Subject: Utilities Sector

• The Coal-Lovin' Guv

  September 4, 2007

• New Coal Plant Gets Gassed

  October 18, 2007

• Missouri's Own Coal Battle

  November 15, 2007

• Show-Me More Coal

  February 26, 2008

• Coal Plant Postponed

  March 3, 2008

• Missouri Energy Debate Goes Nuclear

  July 9, 2008

• BPU Grand Jury Adjourns, Two Indictments Remain Sealed

  September 8, 2008

• Bottled Water Program Gets Scrapped

  September 15, 2008

• From Boiler to Brewpub

  The food at the Power Plant Restaurant and Brewery may surprise those who stumble in expecting a selection of burgers, onion rings, and taco salads.

  March 9, 2000

• Clarence M. Kelley & Associates investigates BPU

  November 7, 2008

• Missouri and Kansas are among "Dirty Dozen" for mercury pollution

  Ameren's Labadie power plant By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI Environmentalists in Missouri celebrated earlier this month when a ballot initiative requiring investor-owned utilities to produce more renewable power faced no organized opposition and passed with a resounding 66 percent of the vote. Last year, the administration of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius denied the permit for a massive new coal-fired power plant, even though the political fallout virtually paralyzed the 2008 legislative session.

  November 20, 2008

• Star reporter infiltrates indicted BPU official's chili cookout

  A few weeks ago, I heard rumors about a fund-raiser to help pay legal bills for indicted Board of Public Utilities official Marc Conklin, because Todd Graves isn't working cheap. I didn't get nearly as far as The Kansas City Star's Mark Wiebe, who infiltrated Conklin's chili feed. Wiebe also got BPU board member Mark Jones to admit he attended the cookout. Going to a pro-Conklin party might have been a risky idea, considering he's accused of stealing $400,000 from a utility company that Jones wa

  December 17, 2008

• A hero's nomination for Governor Sebelius

  It wasn't long ago that eco-activists called Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius a coward on environmental issues. When the controversy over massive new coal-fired power plants in western Kansas erupted in 2006, Sebelius was conspicuously MIA. How times have changed. At the 11th hour, Sebelius' administration grew a pair and denied the power plants permit, provoking conservatives to hijack the legislative session in their attempts to reverse the decision. Even hung with the albatross of being an

  December 23, 2008

• Kitchen Redo

  October 26, 2000

• The Great Derangement: We're in it

  One of our favorite writers is Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, whose 2008 book The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire, is due out in paperback next week.The book's subtitle doesn't lie -- Taibbi leads a truly terrifying expedition through Congress, the 9/11 Truth movement and the sad God seekers at Pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in Texas. Although Taibbi's book is set before the November 2008 election, its main a

  January 7, 2009

• Nerves of Steel

  April 18, 2002

• Coal cash buys some votes in the Kansas House -- but not all

  Coal-fired power plant near Holcomb, KansasIt's actually kind of entertaining watching Kansas lawmakers re-fight last year's battle over two new coal-fired power plants for Sunflower Electric Power Corporation out near Holcomb. Last Friday, the House voted on a bill approving the plants; last year the legislature couldn't override Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' veto, and after last week's vote the governor issued a statement saying Friday's 79-44 for/against split showed they still couldn't override he

  March 2, 2009

• Lt. Gov Mark Parkinson's comfy solution to global warming

  Kansas Lt. Governor Mark ParkinsonWhen Governor Kathleen Sebelius tapped Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson to co-chair the Kansas Energy Council in 2007, it signaled her attention to pressing issues like renewable power and global warming. Now, with Sebelius heading to Washington after standing defiantly against the construction of new coal-fired power plants, many environmentalists in the Sunflower State are hoping Parkinson will step into his predecessors eco-friendly shoes. So when Parkins

  April 1, 2009

• Pitch Wins Court Battle

  March 8, 2007

• The Powerless

  August 23, 2007

• Maybe if Missouri and Kansas legislators were high, their actions would make more sense

  April 9, 2009

• Power Player

  March 26, 2009

• Letters

  October 30, 2008

• Kansas City Power & Light is starting to act like a progressive utility company

  September 4, 2008

• Water Hogs

  Say hello to Kansas City's top-five most outrageous water users.

  July 17, 2008

• Power Switch

  May 21, 2009

• Her Dirty Secret

  Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius preaches green, but her heart seems as black as coal.

  August 9, 2007

• Smoke Over Water

  April 19, 2007

• BPU Could Face Thousands In Fines

  A confidential report reveals the utility didn’t follow federal pollution regulations when upgrading its plants.

  March 1, 2007

• Tossed Out

  Katheryn Shields' main environmental staffer wonders why Mike Sanders didn't recycle him.

  March 8, 2007

• Jayhawk Perp Walk

  April 20, 2006

• A Refueling

  October 13, 2005

• Can Kansas City turn its trash problem into an opportunity?

  April 23, 2009

• Damage Control

  Great Plains Energy has spent years quietly working on plans for dirty new power plants. Now facing opposition, it's sounding more eco-friendly.

  July 8, 2004

• Dial M for the Mob

  A phone company chief operates dangerously close to a crime ring.

