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Colorado Springs resident Jane Ard-Smith told Colorado state lawmakers in April that granting a request by her municipal utility to keep its coal-fired power plant running three years past its planned 2029 retirement date would exacerbate her respiratory health problems.

“Folks with breathing-related ailments like me — we looked forward to breathing a little bit easier,” Ard-Smith testified before the Senate’s Transportation & Energy committee. “I’m concerned that the progress we’ve made as a state and as a city will be thwarted.”

Colorado Springs Utilities, which operates the Ray D. Nixon Power Plant in Fountain, about 85 miles south of Denver, isn’t alone in prolonging the life of its coal-fired plant. Providers that operate two other such plants — one on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in Craig, and one on the eastern side in Pueblo — did not shut them down on Dec. 31, as planned. State law requires utilities to phase out coal and to replace it with cleaner-burning alternatives such as wind and solar.

Emergency orders from the Trump administration kept the Craig unit from retiring, while equipment malfunctions and transmission grid constraints contributed to the postponed shutdowns of coal-fired units in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, respectively. Xcel Energy Inc., the state’s largest utility, and Colorado Springs Utilities requested these delays and were supported by the state.

Residents like Ard-Smith, consumer advocates, and doctors statewide agreed that allowing these three coal-fired power plants to stay open beyond their scheduled closure dates will worsen public health, contribute to more deaths and increase costs for ratepayers. The tab is about $85 million a year alone to keep the Craig Generating Station online, according to one report.

Trump Orders Defense, Energy Departments to Reinvest in Coal

Coal is more expensive and dirtier to combust for power generation than renewable energy. Colorado’s six coal-fired units are among the state’s worst polluters and major sources of toxic haze that obfuscates world famous views in Rocky Mountain National Park. These plants are also ringed by communities with lower median incomes and greater proportions of people of color who suffer higher rates of emergency room visits.

Per unit of energy, coal-fired power plants belch more fine particulate matter, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and hazardous air pollutants than any other energy source. These generators also release millions of pounds annually of greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere, causing more intense and extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and hail.

And that’s not all: Several of Colorado’s remaining coal-fired plants did not install modern pollution controls in anticipation of their replacement with cleaner energy sources. Their continued use led Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to admit in May that the state won’t reach his goal of 100%........

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