Leland Olds Station

Leland Olds Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Basin Electric Power Cooperative near Stanton, North Dakota.

Plant Data

 * Owner/Parent Company: Basin Electric Power Cooperative
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 656 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 216 MW (1966), 440 MW (1975)
 * Location: 3901 Hwy. 200A, Stanton, ND 58571
 * GPS Coordinates: 47.281667, -101.319444
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 4,808,205 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 40,027 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 9,429 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 340 lb.

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

Coal Waste Sites

 * Leland Olds Station Settling Pond Number 1
 * Leland Olds Station Settling Pond Number 3

Leland Olds ranked 19th 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.

Leland Olds Station ranked number 19 on the list, with 1,937,821 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

Coal Ash Waste and Groundwater Contamination at Leland Olds
In August 2010 a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice reported that North Dakota, along with 34 states, had significant groundwater contamination from coal ash that is not 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 North Dakota's Antelope Valley Station and Leland Olds Station as sites that have groundwater contamination due to coal ash waste.

Other coal waste sites
To see a nationwide list of over 350 coal waste sites in the United States, click here. To see a listing of coal waste sites in a particular state, click on the map:



Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * North Dakota and coal
 * Basin Electric Power Cooperative
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming