The Health of the Bluegrass: Is the Triangle Really Green?
Published by Earth Healing in cooperation with Ecoperspectives, a Project of Earth Island Institute
Summary
Kentucky as a whole is losing green space at a rapid clip. As of 2008, approximately 36,500 acres of farmland and 47,000 acres of wildlife habitat are being lost each year. The Bluegrass is particularly vulnerable to development because of the expanses of level and open land and the presence of three major metropolitan areas, pushing to expand. Ironically, the Kentucky State Horse Park, host for the 2010 World Equestrian Games, is a symbol of farmland conversion. Once the site of an actual farm, it is today filling up with buildings, arenas, and parking lots.
The World Monuments Fund named the Inner Bluegrass to its 2006 list of the one hundred most endangered cultural sites in the world. The situation in the Inner Bluegrass and also in the Outer Bluegrass has not improved since the list was published. Along with the loss of dry stone structures, old homesteads, and small rural communities is the destruction of buildings in urban areas. A recent case in point is a decision in Lexington in June, 2008, to allow the Webb Companies to demolish twelve buildings in the city's old commercial heart, which are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Where they stood, the company plans to erect a thirty-five story hotel-office-condominium complex, Centrepointe.
In Kentucky as a whole more than 90% of the electricity generated comes from coal. Six of the plants producing more than 2 million MWh of electricity each in 2006 are in the Bluegrass. Three of the top carbon dioxide emitters in the United States are among the six. In addition to releasing large volumes of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming, the plants put out a wide variety of toxics, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which acidify rain.
Much of the acid deposition resulting from Kentucky power plants falls outside Kentucky. In Kentucky the two most widespread types of air pollution are fine particle pollution, in part caused by releases from power plants, and ground-level ozone. In March 2008 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tightened its standard for ozone to 75 parts per billion. Nineteen Kentucky counties, including those in the Cincinnati, Louisville, and Lexington areas, would not have been in attainment for ozone over the past three years if this standard had been in effect then; and EPA's own science advisors do not think the new standard strict enough to protect the population.
In recent years the Kentucky Division of Water has assessed approximately 4,500 miles of the state's 90,000 miles of rivers and streams. Of the miles assessed 71% are not clean enough to support primary contact use, which includes swimming. The metropolitan areas of Northern Kentucky, Louisville, and Lexington make major contributions to this impairment. In all three areas unauthorized releases of sewage or of a mixture of sewage and storm water repeatedly occur. It took suits by the EPA and ensuing consent decrees (not yet final in Lexington) to convince the areas to embark on programs to remedy this situation.
Kentucky has 514 Superfund sites, which must be cleaned up in conformity with state regulations. Of these sites, 224 are in the Bluegrass. The location in the Bluegrass that arguably harbors the greatest risks from hazardous wastes, however, is the Blue Grass Army Depot, established in World War II "for the receipt, issuance, storage, maintenance, and disposal of ammunition," both chemical and conventional. The destruction of conventional weapons and the chemical agent mustard has already contaminated the groundwater at the depot; but it is the stock of weapons containing the nerve agents GB (sarin) and VX, waiting to be destroyed that frighten residents of the area.
In terms of wildlife, the Bluegrass once provided habitat for bison and large predators as well as numerous smaller creatures such as the passenger pigeon and various mussels no longer seen here or, in some cases, at all.. Extinctions and extirpations from the state are not all in the past, moreover. Endangered, threatened, and rare species are numerous today and include mussels, beetles, bats, and orchids.
Loss of habitat is the primary reason why species are endangered in the Bluegrass as elsewhere, but invasive exotic species are a tremendous and growing problem. Japanese Hops, Amur Honeysuckle, Garlic Mustard, Winter Creeper, and a host of other plants from foreign lands are crowding out native species in our parks and natural areas. The Emerald Ash Borer has been found as near to Kentucky as Cincinnati, and the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid has already entered the state. Both are insects from Asia. Once an invasive species takes hold in an area, getting rid of it is extremely difficult if not impossible.
Flying is the only way to travel by mass transit directly between the three cities that make up the Golden Triangle. Louisville, Lexington, and Northern Kentucky have local bus systems, but Louisville and Northern Kentucky are decreasing service in the face of rising gas prices; and in Lexington the buses are insufficient to make an impact on the floods of vehicular traffic that almost choke the city. If facilitating walking and cycling, rather than facilitating the movement of cars and trucks, were the primary goal of traffic control, much would change for the better.
The Bluegrass is plagued by additional problems that can be characterized as "nuisances," because, unlike such problems as air pollution, they do not pose obvious risks to life and health. Noise, visual pollution, light pollution, and litter do, however, diminish the quality of life. The Kentucky Revised Statutes sets the penalty for littering as a fine of up to $500 or up to one year in jailor both. However, the appearance of the streets, highways, and waterways makes it obvious that the state does not enforce the law.
State agencies, local governments, corporations, non-profit organizations, and individuals are engaged in a variety of initiatives to counter many of the issues outlined in this report. However, such initiatives still appear small in relation to what needs to be accomplished. We hope that by the time the Bluegrass welcomes the Equestrian Games, the region will be far greener than it is today.
--Mary Byrd Davis and Al Fritsch, S.J.
Copyright © 2008 by Earth Healing