MNN - Mother Nature Network

"Oh daddy won't ya take me back to Muhlenberg county down by the Green river where paradise lay?"

 

"Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin', Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away."

 

These are the words of John Prine's beloved song "Paradise" referring to Western Kentucky's Green River, a well known fishing and boating spot. It seems, if we don't take action, Mr. Prine's song will ring ever true.

 

According to the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, developers have proposed the "Cash Creek Coal Gas Plant" to be placed on the river. Among a myriad of other things, the alliance lists illegal dumping into the body of water, 14.1 million gallons of water pumped out of the river daily for operations, inadequate monitoring of sulfates, phenols, nitrates, fluorides, phosphorous, and metals, coal combustion runoff and smog.

 

There will be a public hearing tomorrow (Monday, August 24) in Henderson County, Kentucky, at the Henderson Fiscal Court House. For more information, contact Jason Flickner at jason@kwalliance.org and visit www.KWAlliance.org.