Environmentalists are calling the planned closure of an Owensboro power plant a victory.
Owensboro Municipal Utilities has announced that it will shut down Unit 1 of the Elmer Smith Power Plant sometime between 2019 and 2021.
Former Evansville City Council member Wendy Bredhold now works for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. She tells WNIN that the plant closure is a positive. She says it wasn't producing energy for the local community.
Bredhold says, in many cases power generated at coal-fired plants is sent to other parts of the nation, but people in the Tri-State have to deal with the pollution.
Owensboro's other, larger unit will continue to operate for the foreseeable future.
More than half of the coal plants operating in Kentucky in 2011 were built before 1970, and utilities are being forced to decide whether to update the plants or shut them down.