Cane Run Station

Cane Run Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by E.ON near Louisville, Kentucky.

In Fall 2010, LG&E said it may shut down the 57-year-old Cane Run power plant or convert it to natural gas in response to tightening environmental regulations.

In September 2011, LG&E said in filings with the Kentucky Public Service Commission that it plans to replace its Cane Run coal plant with a 640 MW natural gas-fired plant by 2016, to be built at the same site. LGE and Kentucky Utilities reportedly also asked the commission to approve the purchase of Bluegrass Generation Co’s 495 MW natural gas-fired power plant, to replace their Green River Generating Station and Tyrone Generating Station. On May 3, 2012, both the gas conversion and purchase of the Bluegrass gas plant were approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Louisville Gas and Electric Company
 * Parent Company: E.ON
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 645 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 163 MW (1962), 209 MW (1966), 272 MW (1969)
 * Location: 5252 Cane Run Rd., Louisville, KY 40216
 * GPS Coordinates: 38.175833, -85.879444
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Sources (2009)
 * Cardinal Mine (Kentucky)
 * Cordova Loading (Alabama)
 * Midway Mine (Kentucky)
 * Somerville Mining Complex (Indiana)

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 3,853,535 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 17,122 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 6,791 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 96 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Cane Run Station
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma-related episodes and asthma-related emergency room visits, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, peneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution is formed from a combination of soot, acid droplets, and heavy metals formed from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot. Among those particles, the most dangerous are the smallest (smaller than 2.5 microns), which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities.

The table below estimates the death and illness attributable to the Cane Run Station. Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Cane Run Station
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Coal Waste
Kentucky is the country's biggest producer of coal burning wastes, according to the EPA. Indiana and Kentucky also are the nation's top two states for coal ash ponds, with 53 and 44, respectively.

"High Hazard" Surface Impoundment
Cane Run Station's Ash Pond surface impoundment is on the EPA's official June 2009 list of Coal Combustion Residue (CCR) Surface Impoundments with High Hazard Potential Ratings. The rating applies to sites at which a dam failure would most likely cause loss of human life, but does not assess of the likelihood of such an event.

According to an Alternet article by Sierra Club's Bruce Niles, the oldest of these coal ash ponds was built in the 1970s, but there are no records of any monitoring of any pond until 2005. The largest of these ponds, designated as “high hazard,” means that a dam failure like the 2008 TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill would probably result in loss of life. Ash in this pond looms 20 feet over the containment berm, 50 yards from homes and within 350 yards of the Ohio River.

September 2010: LGE proposes impoundment expansion
As of September 2010, Louisville Gas and Electric is currently seeking permits to “expand” the pond at the Cane Run coal plant by constructing a new 5.7 million cubic yard, 14-story-tall pond some 1,500 feet from the existing one. What little data can be obtained about the existing ponds shows that they have been leaking sulfates into local groundwater. Neither the coal plant nor the state government has made public any tests of the toxic heavy metals found in coal ash, including arsenic, selenium, and mercury. The EPA has found that people living near coal ash ponds have a risk of cancer greater than that of smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. In 2009, the plant produced 650,000 pounds of coal-burning waste.

Nearby Riverside Gardens residents will testify at the upcoming EPA coal ash hearing in Louisville on September 28, 2010.

Coal ash found in Claremore Acres
In February 2011, it was reported that testing by the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District had found evidence of coal ash in the Claremore Acres neighborhood, near the Cane Run Station. The Kentucky Division of Waste Management, which regulates the dump, is conducting its own investigation. The air district's enforcement manager, Terri Phelps, said district regulations require reasonable precautions to be taken to prevent particulate matter from becoming airborne and blowing beyond the boundaries of a work site. District regulations allow the agency to levy fines of up to $10,000 per day per violation, Phelps said. Offenders can also be required to take corrective actions, she added. Some residents said they believe LG&E officials know their plant causes ash and soot problems because the company has sometimes provided them with vouchers to pay for car washes.

