To: City of Columbia, MO
City of Columbia: hold a hearing on the Prairie State Energy Campus
The citizens of Columbia do not want to pay excessive energy costs for dirty energy from Peabody Energy's malfunctioning coal plant and dangerous strip mine.
We ask the city of Columbia to hold a public hearing in which representatives of the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission and Peabody Energy are called upon to answer questions from city officials, financial experts, and Columbia residents about the Prairie State Energy Campus.
We ask the city of Columbia to hold a public hearing in which representatives of the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission and Peabody Energy are called upon to answer questions from city officials, financial experts, and Columbia residents about the Prairie State Energy Campus.
Why is this important?
Peabody Energy developed the Prairie State Energy Campus as a way to burn some low-grade coal reserves in Illinois that it couldn't sell. But because Peabody got Midwestern cities to foot the bill, Columbia is now in debt for a strip mine, power plant, and coal ash landfill that are more than $2 billion over-budget, and we have to keep making payments no matter how poorly the plant runs.
We want to continue to see more renewable energy powering our city; we don't want to see our electric rates and tax dollars funding a project that ties Columbia to dirty energy for decades.
We want to continue to see more renewable energy powering our city; we don't want to see our electric rates and tax dollars funding a project that ties Columbia to dirty energy for decades.