, 2007)
Intervention in AmerenUE’s Twenty-Year Plan
AmerenUE filed its 20-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) back in December, 2005. It piqued our interest because the entire plan was filed as highly confidential. Great Rivers intervened in the Public Service Commission on behalf of the Sierra Club, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Mid-Missouri Peaceworks and ACORN.
Our attempts to get the documents declassified met with some initial success; UE disclosed roughly half of its filing. Subsequent efforts led only to minor disclosures. Finally the PSC issued an order upholding UE’s claims to confidential or proprietary status for two classes of documents: (1) reports commissioned from consultants who don’t want to see their for-profit work all over the internet and (2) information that could affect UE’s negotiations for supplies and contract work where the utility, otherwise protected as a regulated monopoly, enters a competitive business environment.
This leaves a substantial mass of material shielded from public view. In particular, UE’s intentions regarding its Callaway nuclear plant remain under wraps. Mystery likewise continues to surround Church Mountain, a possible site for mountain-topping and the building of a pumped storage reservoir like the one that ruptured on nearby Profitt Mountain, sending a wall of water through Johnson’s Shut-ins State Park.
The focus of the IRP proceeding is on whether or not UE complied with the regulations for doing such a plan. The various parties filed lists of deficiencies in the IRP. Ours focused on their treatment of renewable energy—a proposal for 100 megawatts of wind power (it can finally be revealed), a mere pittance by our standards. Most of all, the IRP was deficient in its treatment of Demand Side Management (DSM), meaning programs that promote energy efficiency and demand reduction by UE’s customers. In late 2006, Ameren was forced to concede that its original IRP was inadequate. In a settlement with us and other parties, it agreed to do a whole new plan and to include stakeholders in the process. UE has been forced to commit to doing a more serious job with DSM, though the details remain to be worked out.
Stakeholder meetings are ongoing. Ameren has committed to evaluating energy efficiency programs, renewable power options (especially wind) and the potential costs of future global warming regulation by Congress.
To read our press release, click below.
Great Rivers Challenges AmerenUE's Confidentiality Claim.
January, 2006. Read More
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center Finds AmerenUE's Long-range Plan Fatally Deficient.
Great Rivers Intervenes in Missouri
Public Service Commission to Promote
Renewable Resources and Energy Efficiency
Great Rivers is urging the Missouri Public Service Commission to adopt federal standards that would require regulated utilities in Missouri to step up their reluctant efforts on behalf of renewable resources and energy efficiency.
The federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) requires every state to consider adopting Congressional standards for interconnection and net metering if they do not already have comparable standards. There are five EPAct standards that all states must consider: (1) Net metering; (2) Interconnection of home and business generators; (3) Time-of-use based metering; (4) Utility fuel diversification plans; and (5) Improved efficiency of fossil fuel generators.
The Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) opened a series of hearings in July, 2006, to comply with EPAct. Great Rivers Environmental Law Center intervened on behalf of a coalition of groups advocating clean energy: Concerned Citizens of Platte County, the Sierra Club, Heartland Renewable Energy Society, Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, Burroughs Audubon, and Ozark Energy Services, a small company in Joplin that designs and installs small renewable energy systems.
Good news for home electricity generators—Missouri finally has true net metering
It looks as if the Missouri Public Service Commission will simplify matters for utility customers who want to connect home generating units to the utility grid. Congress urged the states to adopt a national standard for interconnecting small systems to the grid. By complying, the PSC will cut through some of the tangled knot of requirements imposed on customer-generators by the utility-sponsored and misnamed Consumer Clean Energy Act of 2002, a state law that calls itself a net metering law but is a wolf in sheep’s clothing for homeowners trying to do their part for renewable electricity.
Great Rivers drafted a true net metering bill that passed committees of both houses of the Missouri legislature and was signed into law, after being watered down slightly in negotiations with the utilities to get their support. Net metering lets customers feed any power they generate in excess of their needs onto the utility grid and get credit for it at the full retail rate. (June 19, 2008)
Great Rivers Files Suit on Behalf of Renew Missouri Against the Missouri Public Service Commission Over Net Metering Rule.
(December 23, 2008)
To view our press release, click below.
Great Rivers Intervenes in Missouri Public Service Commission on Behalf of Net Metering , August 2006 Read More
Petition Filed for Clean Energy Requirement
Citizens File Petition for Clean Energy Requirement. Read the Press Release
(January 23, 2008)
Intervention in AmerenUE's 2008 Rate Case
Environmental Organizations Seek Intervention in AmerenUE's $251 Million Rate Case; Illegal Charges at Issue. Read the Press Release
(October 2, 2008)
AIR AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Nuclear Energy is Not the Solution
Even though it is billed as "clean energy," nuclear energy causes a host of problems for public health and the environment. After more than 50 years of the government telling us there would be a safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, there isn't! Great Rivers represents organizations and individuals opposed to a second nuclear plant for Callaway County.
Nuclear Regulators Stop all Action on Callaway 2 License
(August 31, 2009)
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center Files Petition to Intervene on behalf of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and Missourians for Safe Energy Against AmerenUE's Application to Build New Nuclear Reactor
Read the Petition to Intervene
(April 7, 2009)
Great Rivers Files Comments on AmerenUE's
Proposed Second Nuclear Power Plant.
(March 24, 2009)
Fighting a Proposed Coal-Fired Pig Iron Ore Smelter in Crystal City, MO
The Concerned Citizens for Crystal City came to Great Rivers in 2007 for assistance in fighting a proposed coal-fired pig iron ore smelter, to be built in Crystal City on the old PPG glass factory site. The plant may emit pollutants equivalent to AmerenUE's 1160 MW Rush Island coal plant, including SO2, NO, particulates, mercury and carbon dioxide, a leading cause of global warming. Great Rivers is assisting the Concerned Citizens in their Sunshine Law suit against the City of Crystal City.
Great Rivers Files Suit on Behalf of Concerned Citizens for Crystal City Regarding the Proposed Coal-Fired Pig Iron Ore Smelter to be Built in the Area. Read the Press Release (November 27, 2007). Read the Petition (November 27, 2007).
Great Rivers Finds Crystal City Smelter Ordinances Illegal. (October 15, 2007)
Read the Press Release
Read Letter to Crystal City Mayor and City Council
St. Louis Asbestos Case
Great Rivers continues its representation of Families for Asbestos Compliance, Testing and Safety (FACTS), in its legal action against the City of St. Louis and City of St. Louis Airport Authority over the illegal and experimental use of the “wet method” of asbestos abatement.
With the wet method, the asbestos is not removed from the home but instead is left in place while the home is being demolished, potentially exposing people to asbestos fibers released into the air and soil. The attorneys for FACTS completed their evaluation of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, followed by two weeks of depositions of key witnesses and designated experts. The parties submitted the case to the Court on motions for summary judgment and are waiting for a court ruling.
Federal Court Cites City of St. Louis for Illegal Asbestos Removal. Read the Press Release
(September 15, 2008)
May, 2005. Suit filed in Federal Court against City of St. Louis and its airport authority for violating federal environmental laws regarding asbestos removal. Read More