Environment

"From the Garden Gate" is next. Murray resident Roy Helton divides his time between teaching in the English Department at Murray State University and indulging his passion for gardening.

The Path of Least Resistance

When I was young my father devoted half of our back yard in Nashville to his energetically maintained vegetable garden.  And since there were five children in the family, there was a certain obvious utility to all his planting and harvesting.

TVA’s Shawnee Fossil Plant faces an uncertain future as the Knoxville-based utility company begins retiring coal-powered energy plants.

Yesterday, as part of an ongoing effort to clean up non-renewable energy stations, TVA announced plans to retire 18 of 59 fossil units region-wide by 2018.

At Shawnee, where nine units are coal-based, two units are being looked at for possible closure.

A state environmental official says some Kentuckians are turning to an unusual and illegal way to get money for scrap metal. John Gowins is the Environmental Control Supervisor for the Kentucky Division of Air Quality.

"One of the things that we are seeing, seems like more frequently, is the burning of mobile homes," Gowins said. "And people are trying to recover metal because scrap metal prices have gone up. But that is something that just cannot be done."

U.S. farmers are making the most of a respite from what has been a wet spring to get their corn crops planted. However, the pace still keeps them well behind schedule. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported yesterday that 28% of the nation's cornfields have been planted, up from just 12% a week ago. But the latest numbers are well short of the 65% of the crop that already was in the ground by this date over the previous five years. At this time last year, 85% of the corn was planted.