Spurlock Power Station

Spurlock Power Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by East Kentucky Power Cooperative near Maysville, Kentucky.

Plant Data

 * Owner/Parent Company: East Kentucky Power Cooperative
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,279 MW
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 358 MW (1977), 592 MW (1981), 329 MW (2005)
 * Location: Route 8, Maysville, KY 41056
 * GPS Coordinates: 38.699167, -83.816667
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 8,105,061 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 38,877 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 8,125 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 300 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Spurlock Power Station
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 heavy 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 Spurlock Power Station. 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 Spurlock Power Station
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Coal Ash Waste and Water Contamination
In August 2010 a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice reported that Kentucky, along with 34 states, had significant groundwater contamination from coal ash that is not currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The report, in an attempt to pressure the EPA to regulate coal ash, noted that most states do not monitor drinking water contamination levels near waste disposal sites. The report mentioned Kentucky based Mill Creek Station, Shawnee Fossil Plant and the Spurlock Power Station were three sites that have groundwater contamination due to coal ash waste.

Coal Waste Site

 * Spurlock Power Station Ash Pond

Spurlock ranked 98th 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.

Spurlock Power Station ranked number 98 on the list, with 196,954 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

East Kentucky Power Cooperative Settlement
On July 2, 2007 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that East Kentucky Power Cooperative, a coal-fired electric power plant, will spend about $650 million in pollution upgrades and another $750,000 penalty in a civil suit for violations of the New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act at its Spurlock Power Station, Cooper Power Station and Dale Power Station.

“Today’s settlement is another example of the Justice Department’s continued commitment to aggressively enforcing the Clean Air Act,” said Ronald J. Tenpas, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “The emissions reductions from this settlement are substantial, and we are pleased that East Kentucky finally agreed to resolve this litigation on acceptable terms and bring its facilities into compliance with important provisions of the Clean Air Act.”

The EPA and DOJ in 2004 filed a lawsuit against the utility for "illegally modifying and increasing air pollution at two of its coal-fired power plants."

The settlement states that the utility will install pollution control equipment to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) by more than 60,000 tons per year.

Citizen groups

 * Coal River Mountain Watch
 * Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
 * Kentucky Environmental Foundation
 * Kentucky Riverkeeper
 * New Power
 * Kentucky Environmental Foundation, Berea, KY, phone: (859) 986-7565
 * Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter

External Sources

 * Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 2009.
 * Environmental Integrity Project, "Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants", July 2007.
 * Facility Registry System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed Jan. 2009.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * EPA Coal Plant Settlements
 * Spurlock Power Station Unit 3
 * Spurlock Power Station Unit 4
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Kentucky and coal
 * East Kentucky Power Cooperative
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming