Lee Ziesche, lee.ziesche@sierraclub.org
Media Advisory: Saturday, April 27, 2024 @ 11:00AM
People’s Parade and People's Hearing
Earth Month Community Event Calling on Ameren Missouri to Ditch Coal and Go Renewable
ST. LOUIS, MO - Sierra Club will close out Earth Month with a community celebration and parade to Ameren Missouri’s headquarters where community members will call on the monopoly utility to stop burning expensive, polluting coal and accelerate building renewable energy to power our future.
Visuals: Participants in the vibrant parade will have costumes, puppets, windsocks, and signs.
Who: A family-friendly event for community members organized by the Sierra Club and People’s Joy Parade.
What: Community members will gather in Lafayette Park at 11:00AM. The parade will begin at 12:30PM and will end at Ameren headquarters. Once outside the headquarters, attendees and special guest speakers will provide testimony about the urgent need to build a clean energy future and stop burning fossil fuels.
When: Saturday, April 27 from 11:00AM to 3:00PM
Where: Lafayette Park, 2023 Lafayette Ave, St. Louis, MO 63104, (map) followed by a parade to Ameren Headquarters at 1901 Chouteau Ave, St. Louis, MO 63103.
Why: Ameren is the state’s largest utility and its largest utility polluter. The choices CEO Marty Lyons makes directly impact hundreds of thousands of customers in Missouri and people across the Midwest who live in downwind communities from its polluting coal-burning power plants.
Ameren has proposed to keep its super-polluting Labadie coal-burning power plant open until 2042. Labadie is the second-largest coal plant in the country to operate without modern pollution reduction measures, and it is, based on its particulate emissions, the second-deadliest power plant in the country, leading to 195 premature deaths annually. Labadie will cause another 3,387 premature deaths by the time it retires (based on the coal plant’s 2019 pollution levels).
Beyond the environmental and public health problems caused by Ameren’s coal plants, their contributions to the impacts of climate change are terrifying. It’s daunting for customers to think about changing a corporation as wealthy and powerful as Ameren when it is a state-sanctioned monopoly. This event will provide a necessary space for joy and celebration, as well as for the community to come together to make demands of their monopoly utility.
Event organizers are available for interviews prior to the event for preview coverage and day of at the event.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.