2021 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 has been an exciting year for Kentucky Resources Council. After 37 years as Director, Tom "Fitz" FitzGerald, has transitioned to senior staff as we welcomed our new Director, Ashley Wilmes. KRC has for nearly four decades pursued its mission to protect Kentucky's natural and built environments by delivering pro-bono legal services to remove the economic barriers that so often thwart the achievement of environmental justice and health. KRC again expanded our environmental, public health, and energy work across Kentucky in 2021. As we embrace a new year and a new chapter, the entire KRC team is committed to maintaining and growing our current level of services that are essential to a healthy and prosperous Commonwealth. As Fitz noted when Ashley was selected as Director, our best days as an unflinching, unapologetic force for environmental health and justice, are ahead of us.
ENVIRONMENTAL & COMMUNITY DEFENSE WASTE MANAGEMENT Assisting an individual to bring an auto recycling facility into compliance with county zoning laws when it sought to illegally expand a nonconforming use. Working with Butler County citizens concerned with a proposed landfill that would accept aluminum dross and baghouse dust from an aluminum facility. Representing a family farm in an administrative case regarding revocation of an industrial-scale hog facility permit. Helping Scott County on solid waste planning issues regarding a problematic solid waste landfill. After the County decided to “zero out" future expansion of landfills in the county, the facility filed several legal actions. KRC is defending the County’s authority to determine its solid waste future, and the Cabinet’s decision approving a solid waste plan amendment to remove future capacity for waste disposal in the county. Second-chairing a case challenging issuance of a permit for a less-thanone-acre construction demolition debris landfill in Powell County, Kentucky. With 86 known less-than-one-acre CD&D landfills being approved with minimal permit review, the challenge could have precedential effect on the manner by which the Cabinet reviews and approves such landfills. Concluded representation in a comprehensive settlement in an administrative case involving illegal disposal of oilfield radioactive waste in a solid waste landfill will provide for funded perpetual care of the landfill after the state releases it from liability, and the trust account will be established to assure perpetual care of the landfill cap. KRC second chaired the litigation with our friends at the Appalachian Citizens Law Center.
BY THE NUMBERS 24
In addition to participating in state and federal cases affecting the entire Commonwealth, KRC provided legal help across 24 of Kentucky's counties.
60
KRC took a formal position on over 60 environmental and energy bills during the 2021 General Assembly.
110
110 individuals registered for our 2021 educational workshops.
$1,203,721.49+
The market value of legal help that defended Kentucky against an environmental damage, at a cost of $179,778.21.