This thesis examines sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from the Martin Drake coal-fired power plant in downtown Colorado Springs and quantifies the resulting negative public health impact on local residents. This paper utilizes an ordinary least squares regression with White standard errors to model the impact of the plant’s SO2 emissions on ambient surface-level SO2 concentrations using daily emissions, concentration and weather data from 2014 to 2017. The resulting public health response is estimated using established correlations of SO2 concentration and all-cause mortality rate. The mortality rate impact is subsequently priced using the statistical value of a life, thus quantifying the negative externality of the plant’s SO2 emissions. This paper finds that accelerating decommissioning of the Drake plant by 10 years (to 2025 rather than 2035) would avoid 1.517 premature deaths and generate a net present value public health benefit of $9,183,312 from the SO2 emission reduction alone.