TOPEKA — Environmental groups and activists have filed formal objections with the Kansas Supreme Court against a proposed coal-fired power plant in southwest Kansas. Earthjustice and Sierra Club say the Kansas Department of Health and Environment ignored federal air quality regulations in the agency’s haste to issue a permit – before tougher new federal rules went into effect Jan. 1 — that allows Sunflower Electric, Hays, to build a new $2.8 billion power plant at Holcomb. Officials with KDHE and Sunflower say the permit process was valid. The proposed power plant has been at the center of four-year political and legal disputes. The expansion was repeatedly rejected by the Kathleen Sebelius administration but her successor and fellow Democrat Mark Parkinson negotiated a deal with Sunflower one week after taking office in 2009.
Tuesday, Aug. 16, 8 a.m.
