Below are a few of the environmental concerns, issues or developments that KYPPA has identified and is following. While there are many other concerns across the state, these are ones that are of particular interest to KYPPA members. If you have other environmental concerns that you would like KYPPA to address, please send us E-mail.

Coal Slurry Ponds
An ongoing environmental concern in Kentucky is coal slurry ponds rupturing. On October 11, 2000 a 70 acre ‘pond’ (and we use the term ‘pond’ loosely) ruptured and released 210 millions gallons of slurry (which has the consistency of molasses) into the streams and ‘hollers’ of Eastern Kentucky. This amount of sludge would fill a 700-acre field 1 foot deep with sludge (that is a very big “pond”). To put this into perspective, the best known environmental disaster - the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska - spilled a mere 11 million gallons of oil. The slurry pond released almost 20 times as much. As if this first spill was not enough, a second spill occurred on April 11, 2002. Larry Wilson at Appalachian Focus has been following developments and is an excellent resource for those interested in more information.

Fish Kill on the Kentucky River
On May 9, 2000, a 7-story warehouse at the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY began to burn. The contents of that warehouse? One million gallons of bourbon. Much of the bourbon poured into the Kentucky River, killing 10's of thousands of fish within 5-6 miles ‘kill-zone’. As this kill-zone worked it way down stream, it wiped out untold aquatic life. State environmental emergencies responders estimated that only about 20% of the bourbon made it to the river. Imagine if all of it made it to the river. The distiller paid approximately $250,000 in fines to cover the cost of the clean-up. In November, 1996 a similar spill occurred in Bardstown, KY at the Heaven’s Hill Distillery. Larry Wilson at Appalachian Focus has been following developments and is an excellent resource for those interested in more information.

Upper Cumberland Watershed Watch
Since 1998, volunteers across the state have been taking water samples of streams, creeks and rivers across Kentucky at more than 500 sites. These samples are taken to labs and tested for various forms of pollutions - both chemical and biological. Once the results are in, the data is available to any or all that wish to view it. Several KYPPA members have been active in the program since it’s inception. The results of these tests form the basis of much research and many studies. To get additional information about the project or to join the team, view the Watershed Watch web-site.

PRIDE Program
The PRIDE (Personal Responsibility In a Desirable Environment) program has been very active in promoting the clean-up of Kentucky in the 40-county region served by the program. This PRIDE service area encompasses the drainage areas of five of the largest rivers in the state - the Kentucky, Cumberland, Big Sandy, Licking and Red Rivers. PRIDE has identified two primary sources of pollution - illegal dumps and ‘straight-pipe’ sewage discharge. Since 1998, the program has spent over $66.1 million to improve Kentucky’s environment and has had over 54,000 participants logging over 120,000 hours of service, cleaning up over 600 dumps. The PRIDE web-site has more information about the project.