Cholla Generating Station

Cholla Generating Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Pinnacle West Capital near Joseph City, Arizona.

On March 25, 2009, the U.S. EPA approved carbon sequestration testing at the Cholla Generating Station. Carbon dioxide will be pumped into wells beneath the plant in an effort to determine if it can be contained.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Arizona Public Service Company
 * Parent Company: Pinnacle West Capital
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,129 MW
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 114 MW (1962), 289 MW (1978), 312 MW (1980), 414 MW (1981)
 * Location: 4801 Frontage Rd., Joseph City, AZ 86032
 * GPS Coordinates: 34.941503, -110.301074
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source: Lee Ranch mine
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 8,526,274 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 21,147 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 14,735 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 259 lb.

Coal Waste Sites

 * Cholla Generating Station Bottom Ash Pond
 * Cholla Generating Station Fly Ash Pond
 * Cholla Generating Station Sedimentation Pond
 * Cholla Generating Station West Area Retention Pond

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Cholla
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. Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, 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. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. 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. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal 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 Cholla Generating Station
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed March 2011

Cholla ranked 8th 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.

Cholla Generating Station ranked number 8 on the list, with 2,863,427 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

"High Hazard" Surface Impoundments
Two of Cholla Generating Station's coal ash surface impoundments are on the EPA's official June 2009 list of Coal Combustion Residue (CCR) Surface Impoundments with High Hazard Potential Ratings. 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.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Arizona and coal
 * Pinnacle West Capital
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming