Dean Mitchell Generating Station
Dean H. Mitchell Generating Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by NiSource near Gary, Indiana.
On January 13, 2011, the Obama administration brokered a settlement in which Northern Indiana Public Service Co. will permanently shut down the Dean Mitchell Generating Station, and spend $600 million to install and improve pollution controls at the company's three other aging electric generators - Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield, Bailly Generating Station in Chesterton, and the Michigan City Generating Station. The improvements will reduce smog- and soot-forming sulfur oxide by 46,000 tons a year and curb lung-damaging nitrogen oxide by 18,000 tons annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. NIPSCO faced legal troubles for upgrading the power plants to keep them operating while failing to install modern pollution controls required under the Clean Air Act's New Source Review provisions. The plants avoided the toughest provisions of the law for decades, in part because regulators assumed during the 1970s that they wouldn’t be running much longer.
The settlement is the 17th negotiated by the EPA and the Justice Department since Obama took office, as part of a national campaign to reduce air pollution from the oldest existing coal plants, some of which date back to the 1940s. Most of the cases have involved utilities in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. NIPSCO also will pay a $3.5 million fine and spend another $9.5 million on environmental projects, including soot filters for old diesel engines, cleaner woodstoves and restoration of land next to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
- Owner: Northern Indiana Public Service Company
- Parent Company: NiSource
- Plant Nameplate Capacity: 384 MW (Megawatts)
- Units and In-Service Dates: 128 MW (1958), 128 MW (1958), 128 MW (1970)
- Location: 1 North Clark Rd., Gary, IN 46401
- GPS Coordinates: 41.6394, -87.4069
- Coal Consumption:
- Coal Source:
- Number of Employees:
- 2006 CO2 Emissions: 0 tons
- 2006 SO2 Emissions:
- 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
- 2006 NOx Emissions:
- 2005 Mercury Emissions:
Articles and Resources
- Michael Hawthorne, "Deal would clear up coal-plant pollution" Chicago tribune, Jan. 13, 2011.
- 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.
- Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed Feb. 2009.