The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 31

jilffi pa metro Wednesday, February 25, 1976 regional news deaths classified comics 75 Trimble residents to heard on new power plant EPA wants their comments before issuing a permit HANOVER, IND. A jT tjGt CORN CREEK I SITE OF THE PROPOSED 9 'h jh I MARBLE HILL I rf 33 I NUCLEAR POWER PLANT 4A jSL 'V 'frX LOUISVILLE GAS ELECTRIC i Vr V' iCif TRIMBLE COUNTY COAL FIRED VV'f; VLJ POWER PLANT 'Vk't a oJitMtftf iawUiw -i 1 mmmmi -i Tin--' i -i- nr n-nr n.nriiiT-nir tify overlooking the environmental damage it will cause. And the state Division of Air Pollution must decide whether the plant will be able to meet standards for "new sources" and whether it can be operated without causing a "significant deterioration" of the local air. Hemmed between dirty air in Jefferson County and its own predictions of a steady rise in demand for electricity, wants to move upcountry to burn its coal. owns the northern half of the landing about 1,000 acres and may build as many as four large units there, with the first 500-megawatt unit scheduled to be churning out electricity in 1981.

largest unit now has a capacity of 330 megawatts enough power to light up 3.3 million 100-watt lightbulbs. officials still speak in somewhat vague terms about the plant, but they do say that as things now stand it will: Use high-sulfur coal from Western Kentucky, as the three existing plants do. Be supplied by river barge, rather than railroad as the other plants are. Use the controversial, sulfur-cleansing "scrubbers" that pioneeered. Cost for the first unit alone and for such construction to serve the entire project as control buildings and site work anywhere from $250 to $275 million.

The plant will also contribute a yet-to-be-determined amount of air, water and solid-waste pollution to the area, which gets its electricity from Kentucky Utilities and the local rural electric cooperative. The company has already had air-pollution readings taken for every direction except west, since the wind rarely blows that way. This means that most of the air pollution from the plant is expected to remain in Kentucky. The company is planning to build "cooling towers" to prevent the discharge of warm water into the Ohio, and a large "pond" that is to hold the sludge left over from the scrubber process. Some residents in the area have already voiced concern about the xplant because it is one of a series of plants that have been, or will be, built in the region.

Right across the river from the site is Marble Hill, the site where Public Service Indiana wants to build a By HOWARD FINEMAN Courier-Journal Staff Writer From the air, it's easy to see that something momentous is happening to Wise's Landing, a crescent of Ohio River bottom in Trimble County 30 miles upstream from Louisville. Piles of old bricks and barn wood the flattened shards of farms are being hauled away. Trucks have woven loops of tire tracks in the fallow fields, where engineers have drilled soil sample holes scattered like buckshot in a stopsign. And in the distance, new transmission towers march south toward Louisville, bearing power lines that gleam like silver in the sun. The future of Wise's Landing is being shaped by the Louisville Gas Electric Co.

and by the government regulators who are supposed to oversee the Louisville-based utility's growth. chose Wise's Landing two years ago as the site for its fourth and perhaps largest power plant, even though Trimble County is not in the company's own service area. Tonight at 7:30 in the Trimble County Middle School at Bedford, the people who live in the area and anyone else who is interested will get an official say in the matter. The proposal is one of the first in the nation to be handled directly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA has decided that issuing a water-pollution permit for the plant, which would begin operating in 1981, is important enough to require a full-dress study called an "environmental impact statement" Robert E. Howard, of the EPA regional office in Atlanta, said that tonight's meeting is to find out what questions should be made to answer about the plant. "We have our own ideas, but sometimes they aren't exactly what the public wants to know," he said. The EPA must decide whether to issue a permit to dump pollutants into the Ohio. In addition to the EPA, the state is involved at two levels.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) must decide whether customers need the plant enough to jus Staff Photo by Billy Davis The proposed Louisville Gas Electric Co. coal-fired power plant Mould be located near Wise's Landing, along KY 754. fi $1.4 billion nuclear plant power plant, federally-operated atomic energy plant, in Atlanta, said that the environmental He said that the air in the vicinity' of About 10 miles upstream stands the The Kentucky Utilities new Ghent impact statement on Wise's Landing Wise's Landing will not be allowed to be Clifty Creek, power plant, built in Power Station is 20 miles upstream from would not deal with the cumulative effects dirtied beyond a certain point, and that the 1950s by a 15-member consortium Clifty. Creek, and a number of other utili- of all of these plants. other utilities who want to come to the that includes ties own sites or have announced plans He did say, however, that utilities' area later might find that the allowable Thp Clifty Creek plant sends most of for coal-fired plants farther up the river.

