Global warming and the pollution of our environment are realities with enormous impacts on our lives and on the future of our children and grandchildren. A new threat to our Kansas and global environment is looming. Sunflower Electric Power Corp. is about to receive the permits necessary to construct three new coal fired power plants to generate 1,980 megawatts of electricity at their Holcomb, Kansas facility. See below for more information on this threat.

Fortunately, there still is time to make our concerns known to persons and agencies that can slow, or even stop the construction of these massive affronts to a sustainable ecology. You can appear at the hearings on the "Draft Permit" which will be held as follows:

Garden City, Ks
7 PM
Tuesday, Oct 24
County Commission Rm
Finney Co. Office Bldg
311 N. 9th St

Topeka, Ks
9 AM*
Thursday, Oct 26
Azure Rm, 4th floor, Curtis Bldg
10th & Jackson

*The Sierra Club is attempting to change the time to the evening so that more can attend.

Or you can send to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) your comments and concerns up to 5 PM on Oct 30 to Rick Bolfing. Bureau of Air and Radiation, KDHE, 1000 SW Jackson Su. 310,
Topeka, Ks. 66612-1366.
rbolfing@kdhe.state.ks.us

Also please write to the Governor and write letters to the editor of your newspaper. Governor Kathleen Sebelius can be reached at Capitol Bldg., 2nd floor, Topeka, Kansas 66612 or go to
http://www.governor.ks.gov/comments/comment.htm

We hope you can attend the hearing. You don't have to speak if you don't want to. Your presence alone will speak volumes. Let's fill the room and the adjoining hallways.

Impacts of the Holcomb Expansion Coal Plants

• CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) is a heat trapping gas that contributes to global warming.
• The almost 2000 megawatt additions to the Holcomb facility will add 14,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year to our global warming predicament.
• To offset this new source of CO2 we would have to remove some 2 million gasoline powered cars, light trucks, and SUV's from the state's roads and highways.
• Global warming is expected to raise temperatures and produce more drought in western Kansas. This will accelerate the decline of our groundwater aquifers.
• The Holcomb expansion could increase the mercury emitted from coal burning power plants in Kansas by up to 80%.
• Mercury causes learning disabilities in children of mothers caring mercury in their blood.
• There are 24,000 premature deaths each year from coal fired power plant pollution.
• Only 8% of the electricity generated by the new plants at Holcomb will benefit Kansans, while prevailing winds will send the pollution across our state.

We have better options than dirty, coal fired power plant technology. New technologies offer opportunities for new jobs and economic development.

• The combination of strong energy efficiency programs and wind power generation could eliminate the need for new coal plants;
• We have barely begun to explore energy efficient technologies that already exist to reduce energy usage in all parts of our lives.
• The technology exists now to tap Kansas's vast free, clean and constantly renewable wind resources, but we are trailing other states
• The construction of 1,980 megawatts of coal power at Holcomb would retard the development of the wind power industry in Kansas and neighboring states.

Your message need not be long. Focus on the issues that you personally find most compelling. The Sierra Club is calling for a moratorium on power plant construction to allow time to pursue energy efficient technologies and to develop wind power in our state. More info is available on the Kansas Chapter Sierra Club website