LA CROSSE, WI (WEAU)--Some students at UW-La Crosse want the state-run heating plant, that’s been on campus for decades, to stop burning coal. The No Coal Coalition wants the state to consider other fuel options.

“It may take a while, but what we really want is a definitive statement from them for a day and a year that they will be able to transfer our campuses off of coal," said UW-La Crosse senior Jennifer Dausey.

Dausey has been working with the No Coal Coalition and Environmental Council for about a year. About a dozen students and faculty members want the Wisconsin Department of Administration, which owns the heating plant at UW-L, to stop burning coal to heat campus buildings.

"We always say that we should have been off coal yesterday," Dausey said. "There’s no reason we need to keep burning this dirty energy. It’s not only destroying families in the mining process, but it’s also destroying our health and our lungs. It causes so much asthma it’s ridiculous.”

Dausey says the coalition not only wants the plant to stop using coal, but to cut back on its natural gas emission, which is the second way it produces energy.

“It’d be easiest to switch to burning biomass, which is like wood pellets and it’s going to become a bigger economy here in Wisconsin with our natural resources," Dausey said.

UW-L Chancellor Joe Gow says, "I’m not a scientist, but I’ve talked to lots of people who are and they tell me that whatever way you pick there are downsides and so it’s a question of what’s the least harmful.”

Gow says all of the UW-schools that burn coal, burn less than one-percent of it in the state.

“There’s actually some debate among the regulators is our plant really a problem or not and frankly, I’ve heard things on both sides of that," Gow said.

But students like Dausey say they will continue to work to promote renewable energy.