pians wni be approved on a "first-come amount of deterioration has already been; its electricity to Portsmouth, Ohio, to a Howard, of the EPA regional office first served basis." reached. Sound idea 776 to play for Pegasus reed billy Courier-Journal Columnist commercial organizations have agreed to sponsors floats, 17 of them selecting one of the sketches on display. The festival committee will accept entries until April The entry fee for commercial sponsors is $1,000, and the floats cost about $4,000 to build. Non-commercial sponsors, which include governmental agencies and fraternal institutions, will pay a $350 entry fee. The parade will have a total of about 100 units, Williams said, including 37 bands.

It will begin at Floyd Street on Broadway and end at Ninth Street. Wildlife artist gets close to his work loves these junkets into nature, but he also is saddened by man's cruelty to the animals that he loves and admires so much. "I fish a lot, but I don't hunt," said Thompson. "I went once, but I got disgusted with the kind of people I saw and left. They weren't hunting, they were killing and there's a difference.

I think people are more savage and competitive than animals. I guess that's why I paint animals." 1974 The Courier-Journal Thompson makes money on the side by doing commissioned work for patrons around Columbia, and selling easy-to-do watercolors at various art shows. He can do a lovely water-color in minutes, but he is apt to dwell months on his animal paintings, sometimes spending 24 hours bent over his easel, working so hard "that I finally get sick of it." Although he often studies animals in books and zoos, Thompson does most of his research in the woods. He Housing agency to stop offering a choice of units By WANDA NICHOLS Courier-Journal Staff Writer Seventy-six trombones? That's chicken feed. A hundred and ten cornets? Positively minor league.

A band? Now you're talking turkey, er, horses for the band will be part of the Pegasus Parade. Twenty-five abreast, 64 rows long and stretching about a block that's the size of the feature band that will roll down Broadway during the 21st annual Pegasus Parade on April 29. Making up the band will be students from about 18 junior and senior high schools in Southern Indiana. It will be the young people's contribution to the spirit and theme of the parade, "The American Dream" a bicentennial presentation of America's past and present. That large a band may have some wondering if there will be a massive hearing loss in Louisville.

But Jack Guthrie, executive vice president of the Kentucky Derby Festival, which organizes Derby events like the parade, has been assured that the sound "will just sort of roll out." The Big Band plans to play an arrangement of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." The composition is called "March America" and will have "sort of a Hollywood-type ending." A parade paying tribute to America's 200th birthday wouldn't be complete without representatives of the historical great Martha and George, Ben Franklin and Patrick Henry. And so some local civic leaders are going to don early American costumes and breathe life into these famous people. Guthrie and the vice president for the parade, Rodney Williams, discussed some of the parade's features during a preview of sketches of floats for the press yesterday afternoon at the Junior League building, 627 W. Main St. Last night potential sponsors of floats got a look at the sketches, which were designed by two Louisville float builders and one from Indianapolis.

Guthrie said 23 companies and non- By W. CURTIS RIDDLE Courier-Journal Staff Writer The Louisville Housing Authority, yesterday decided to stop giving applicants, a choice from among three apartments. Donald Harris, the authority's executive director, said the giving of a choice-perpetuated segregation in many developments. "We feel (that by) utilizing the' one-choice plan we will in fact integrate the developments as well as be able to improve all the developments as it relates: to socio-economic elevations," he- said after the meeting. He added the new plan will "provide a mix that will encourage the community; process." )' Under the plan adopted yesterday, aft applicant who turns down a unit will be placed at the bottom of the authority's list.

Only one offer will be made unless the applicant presents satisfactory evi dence that accepting the offered unit wilt See HOUSING Page 2, col. 6, this section wasn't fascinated by wild animals. At the age of 18 months, he was bitten by a rabid puppy and, he says, "To this day my mother firmly believes this is the reason I spend so much time in the woods and that this experience left me a little wild." As a boy growing up in Hardin County, he looked like a young Dr. Doolittle, always surrounded by animals. Among his childhood pets were a flying squirrel, sparrowhawk, gray squirrels, crows, hawks, song birds groundhogs, raccoons, turtles, rabbits, snakes and, of course, six or eight dogs.

"There was always something around to adopt me, or vice-versa," said Thompson. "My only fatality was a mourning dove whose mother had been killed by a weasel. One spring night it turned cold and I was worried she wouldn't stay warm enough on the porch, so I slipped her into the house and put her under the covers with me for warmth. The next morning I found she had died of suffocation." That was the exception, though, because Thompson doesn't believe that humans should suffocate animals, even with love and kindness. "All my wild pets were left ito their own resources," he says, "and were free to go back to the wild when they wanted, and they all did.

