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    Thomason’s plans growth and with it, a broader distribution of its famous baked beans

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    Good News: Habitat breaks ground on another build; future owner ‘overwhelmed with joy’

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    Pittsburg uses new construction process to build a new type of water storage tank

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    Pitching ace Kemp uses bat to send Lady Cols to state again

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    HMP&L signs initial agreement to build a battery energy storage system on South Green Street

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    The Gnomes of Audubon Forest, a Henderson Tourist Commission initiative, is a scavenger hunt for all ages

    Executive director says this year’s arts alliance lineup gives people what they want

    Executive director says this year’s arts alliance lineup gives people what they want

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    2000 baseball Cols remember fondly state championship season a quarter century later

    Summer Sunset Series, SummerFest ratchet up Henderson festival season this week

    Summer Sunset Series, SummerFest ratchet up Henderson festival season this week

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    May the summer blockbuster season begin!

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    No Kentucky Home, Part 4: A missing bench comes to symbolize missing solutions to homelessness

    No Kentucky Home, Part 3: A church called its vision for housing a ‘Beacon of Hope.’ The mayor had concerns.

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Significant rollback of Kentucky’s regulation of water pollution becomes law

Liam Niemeyer by Liam Niemeyer
March 29, 2025
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Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern

A controversial bill that would significantly roll back Kentucky’s ability to regulate water pollution will become law after the GOP-controlled legislature on Thursday overrode its veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. 

Senate Bill 89, sponsored by Sen. Scott Madon, R-Pineville, would considerably narrow the definition of state waters that are regulated by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. Madon, with the backing of the Kentucky Coal Association, has touted the bill as a move to relieve industries from housing construction to coal mining of bureaucratic barriers.

Environmental groups have lambasted the bill as potentially opening the state’s water resources to pollution, threatening the groundwater of hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who rely on rural public water utilities and private wells. 

Rebecca Goodman, the secretary of the Energy and Environment Cabinet, had previously said she had “grave concerns” with the bill. Beshear in his veto message wrote SB 89 by “failing to protect all water sources” would result in “pollution, sickness and more dangerous flooding.” 

Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, on the Senate floor said he believed changes to the bill made as it advanced through the legislature, after hearing concerns about groundwater pollution, helped improve the legislation. 

“We protected our (coal) operators from overreach of the agency, and after listening to constituents, after listening to comments on this floor, provisions to protect groundwater were put back in,” West said.

Environmental groups and the cabinet have said the changes made to SB 89 don’t go nearly far enough to protect groundwater resources across the state. Democrats opposing the bill referenced a letter from Goodman, the cabinet secretary, who wrote Kentucky would be the only state in the country to cede its authority to regulate water to the federal government. 

Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, who voted against overriding the veto, said the “compromise” made to change the bill did not “go far enough.” 

“The origination of this measure arose from agency overreach, but the pendulum now has swung far to the other end,” said Webb. “I have utilities in my district that rely on groundwater sources. I represent sportsmen and women across this country in the state that have reached out.” 

Kentucky Waterways Alliance executive director Michael Washburn—in a statement also representing leaders from the Kentucky chapter of the Sierra Club, the Kentucky Resources Council and the Kentucky Conservation Committee—said the legislature sided “with polluters over Kentucky’s people and the industries that rely on clean, safe water.” 

“This decision gives coal companies greater freedom to pollute our headwater streams, at the expense of the tens of thousands of homes, farms and businesses that depend on groundwater from private wells in rural Kentucky,” Washburn said. “To the polluters who championed this bill: we are watching. We have built a resilient, determined coalition—and we are ready to act.”

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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