Widows Creek Fossil Plant

Widows Creek Fossil Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River in northeast Alabama.

The power station has eight coal-fired generating units and "net dependable generating capacity" of approximately 1,629 megawatts. Construction of the power station commenced in 1950 and was commissioned in 1965. According to the TVA the "plant consumes about 10,000 tons of coal a day."

Plant Data

 * Owner/Parent Company: Tennessee Valley Authority
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,969 MW
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1953), 141 MW (1954), 141 MW (1954), 575 MW (1961), 550 MW (1965)
 * Location: County Road 96, Stevenson, AL 35772
 * GPS Coordinates: 34.891361, -85.750778
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source: Dotiki Mine, West Elk Mine, Elk Creek Mine, Cardinal Mine, Big Run Mine
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 10,793,074 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 33,507 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 17,184 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 270 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Widows Creek Fossil Plant
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma-related episodes and asthma-related emergency room visits, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, peneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution is formed from a combination of soot, acid droplets, and metals formed from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot. Among those particles, the most dangerous are the smallest (smaller than 2.5 microns), which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. The table below estimates the death and illness attributable to the Widows Creek Fossil Plant. Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Widows Creek Fossil Plant
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

August 2009: TVA considering shutting down some aging coal plants
In August 2009, CEO Tom D. Kilgore announced that TVA was studying the possibility of closing its John Sevier Fossil Plant in Tennessee and the oldest six units at Widows Creek. A federal judge has ordered TVA to install pollution equipment on the plants by the end of 2013, at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion. However, the company has not yet budgeted any money for the improvements. In 2010 TVA is planning to begin building an $820 million gas-powered plant to replace the generation at its John Servier Plant. The agency has already reduced power production from the oldest six units at Widows Creek. Environmental groups want TVA to shut down or convert to cleaner fuels the oldest and least efficient of its coal plants, including Widows Creek, John Sevier, and Johnsonville plants.

August 2010: TVA Announces Plans to Retire Widows Creek Units 1-6
On August 24, 2010 TVA announced that it will retire 9 coal-fired generating units totalling about 1,000 megawatts of capacity at three locations beginning in fiscal year 2011: Shawnee Fossil Plant Unit 10 in Kentucky, John Sevier Fossil Plant Units 1 and 2 in Tennessee, and Widows Creek Fossil Plant Units 1-6 in Alabama, including six units at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant. In addition TVA stated that it will going to eliminate 200 jobs at these plants starting in 2011, but the workers will be placed in other positions within TVA. CEO Tom D. Kilgore said that TVA would replace the sidelined coal power with greater reliance on nuclear power and energy efficiency.

April 2011: TVA to phase out 18 coal units, including Widows Creek
On April 14, 2011, TVA and North Carolina settled the 5-year-old lawsuit - North Carolina v. TVA - over TVA emissions from its coal-fired plants. The deal was part of a larger settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over TVA violations of the clean air act at 11 of its coal-fired plants in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee.

As part of the North Carolina agreement, TVA agreed to phase out 18 units of its coal plants, adding up to 2,700 MW, and to install modern pollution controls on three dozen additional units. The phase out includes two units at the John Sevier Fossil Plant, all 10 units at the Johnsonville Fossil Plant, both in Tennessee, and six units at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in north Alabama.

As part of the EPA agreement, TVA will invest an estimated $3 to $5 billion on pollution controls, invest $350 million on clean energy projects, and pay a civil penalty of $10 million.

Retirement plans for units 1-6
On April 14, 2011, TVA and North Carolina settled a 5-year-old lawsuit - North Carolina v. TVA - over TVA emissions from its coal-fired plants. As part of the agreement, TVA agreed to phase out 18 units of its coal plants, including six units at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant, taking all but two offline. In May 2012, TVA began considering a switch to natural gas for the plant, linked up to a proposed natural gas pipeline from Tennessee through Alabama to Georgia.

November 2013: TVA announces plan to retire unit 8
On November 14, 2013, TVA announced that unit 8, one of the two remaining units of the plant, would be retired. The agency left the timeframe of the retirement to the discretion of the CEO. TVA also announced retirements at the Colbert Fossil Plant and the Paradise Fossil Plant.

Coal waste spill
On January 9, 2009, Tennessee Valley Authority confirmed another coal waste spill at its Widows Creek plant in northeast Alabama, less than three weeks after the enormous Tennessee coal ash spill at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant. The spill, which TVA said originated from a gypsum treatment operation, released about 10,000 gallons of toxic gypsum material, some of which spilled into Widows Creek and the nearby Tennessee River.

Gypsum ponds contain limestone spray from smokestack scrubbers, which trap sulfur dioxide emissions before they are released into the air and turn them into sludge and solid waste. According to a TVA statement, the spill occurred at 6 AM when a cap dislodged from a 30-inch standpipe, releasing material from the gypsum pond into a settling pond, which then reached capacity and overflowed.

Widows Creek ranked 20th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste
In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill. The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.

Widows Creek Fossil Plant ranked number 20 on the list, with 1,864,177 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

"High Hazard" Surface Impoundment
In July 2009, TVA reclassified the surface impoundment at Widow's Creek as having High Hazard Potential. The rating applies to sites at which a dam failure would most likely cause loss of human life, but does not assess of the likelihood of such an event. TVA had originally ranked all of its sites as "low" risk, but revised those rankings two weeks after the EPA released its list of 44 "high hazard" coal ash dumps.

2011: Study finds dangerous level of hexavalent chromium at Widows Creek waste site
A report released by EarthJustice and the Sierra Club in early February 2011 stated that there are many health threats associated with a toxic cancer-causing chemical found in coal ash waste called hexavalent chromium. The report specifically cited 29 sites in 17 states where the contamination was found. The information was gathered from existing EPA data on coal ash and included locations in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virgina and Wisconsin. In Alabama, the TVA Colbert Fossil Plant in Tuscambia and the TVA Widows Creek Fossil Plant in Stevenson were both reported as having high levels of chromium seeping from unlined retention ponds.

According to EPA data, the Widows Creek coal ash site is an unlined pond. Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) was reported at the site above 100 ppb (parts per billion) - 5,000 times the proposed California drinking water goals and above the federal drinking water standard.

As a press release about the report read:


 * Hexavalent chromium first made headlines after Erin Brockovich sued Pacific Gas & Electric because of poisoned drinking water from hexavalent chromium. Now new information indicates that the chemical has readily leaked from coal ash sites across the U.S. This is likely the tip of the iceberg because most coal ash dump sites are not adequately monitored.

Citizen Groups
See also Alabama and coal
 * Black Warrior Riverkeeper
 * GASP (formerly Alabama First)

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Coal plant retirements
 * Coal phase-out
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Alabama and coal
 * Tennessee Valley Authority
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming