JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. – The Rush Island coal plant, one of Ameren Missouri’s largest coal facilities, is set to shut down next week after violating federal clean air regulations.
The plant will no longer burn coal after Tuesday, October 15, according to a news release from the Missouri Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit.
A federal judge ruled that Ameren violated the EPA’s Clean Air Act when it chose to make major modifications to improve the coal plant’s performance. Investigators say many of these modifications came between 2007 and 2010, without a permit or installation of proper air pollution controls.
A U.S. Appeals court upheld this ruling in 2021, and Ameren made a decision to permanently close the plant around that time.
“Ameren executives knew they were irreparably harming our region when they chose to illegally pollute the air we breathe,” said Gretchen Waddell Barwick, Chapter Director of the Missouri Sierra Club, partially in a statement to FOX 2.
The Missouri Independent reports that Ameren disconnect the plant from power after its operations shut down, moving equipment out to Ameren’s other coal plants and preparing the site for demolition, according to Tim Lafser, Ameren’s vice president of power operations and engineering.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the Sierra Club, and Ameren remain in negotiations about the possibility of compensation for illegal emissions.
