Coal plants costly, harmful to health | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Let us read it for you. Listen now. Your browser does not support the audio element. As a citizen of northwest Arkansas concerned about money being spent to prop up the Flint Creek coal plant instead of putting that $31 million into renewable energy, I want to protest the recent residential, commercial, and industrial SWEPCO electric company rate increase. It will be taking a bite out of the budgets of two-thirds of us in Fayetteville, starting with our February bills. My objections: economic and health damages. Economically, we residents will see a 13.8 percent electric rate increase which will amount to about $17.50 a month ($210 a year). The rates will increase 11.7 percent on businesses, 10.9 percent on city government, and on industry by 2.6 to 7.4 percent, depending on their level of use. Why do residents pay the lion's share of the increase? In terms of health damages, coal plants can cause citizens health-related damages from $540 to $720 million for a single plant over an eight-year period, and the most harmful coal plant in a study of health impacts cost the public $1.7 billion during the same period. We typically don't think about covid, asthma attacks, bronchitis,...

Source: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2026/feb/08/coal-plants-costly-harmful-to-health/