Raising wild animals isn't easy. It takes a lot of patience and understanding. Wild animals in inexperienced hands have little chance to survive and I don't think anyone should ever bother them." At school, Thompson always seemed to be more interested in gazing out the window, sketching animals and trees, than in keeping his nose in school-books. When he began taking art lessons in the sixth grade, he was so precocious that the teacher asked him to demonstrate his techniques on the blackboard. Probably the first to fully recognize his talent was Bill Conn of Ft.

Knox. As soon as he saw Thompson's water-colors and sketches, Conn said: "Son, you keep painting animals. There will be a great demand for wildlife artists in the future." There is, but there also are a lot of artists to meet the demand, so Thompson's career still is in the struggling stage. He suffered a heart-breaking setback in 1973 when fire destroyed 20 of his original paintings. Now he gets rid of his work almost as soon as he does it, for fear of keeping it all in one place.

Besides working on his prints, FT. KNOX, Ky. All his life Joseph S. Thompson has loved wild animals. He loves to watch them from afar as they work and play in the woods.

But he also loves to feed them, to hold them close, to rub his big hands through their soft fur. Instead of simply appreciating animals in a detached, aesthetic sense wildlife artist Thompson has spent his life, or sizable portions of it, living with them in the woods of Hardin County, where he grew up, and Adair County, where he now lives. "Most other artists are not naturalists and I am," said Thompson. "There's a lot of bad stuff on the market today. You can just paint an animal and call yourself a wildlife artist.

You've got to know the animal's bone and muscle structure, the way he acts everything." Alas, however, the more he knows about nature and animals, the more Thompson realizes the ultimate futility of being a wildlife artist: No matter how beautiful an artist may paint a gray fox or a wildcat, the art will never be as good as reality. "Even to this day I've never been satisfied with just catching a fleeting moment in nature," Thompson said. "No one can paint, draw or photograph a wild creature as perfect and beautiful as they really are. One can only grasp that fleeting moment, which for me is never enough." Thompson, 33, is most unusual. He is a burly country fellow who makes a living illustrating tank manuals and other war material at Ft.

Knox. However, he also is gentle and sensitive, and his respect for nature has an almost childlike innocence about it. So far he has only one print on the market a special bicentennial painting of a Kentucky wildcat. "It's what a wildcat should look like so loose and springy it can almost turn around in its own skin," said Thompson. The painting, of which 2,000 prints have been issued, also includes a cardinal and Kentucky foliage: broom-sage, goldenrod, saw briars and blackberries.

Other prints are in the works, the next being a gray fox. Thompson has been an admirer of gray foxes since the time he found a baby gray and nursed it to maturity. "The gray fox is smaller than the red, and, personally, I think it's prettier," Thompson said. "His tail is his proudest possession. The grays carry it not up and not down, but kind of on display, in an arch." Thompson can't remember when he -JthWwte4 JTIi i Ill i I Beg your pardon vl I Cincinnati, will be at 1 p.m.

Saturday at the Plymouth Urban Center, 15th and Chestnut streets. Because of a reporting error, day's Courier-Journal said that George! Rogers Clark and Capt. Meriwether Lewis led the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805. The Clark was William R. Clark.

Because incorrect information was given to The Courier-Journal, a story yes-; terday identified George Clement as George demons. Clement, a representative for Metropolitan Louisville Public TV, spoke at a meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Education Monday. At the same meeting George W. Clemons Jr. was named counselor at Seneca High School.

A story in Monday's Courier-Journal may have given the false impression that Louisville's emergency medical services (EMS) program was started primarily with federal money. The city has spent about $2 million of its own money on the EMS program. Because incorrect information was received, the same story said a local "medicar" program and the 587-HELP emergency phone number were county programs. Both were started by the city. Because incorrect information was received, last Friday's Courier-Journal reported that the Kentucky chapter of the National Black Political Assembly would meet at 2 p.m.

Saturday. The meeting, in which the organization will choose delegates to the March 17-21 convention in 3 lit 1 Win iiifmiiiifBr Staff Photo by Billy Reed Joseph Thompson isn't just another wildlife artist He's a naturalist who has lived with the animals he paints. LtiniHi rt. AAA a A AAJlLii iA.M.MJkJJl!Jk.f'-'- 'iA' AAjMiM 4k i Ai4AA4iAAAA4iAA ii.itj i t.iii0hiiiAifcMQbnfc.