Lee Ziesche, lee.ziesche@sierraclub.org
St. Louis, MO – Today, Ameren Missouri announced its plan to build a gas peaker plant at its shuttered Meramec coal plant, located at the confluence of the Meramec and Mississippi Rivers.
Ameren must be significantly transparent to its customers considering this is the same utility that released more than ten years worth of illegal sulfur dioxide pollution at its Rush Island coal plant. The monopoly utility’s gas peaker plant proposal raises the following questions:
- Did Ameren conduct an all-source request for proposal at this site, and if yes, will it make that information public to its customers who will have to pay for the project?
- How does this project fit into Ameren’s net-zero emissions plan, considering “natural gas” is primarily methane, a potent greenhouse gas?
- What environmental justice considerations did Ameren evaluate before choosing this project?
- Did Ameren follow its self-defined Environmental Justice Principles when it chose to build this project?
- Why doesn’t Ameren consider the upstream emissions of gas in its considerations about climate impacts?
- Why doesn’t Ameren consider the health impacts of its energy production decisions?
Statement from Gretchen Waddell Barwick, Chapter Director of the Missouri Sierra Club:
“Ameren owes its customers significant transparency about its decision-making process with this gas plant, especially since the monopoly utility’s decisions impact our climate, public health, and pocketbooks. Given Ameren’s track record polluting our air and water, it is vital customers know whether the utility followed its self-defined environmental justice principles. Our communities deserve no less than absolute transparency.”
About the Sierra Club
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