J. Robert Welsh Power Plant

J. Robert Welsh Power Plant has 13 groundwater monitoring wells, 10 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between May 26, 2016 and July 24, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of cobalt, lithium, sulfate, radium, beryllium, thallium, arsenic, boron, lead, cadmium, fluoride and chromium.

The J. Robert Welsh Power Plant is a 1,116-MW coal power plant located in Pittsburg, Texas in Camp County. Welsh was first operational in 1977 and is operated by Southwestern Electric Power Company, a subsidiary of American Electric Power. The facility has two units following Unit 2’s retirement in April 2016, in order to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The remaining two units will stop burning coal in 2028. The disposal areas regulated under the federal coal ash rule are the Bottom Ash Storage Pond, Primary Bottom Ash Pond, and Landfill. The Primary Ash Pond and Bottom Ash Storage Pond are 28.4 and 20 acres in size, respectively, as of 2017 from Welsh’s Annual Groundwater Monitoring Report.

You can find the industry reported data here. For more information on J. Robert Welsh Power Plant, see EIP's reports, America's Top Power Plant Toxic Air Polluters, Groundwater Contamination from Texas Coal Ash Dumps and EIP's 2019 National Coal Ash Report Coal's Poisonous Legacy.

For more information about Texas Coal Ash, see Earthjustice's fact sheet, Texas and Coal Ash Disposal in Ponds and Landfills.