Eddystone Generating Station

Eddystone Generating Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Exelon near Eddystone, Pennsylvania.

Exelon announces plan to shut Pennsylvania coal plants
On December 2, 2009, Exelon announced that it would retire Cromby Generating Station in 2011, and two units at Eddystone Generating Station in 2011 and 2012. The closures include 144 MW of coal-fired power at Cromby and another 588 MW at Eddystone. Eddystone will continue to operate 820 MW of natural gas- and oil-fired generation. Exelon senior vice president Doyle Beneby said the retirements were due to "decreased power demand, over supply of natural gas and increasing operating costs," adding that, "these aging units are no longer efficient enough to compete with newer resources." The announcement comes just one day after Progress Energy said it would shut 11 aging coal-fired power units totaling almost 1,500 MW in North Carolina.

Plant Data

 * Owner/Parent Company: Exelon
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 707 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 354 MW (1960), 354 MW (1960)
 * Location: 1 Industrial Hwy., Eddystone, PA 19022
 * GPS Coordinates: 39.863068, -75.32444
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 3,720,279 tons.
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 6,720 tons.
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 5,409 tons.
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 107 pounds.

Toxic Waste Data

 * Arsenic Waste: 4,619.2 pounds
 * Air Release: 1,262.2 pounds
 * Land Release (Landfill): 3,357 pounds
 * Chromium Waste: 4,507.3 pounds
 * Air Release: 710.3 pounds
 * Land Release (Landfill): 3,797 pounds
 * Dioxin Waste: 1.7 grams
 * Air Release: 1.7 grams
 * Lead Waste: 2,540.7 pounds
 * Air Release: 737.9 pounds
 * Land Release (Landfill): 1,802.8 pounds
 * Nickel Waste: 5,367.2 pounds
 * Air Release: 1,789.2 pounds
 * Land Release (Landfill): 3,578 pounds

Accidents and Negligence

 * February 19, 1983:Two workers were severely burned when the circuit breaker on a disabled generating unit blew during repairs.
 * October 5, 1983: A pill-sized radioactive pellet was dropped on the boiler room floor. According to Philadelphia Electric and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission overseeing the recovery, no one was exposed or in danger at the time of the incident.
 * September 10, 1987:
 * A worker cleaning a sulfur dioxide scrubber bled to death when a power washer spontaneously turned on, shooting a 6,000 pounds-per-square-inch spray of water through his leg.
 * Responding to the call for help without a stretcher or medical supplies, workers determined it would be more beneficial to attempt to remove the man from the scrubber before attempting first aid.
 * The man bled to death before he could be removed from the scrubber.

Litigation and Controversy

 * March 17, 2002
 * Eddystone power plant begins discussion over $5.7 million in delinquent state taxes that had nearly bankrupted the local school district.
 * Arguments over the plant’s value assessment kept the company from paying $3.6 million to the school district, $1 million to the town of Eddystone, and $1.1 million to Delaware County.
 * While the company files appeals, the county, town, and school board authorities acknowledge they have almost no power to force payment, unlike with private property where tax-liens can be placed on the property.
 * A week later, half the payment was received while negotiations continued on the unpaid portion.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Eddystone
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 Eddystone Generating Station
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed March 2011

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Pennsylvania and coal
 * Exelon
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming