that the mounds of coal ash are rarely covered and easily become airborne. When coal is burned into fly ash the uranium and thorium in the unburned coal are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. Power plant emissions of CO2, SO2, mercury, and lead In 2003, Kentucky emitted 143 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, ranking it 13th in the nation overall. Although not included in the tables below for each facility, another heavy metal pollutant emitted by coal-powered generators is lead (Pb). Lead is a powerful toxicant, negatively impacting human and animal health when ingested or inhaled, even in extremely small quantities. The newest generating unit at LG&E's Trimble County Station, TC2 (an 810 MW-gross coal combustion unit brought online in 2010) emits lead particulate matter at a rate of 499 kg/yr (approximately 1098 lb/yr, or to put into similar terms as used for human health, approximately 498 Billion micrograms). The current level set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for child lead blood levels requiring intervention is 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood. By comparison, the TC2 unit emits mercury emissions at a rate of 1.3*10^-6 lb/MWH. Assuming operation of TC2 24 hours per day for 364 days per year, the TC2 annual emission of mercury is approximately 86 pounds. Rejuvenation efforts Eastern Kentucky native, Dr. Patrick Angel initially spent most of his career within the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement instructing mining companies on how to fix land that was negatively affected by strip-mining and mountaintop removal mining. These efforts consisted of packing soil tightly together and planting grass, a plant which Angel says was the "only type of plant he trusted to hold the ground in place". In 2002, scientists like Dr. Angel started realizing that Appalachian forests destroyed by strip-mining weren't coming back, even with rejuvenation efforts. In Appalachia, a land mass larger than the state of Delaware should have been covered in trees, yet only