The Problem
I believe that properly understood this campaign represents
the interests of every Arkansan.
It is not about having to agree today on what should fuel our energy future.
It is about what must not.
The Turk Coal-Fired Plant must not.
The Facts
The Turk Coal Fired Power Plant:
- Will not meet our energy, public policy or economic development needs.
- Will be an economic, environmental and public health tragedy for our state.
- Will hold us back for generations to come.
- Will take us three steps backward when we should be forging ahead.
- Will cheat Arkansas families and businesses out of their money.
- Will recklessly undermine our future economic growth and the future prosperity of our children.
Development of the Turk Plant
has already begun.
Still, very real opportunities to stop its development remain.
We must seize this opportunity.
FACT
Texas and Surrounding States—All of Which Have Recently Rejected Coal Fired Power Plants— Get The Electricity.
Arkansas Has No Need for Additional Power Now and for the Foreseeable Future
FACT
144,000 Arkansas families and businesses get runaway rate Hikes (18%-20%) on their monthly bill though SWEPCO keeps telling us that this plant is necessary to control costs and keep rates low.
Runaway Rates for Arkansas Families That Will
- Pay for a Plant We Don’t Need
- Directly Subsidize Texas and Louisiana Residents and Businesses
- Directly Protect Dividend Yields for American Electric Power Company (AEP) Shareholders and Protect Them From Legitimate Downside Risk.
- Directly Support Huge Pay Packages for SWEPCO and AEP Executives.
- Needlessly Punish 114,000 Arkansas Families and Businesses For the Short Sighted, Self-serving Business Decisions of Public Utility Executives.
- Directly Threaten their Future Prosperity.
Turk will tie Arkansas to shortsighted economic development and energy strategies that will leave us with stifled economic growth and job creation prospects for 40 to 50 years.
What Else Will Turk Do?
- Add 5 million tons annually of pollution and poisonous emissions into the air that we breathe every day. This while Arkansas’ three existing coal plants are already releasing more than 28 million tons of pollution into our air every year and dumping thousands of pounds of poisonous toxins down on us.
- Dump 366 pounds of mercury and other poisons into our rivers, lakes, stream and reservoirs in our state and beyond every year.
- One of our most treasured, diverse eco-systems will literally be poisoned, permanently altered and at serious risk of being destroyed.
- Children and families, not only in the regions nearest the plant but in every corner of Arkansans will get dumped on with unprecedented, measurable levels of air pollution and poisons, cumulative poisons that do not go away, cause chronic, sometimes fatal disease, needless suffering and cost million of dollars in direct medical costs to families.
- Sabotage the prosperity and wellbeing of Arkansas Families.
With Turk We Get Left Behind While States
Across The Country Leap Ahead.
Justifications for the Turk Plant have always been that it was necessary to meet our energy needs, the technology would keep pollution to a minimum and that coal makes more economic and public policy sense than any other power source.
The facts simply, clearly and overwhelmingly do not support these arguments.
In fact, they directly and unequivocally contradict them.