  June 10, 2004

• The Enforcer

  A prosecuter wears the black hat in David Wittig's white-collar-crime case.

  July 24, 2003

• Take a Leak!

  A Water Department report shows Kansas City pissing away its resources.

  February 6, 2003

• Water Foul

  Water Services tries a pre-emptive strike.

  November 28, 2002

• Best Hire

  Sidonie Garrett

  October 18, 2001

• Strictly Mainstream

  Curbside recycling is the mainstream thing to do.

  August 3, 2000

• Telling on trash

  Steve Chasteen drove a bulldozer at the Kansas City, Kan., Forest View Recycling and Disposal Facility. When he saw raw medical waste coming to the landfill and saw how wastewater was handled at the facility, he brought it to management's attention. Inste

  May 25, 2000

• Read KC's Big Read book, then read this

  Back in grade school, Mom made me sign up for the summer reading program, and I dutifully finished all the books and checked them off the list. So what if the only one that left an impression was S.E. Hinton's teen-delinquent story That Was Then, This Is Now? So what if I went on to become a delinquent myself -- I was a literate delinquent, damn it!Because I love libraries, I'm a fan of the Big Read, which encourages everyone in a whole city to read the same book for a month. Sometimes this can

  April 17, 2009

• Judge throws out case against former BPU attorney accused of stealing $400,000

  Rodney L. TurnerThe ghost of Chuck Thompson is still haunting Wyandotte County 21 years after the Democratic Party Chairman's murder. Questions about Thompson's murder has led a Kansas judge to dismiss the case against an attorney accused of stealing $400,000 from the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities.  Kansas Senior Judge Jack Lively told The Kansas City Star that he threw out the case against Rodney L. Turner because Wyandotte County prosecutors let KBI Special Agent William

  May 1, 2009

• Parkinson backs coal-fired power plant

  That didn't take long. Not even a week after the U.S. Senate confirmed Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services, and Mark Parkinsonnewly minted Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson has agreed to a deal that will allow Sunflower Electric to build a new coal-fired power plant in Holcomb. I checked in with The Pitch's Carolyn Szczepanski, who pays way more attention to power plants and coal than I do. She had a couple of quick, admittedly knee-jerk reactions:1) [Parkinson] was talking last

  May 5, 2009

• Parkinson's Dirty Deal, Part 1

  Governor Mark ParkinsonWhen Gov. Mark Parkinson capitulated to Sunflower Electric Power Corporation and gave his stamp of approval to a monstrous coal-fired power plant in Western Kansas, he sucker-punched his predecessor Kathleen Sebelius, who had mustered the political courage to oppose the pollution-spewing facilities for a solid two years. The new governor also gave the finger to thousands of Kansans who put exceptional pressure on their elected officials to hold the line against the dirty

  May 14, 2009

• Parkinson's dirty deal, part 2

  The deal with Sunflower Electric Power Company was brokered by Mark Parkinson, but it required more than the new governor's signature. Before Sunflower got the go-ahead for that coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, the Legislature had to sign off on a Comprehensive Energy Bill. While the bill passed overwhelmingly -- with only two senators and 18 representatives voting against it -- environmental groups argue that it doesn't go nearly far enough. After all, this bill was the carrot in exchange f

  May 15, 2009

• KCP&L rates go up this September -- and another rate hike could be on the way

  Get ready to fork over more cash on your monthly electric bill. The Missouri Public Service Commission approved a rate hike for KCP&L on Wednesday that will cost residential customers an average of $12.82 a month starting in September.The total increase will be about $95 million for KCP&L.And another rate increase may be on the way. The concurring opinion written by the commission's chairman, Robert M. Clayton III, says:Rate payers should be aware that these increases are not the last in

  June 11, 2009

• Piecemeal Pickens plan may benefit Kansas

  T. Boone Pickens has reconsidered his idea to build a massive wind farm in Texas and instead looks to scatter turbines across middle America, according to a newspaper report.Photo by Daniel KramerThe Dallas Morning News reported Monday that Pickens has moved off his plan to build a 1,000-megawatt farm in Pampa, Texas. Pickens is apparently worried that he won't have the ability to transmit the power his turbines generate.The panhandle's loss could be Kansas' gain. The Morning News reports that o

  July 7, 2009

• Environmentalists unearth massive financial problems at Sunflower Electric

  In the marathon controversy over the expansion of the coal-fired power complex in Western Kansas, environmentalists have argued the new facility would be a giant, climate-change-accelerator, coughing up ungodly amounts of the carbon dioxide gas that leads to global warming. Holcomb 1 power plant​But the latest legal filing from Earthjustice and the Sierra Club lays out another reason the monster power plant in Holcomb could be a disaster. Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, the company th

  August 7, 2009

• The myth/legend of New York bagels

  ​If you believe a New Yorker, there are New York bagels and then there's really nothing else that compares. Steve Fassberg is attempting to tweak that argument by recreating the taste and composition of New York City tap water in order to provide what he feels is the right base for bagels at his recently opened shop in Del Ray, Florida. "There are a lot of elements in a perfect bagel, but the key ingredient is water," Fassberg tells the Sun Sentinel. Like the doughnut conveyors at Krispy Kreme

  August 14, 2009