Toxic coal ash in our drinking water - yum.

Because blasting mountains to smithereens and burying downstream communities isn't enough.

Because exploiting the ignorance and desperation of impoverished people in order to rake in windfall profits isn't enough.

Because roasting human life right off the planet with greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning isn't enough.

Big Coal and Big Power are demanding to expand yet another way to poison, ruin and kill Kentuckians: coal ash ponds.

Jake has the details:

Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E), owned by E.ON U.S., has requested permission from the Kentucky Public Service Commission to increase rates. Why, you may be wondering? Well, uh, to finance the construction of two new coal ash ponds in Trimble County. That’s within the floodplain of the Ohio River. 40 minutes from Louisville and the Louisville Water Company’s intake facility.

This is happening just a year after the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal ash disaster. Great timing.

“A year ago today, more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash - waste from a coal-fired power plant - flooded a quiet residential community in Tennessee when the dam holding the ash back failed”, stated Wallace McMullen, Chair of the Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter Energy Committee. “However, as the EPA discusses new coal ash regulations, LG&E is proposing to saddle its customers with a costly, public health liability.”

Isn’t it about time LG&E/E.ON applied responsible management practices instead of putting countless thousands in danger by exposing them to hazardous coal waste?

Read the whole thing.

In potential good news, the Kentucky Public Service Commission is requiring East KY Power to actually present minimum justification for expanding a coal-burning plant just outside Lexington.

Don't worry; the PSC will never deny the permit. But even asking Big Power to explain itself is a huge step forward.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....