Erica Peterson

Saturday marks one year from the day tornados raked across the Midwest and South, killing 40 across the country and nearly obliterating towns like Marysville and Henryville in Indiana and West Liberty, Kentucky.

Here's what I found when I arrived in Marysville right after the tornado:

A former mine company executive in West Virginia pleaded guilty today to federal charges stemming from the 2010 disaster at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine. David Hughart was the Massey division president overseeing the mine when it exploded, killing 29 coal miners.

From U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's office:

Wednesday is International Polar Bear Day, and the Louisville Zoo and WFPL are marking the occasion with a panel discussion about wildlife and climate change. The panelists include:

American Electric Power has agreed to stop burning coal at several coal-fired units in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. The company reached a settlement today with a coalition of environmental groups, several states and the Environmental Protection Agency.

From the Sierra Club:

Louisville Gas and Electric’s plan to put a cap made of coal ash on top of a coal ash pond at the Cane Run Power Plant in southwest Louisville has neighborhood residents concerned. But the head of the state’s solid waste branch says the plan is innovative, and he thinks it can be replicated at other power plants.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife is tackling the state’s growing problem with Asian carp in a new way: pitting fishermen against each other in a contest to catch the most of the invasive species.

It’s called Carp Madness. For two days next month, teams of commercial fishermen will descend on two Western Kentucky lakes and fill their boats with pounds of Asian Carp. First prize for the most pounds of carp is $10,000.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer’s sustainability plan was both praised and panned at a public meeting tonight. Many people thought the plan needed to be bolder, while others applauded the attainable goals that were set.

Fischer released the plan last month. It sets an agenda for the next several decades in categories including energy, transportation and the environment.

Researchers at Ohio State University have developed a way to extract energy from coal without burning it, eliminating the greenhouse gases which are usually emitted from the process.

From OSU:

Local residents will have their chance to offer comments on a draft version of the city’s sustainability plan at a meeting tonight.

Metro Government will start selling landscaping debris gathered from Louisville parks to a Rubbertown facility that will burn it for energy.

Last fall, a company called Recast Energy took control of a boiler in Rubbertown that supplies steam to the Lubrizol and Zeon Chemical plants. The boiler used to be coal-fired, but Recast engineered it to run on biomass.