The Cane Run ash pond has been ranked a “high hazard” because of potential damage that it could do to neighboring homes across Cane Run Road, raising concerns over whether the levee broke and ash leaked out. In March 2011, LG&E settled a pollution nuisance lawsuit in U.S. District Court with some of its neighbors to the northeast in Riverside Gardens, in a confidential settlement.

More allegations of coal ash violations at Cane Run
In November 2011, Louisville Gas and Electric disputed sampling performed by the Louisville Metro Government that showed coal ash was present on homes near the company's Cane Run Station. Since the summer of 2010, LG&E produced results of two different coal ash types of tests, and the results were contradictory. In October 2011, Metro Government analyzed its own samples and found fly ash on a home that was washed only three weeks earlier. LG&E responded by releasing new data that suggested negligible quantities of ash. The company is allowed to emit a certain amount from its smokestacks, but the city said if dust poses a nuisance to an industry’s neighbors and limits their right to enjoy their property, the city can require the company to take remedial measures. Terri Phelps of the Air Pollution Control District says the agency stands by its results and will likely issue a notice of violation to LG&E.

LG&E pays fine
On April 18, 2012, the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control Board unanimously approved an agreement that calls for the Louisville Gas and Electric Co. to pay $22,500 to settle violations involving blowing coal ash from its Cane Run power plant.

Comparing Cane Run Ash Pond to TVA Kingston Ash Pond
In 2009, the webstie Ohio River Radio Consortium posted the following unsigned article comparing the Cane Run Station's fly ash pond and the Kingston Fossil Plant's fly ash pond, site of the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill:


 * In a story I reported recently about how coal ash is handled in Kentucky, I mentioned both the December 2008 coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Tennessee and LG&E’s Cane Run plant coal ash pond here in Louisville. While they are both coal ash ponds, there are some pretty important differences between the two, which I thought I’d share.


 * First, the TVA plant was storing fly ash in the pond, in a kind of slurry, behind a tall dam wall.  At Cane Run, the pond contains bottom ash.  Fly ash is the powdery leftovers from burning coal; bottom ash is the sandy, heavier bits. Whereas fly ash slurry is a kind of goopy mixture, bottom ash settles in a pond. Experts believe it’s generally better to store fly ash in dry landfills as opposed to ponds. In Europe, the push is not to store any of it at all, but to reuse ash in cement and pavement.  Also, the Cane Run pond’s dam walls are quite low, and the pond doesn’t hold nearly as much as the TVA plant.


 * So, the set-up at TVA spelled disaster. To get a sense of the size and impact of that spill, see these before and after aerial pictures.


 * However, it’s true the Cane Run pond is in a residential neighborhood, near a rail line, and on the Ohio River. For that reason, the state ranks it as a “high hazard” pond, requiring regular inspections of the dam walls and surrounding turf.All this means that a disaster like what happened at the TVA plant is highly unlikely at Cane Run, for anyone left wondering. But there are many coal-fired power plants in Kentucky, and that means there’s plenty of coal combustion waste – fly ash, bottom ash – being stored and land-filled at increasing rates.


 * There are also some innovative projects to try to reuse the ash. For example, at Western Kentucky Energy’s Coleman station in Hawesville, University of Kentucky researchers helped develop a process for recovering fly ash from ponds to extract the carbon and create a new fuel.

Citizen groups

 * Coal River Mountain Watch
 * Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
 * Kentucky Environmental Foundation
 * Kentucky Riverkeeper
 * New Power
 * Kentucky Environmental Foundation, Berea, KY, phone: (859) 986-7565
 * Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter

External resources

 * Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 2009.
 * Environmental Integrity Project, "Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants", July 2007.
 * Facility Registry System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed Jan. 2009.
 * Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed Feb. 2009.

External articles

 * Erica Peterson, "The Coal Ash Series, In Full" WFPL, July 22, 2011

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Kentucky and coal
 * E.ON
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming