Environment

Residents of Louisville’s Newburg and Buechel neighborhoods are protesting a planned sewage overflow basin in their area. They held a protest at City Hall today.

The Metropolitan Sewer District began constructing the basin on a 40 acre site near Poplar Level Road, Jennings Lane and Produce Road six months ago. It’s designed to hold 100 million gallons of water, but will only be put to use when rain causes the city’s sanitary sewer system to overflow. Without a catch basin, the water flows untreated into area streams and the Ohio River.

A federal judge has ruled against environmental groups who wanted a mountain in West Virginia to be returned to the National Register of Historic Places.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the recipients of their 'Genius Grants' yesterday, and one of them is a scientist dedicated to studying the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Nancy Rabalais is a marine ecologist and the executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission will begin a study of smart grid technology, and whether the devices will help electric consumers.

The term “smart grid” is used to refer to technology like smart meters, and other equipment that helps utilities monitor electricity and detect outages. PSC spokesman Andrew Melnykovych says the tools can be useful for consumers, too.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission has accepted a settlement in a rate case involving Big Rivers Electric Corp., which provides power to several electric co-ops in western Kentucky.

When Big Rivers proposed environmental upgrades earlier this year, the improvements were estimated to cost ratepayers more than $283 million. The company planned to install more stringent pollution controls at four of its power plants, and convert the coal-fired Reid Plant in Sebree to natural gas.

Louisville Gas and Electric has withdrawn its permit application for an additional coal ash landfill at its Cane Run plant.

Coal ash, its storage and its tendency to blow onto neighboring properties have all been headaches for LG&E at Cane Run and the company is planning on phasing it out to build a natural gas facility.

The landfill application, which has been pending since January 2010, was dropped due to the slated natural gas facility and to the building of an earthen wall that allows the existing landfill to hold more coal ash.