July 23, 2014

Sierra Club Presses Indy Utility To Retire Plant

stock photo

stock photo

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Sierra Club is pressing Indianapolis' local power company to retire a coal-fired power plant that's long been the Hoosier capital's single biggest industrial polluter.

The environmental group says Indianapolis Power & Light's 427-megawatt Harding Street unit threatens the public health with toxic emissions that cause respiratory woes in children, the elderly and others.

Jodi Perras of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign says Indianapolis is the last major Midwestern city with a coal-fired plant in its city limits that isn't being phased out.

IPL spokeswoman Brandi Davis-Handy says IPL currently plans to continue burning coal at the plant until at least 2034, but is working on a 20-year energy plan due Nov. 1 to state regulators.

She says IPL is still assessing its future power-generation methods.

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