Coal Ash Stories – Central Illinois

Coal Ash Stories – Community Forum

Thursday, June 25, 7pm
Kickapoo Landing, Kickapoo State Park

Organized by: Eco-Justice Collaborative
Co-Sponsors:  Prairie Group of the Illinois Chapter of Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network, Students for Environmental Concerns, and Working Films

Coal ash, our country’s second largest waste stream, is the waste material left after coal is burned. It contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic. Illinois generates over 4.4 million tons of coal ash every year and imports ash from six states, storing it at over 90 sites across the state. A 2009 study by the Illinois EPA found groundwater contamination at every site tested.  Without proper management, these contaminants can pollute waterways, groundwater, drinking water, and the air.

Join us on Thursday, June 25 at Kickapoo Landing in Kickapoo State Park near Oakwood, Illinois, as we screen five short films that expose public health concerns, related policy, and community responses to this environmental injustice.

One of these films exposes the hazards of Dynegy’s three coal ash ponds, located upstream from Kickapoo Landing along the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, Illinois’ only National Scenic River. The old, unlined ash ponds are leaching harmful coal ash pollution into the Middle Fork, and the meandering river continues to erode the walls of these ponds. In spite of this, Dynegy has proposed a closure plan that proposes to leave the ash dumps in the floodplain without addressing the ongoing pollution of the river.

Learn about the issues, and talk with friends, colleagues and issue experts, including journalist and film director Rhiannon Fionn and Tyler Rotche, Water Policy Specialist, Prairie Rivers Network. Learn what you can do to:

• Call on the Illinois EPA to create strong rules for the handling and disposal of coal ash.

• Urge local, state and regional decision makers to act with and on behalf of their constituents to support complete closure and cleanup of Dynegy’s ash ponds to preserve the health of Illinois’ only National Scenic River and the communities that depend on it

Download a printable flier:
Coal Ash Stories 6-25 Forum Flier

Can’t make the June 25th event?  Click here for information on the June 29 forum in Chicago