From Citizen-Times.com:

A trial that could have broad implications for the quality of the air breathed by Western North Carolina residents is slated to get under way today in Asheville.

The hearing comes two years after N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper sued the Tennessee Valley Authority, claiming the country’s largest public utility hasn’t done enough to cut down pollution that blows across the mountains from 11 coal-fired power plants in three neighboring states.

Judge Lacy Thornburg will preside over a trial in U.S. District Court that is expected to last about three weeks.

The trial will not be heard by a jury. It will be up to Thornburg to rule on the state’s demand for caps on TVA emissions in line with those enacted by North Carolina legislators six years ago on plants in this state.

Cooper and TVA lawyers laid out their trial strategies in briefs filed with the court last week. The attorney general’s filing says a variety of experts will testify about the harmful effects of TVA emissions on health and the environment and the utility’s failure to take meaningful steps to address them.

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