Who:
Hank Graddy
Ag Comm, Water Comm, Sentinels Comm.
Where:
Midway, KY
God has been very generous to me, to my community, and to my country. The United States is filled with natural and cultural beauty and, to my eyes, that beauty is God made manifest. We should all respond to these gifts with humble and responsible stewardship. Unfortunately, too many of us -- and way too many of our political leaders -- respond with arrogant, short-sited materialism. My prayer this morning as I was preparing to attend the Cumberland Chapter Executive Committee meeting was that what I did today would make a difference -- would be part of the process of moving myself, my local community, and my nation away from unsustainable materialism and toward sustainable stewardship of all of God's great creation.
Our Committee covered a wide range of activities, including our response to the new wave of industrial hog facilities -- CAFOS -- now seeking to locate in Kentucky. In 1997, the Sierra Club helped stop the first threatened invasion of these facilities. That experience in Kentucky helped the Sierra Club make stopping CAFOS a central part of the Club's Clean Water Campaign from 1999 though 2004, a campaign that I had the privilege to chair.
We also reviewed the status of proposed coal-fired electrical power plants in Kentucky. The Sierra Club challenged the air quality permit for the world's largest coal company, Peabody, to build a new plant at the Paradise coal mine, made famous by John Prine. The Hearing Officer is scheduled to issue her findings Tuesday -- and we reviewed our plans to respond -- either to good news or bad news. My office is representing Sierra Club. However, the Cash Creek developers have resubmitted the plans for that power plant to include gasification techniques described as "IGCC" -- the technology that Sierra Club witnesses said Peabody should have considered. The Cash Creek developers explained this change by saying they did not want to get caught up in a permit challenge like the Sierra Club challenge to Peabody.
I left the meeting with faith and confidence that we are making a difference -- that we are helping our communities reduce the environmental and health risks we are being exposed to and rise above the wasteful lifestyles we are currently living. It was a long day of stewardship. It was wonderful work.
