air pollution

A recent air monitoring study near a far western Kentucky industrial complex has revealed a rise in harmful emissions and an increased risk of cancer for area residents.

Ky.'s Attorney General wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of 14 states to oppose rules that would reduce ozone pollution.

State and local officials didn’t begin to inform the public about the widespread PFAS pollution in Henderson until WFPL News and APM Reports broke a series of stories beginning in August.

After decades of doing little about the pollution that has plagued much of the country, China's government is temporarily shutting down entire industrial regions to inspect for violations.

A new report on U.S. power plant emissions says Kentucky has the highest rate of carbon dioxide emissions in the nation.The report was produced by…

The federal government has strengthened the national air quality standard for soot and fine particle pollution. The new standard is 20 percent more stringent than the current standard, which was set in 1997. It will require communities to make sure fine particle pollution is limited to 12 micrograms per cubic meter annually (the current limit is 15). Fine particle pollution, or soot, comes from power plants, refineries, diesel trucks and buses. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says the stricter rule will have a major effect on health. “Science shows us that microscopic particles can penetrate deep into the lungs,” she said. “This can lead to a wide range of serious and costly health effects including heart attacks, strokes and aggravated asthma.” Jackson estimates the strengthened standard could provide health benefits worth up to $9 billion by 2020. That’s $170 dollars for each dollar invested in implementing the standard, she says. The only counties that are projected to not meet the new standard by 2020 are in California. Jefferson County isn’t currently meeting the new standard, but is close. Air Pollution Control District spokesman Tom Nord says so far in 2012, the county has only exceeded the new 12 microgram per cubic meter standard twice. A decade ago, particle levels were routinely in the 20s. Nord says he anticipates the county will be in compliance with the new standard within several years. “This is something we’ve been expecting for awhile from the EPA,” he said. “We are going to work with the local community, the business community, to make sure that we can meet this standard; we feel confident that we will.” Nord says he doesn’t expect meeting the new standard to be a “particularly painful” process, but he wasn’t sure by how much upcoming power plant retirements and upgrades will reduce the soot in the community. Louisville’s Cane Run coal-fired power plant is scheduled to be retired and replaced with natural gas by 2016, and the Mill Creek power plant will be updated with new pollution controls. Also playing a role are new fuel standards for vehicles, which will also reduce the amount of soot pollution in the city’s air. Local groups including the Sierra Club, Rubbertown Emergency ACTion, Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light and the Kentucky League of Women Voters applauded the new standard.

A three-judge panel has voted two to one to strike down a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that would require some states to reduce…

Today on NPR: The U.S. government has been tightening the screws on Americans who hide money in offshore accounts, putting pressure on overseas banks, and…

Kentucky is number one on a list of the states with the most toxic air pollution from power plants. The Natural Resources Defense Council analyzed the data self-reported by industries in the Toxic Release Inventory, which is managed by the federal government. The most recent data is from 2010, and that year, Kentucky’s power plants emitted more than 40 million pounds of toxic air pollution. This gives the state the dubious honor of being ranked number one in the nation. “The first thing Kentucky has failed to do, relative to the states that have seem the most dramatic improvement, is adopt any kind of state law or regulation that requires substantial reductions in mercury or toxic pollution from the power sector,” said John Walke, the air director of the NRDC. The 20 states profiled in the NRDC’s report—dubbed the “Toxic Twenty”—account for 92 percent of the nation’s electric sector toxic air pollution. But they also just account for 62 percent of the United States’ electricity generation. In Kentucky, nearly 80 percent of the state’s air pollution comes from power plants that burn coal and oil. The three most polluting plants are the Paradise Fossil Plant in western Kentucky, the Big Sandy plant in eastern Kentucky and the Mill Creek Generating Station in Louisville. Walke says the fact that most of Kentucky’s pollution is caused by power plants is both a problem and a solution “Cleaning up toxic pollution from power plants will benefit Kentucky residents to a greater degree than almost any other state in the union,” he said. There is hope that Kentucky’s air pollution will be greatly reduced in future years. In the face of new federal air pollution regulations, the state’s power plants will be forced to install new pollution controls by 2016. The operators of the Big Sandy plant also recently announced they were reconsidering an earlier decision to burn coal at the site. Here's the NRDC's full list: The states on the "Toxic 20" list (from worst to best) are: Kentucky Ohio Pennsylvania Indiana West Virginia Florida Michigan North Carolina Georgia Texas Tennessee Virginia South Carolina Alabama Missouri Illinois Mississippi Wisconsin Maryland Delaware