ELPC’s 2024 Report

1) Breakthrough in Power Plants to Parklands + Renewable Energy Project in Michigan

Coal plants are retiring throughout the Great Lakes region, all on lakes and rivers. That valuable lakeshore and riverfront property has long been hidden behind utility gates and fences. ELPC envisioned a once-in-a-generation opportunity to regain these Great Lakes shorelines for public parks and greenways – for beaches, hiking and biking, boating and fishing, and just playing in the outdoors. We’re also working with the utilities to develop solar energy and battery storage on these plant sites that are already hard-wired into the electricity grid. The Power Plants to Parklands + Renewable Energy (P2P+RE) Project is a new vision for these historic coal plant sites. In this report, you will read about a breakthrough with Consumers Energy on the retired Karn Coal Plant. This is an exciting and innovative precedent that can be replicated in transforming hundreds of retired coal plant sites across the Midwest and nationally.

2) Stopping Toxic Threats in Environmental Justice Communities

ELPC takes on the big and important battles, representing local groups in communities already overburdened by toxic pollution. On Chicago’s Southeast Side, we’re challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to build a towering toxic dredged waste dump along the shores of Lake Michigan. In Northwest Indiana, we’re holding large steel manufacturing, oil refining, and other facilities accountable for their air and water pollution. Everyone has a right to breathe healthy/clean air, drink safe water, and live in communities without toxic threats.

3) Driving Climate Solutions & Clean Energy

ELPC attorneys and technical experts are engaged before Public Utilities Commissions across the Midwest. These backrooms are where the arcane “rules of the road” are set to either modernize the distribution grid for more solar energy, to set fair rates, and to accelerate climate solutions, or not. The rules set in one or two-year hearings impact how our energy system works for decades. ELPC attorneys and policy advocates lead the regional charge for a cleaner, modern, more distributed electricity grid for the future.