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More than seven years after a controversial coal ash landfill in Vernon County was scrapped, the group that opposed it has used leftover funds to make an investment in renewable energy and education.

In 2007, Dairyland Power Cooperative announced it was seeking to buy 600 acres to hold the byproduct of a new air pollution control system at its coal-burning plant in Genoa. A group of Vernon County residents banded together to form Harmony town Opposing Pollution of the Environment, raising money to fight the project.

A year later, Dairyland abandoned the project, saying instead that it would burn a different type of coal that generated less pollution.

With no project to fight, HOPE was left with about $5,000 in its coffers.

"We honestly didn't spend a lot of money," said Carl Volden, one the group's leaders.

The organizers went back to their lives. Eventually they began wondering what to do with the extra money.

"What do we do with that money?" said Scott Leum. "Where does it go? What do we do? How do we end this story?"