Colorado Springs Utilities details year-plus plan for demolishing Martin Drake Power Plant
Apr. 18—Crews are set to begin a major demolition project near downtown Colorado Springs this summer in the last stage of plans to take down one of the last remaining urban power plants in the nation.
Colorado Springs Utilities provided specifics on the year-plus Martin Drake Power Plant demolition project at a public meeting Tuesday, where they discussed mitigation strategies for dust and noise in surrounding neighborhoods during the project. Work is to begin in June and wrap up by the end of 2024.
Independence Demolition, an Ohio-based company with a Denver office, will be handling the project, bringing experience from projects nationwide including comparable power plant demolitions in Detroit and Philadelphia.
Drake will be taken down in eight phases, starting with internal asbestos abatement before moving into demolition that is scheduled from this summer through summer 2024. The project will conclude with a grading and seeding phase in fall 2024.
After ending coal-burning operations in August 2021, Drake operated two natural gas generators at times of high demand for electricity in the community. Utilities formally shut down power production at the plant last September after nearly a century of power generation.
The plant was expected to run on coal through 2035, but in June 2020, the Utilities board, which is also the Colorado Springs City Council, pushed the date up to shutter the plant by 2023.
Beginning this summer, demolition is scheduled during daytime hours excluding Sundays, with some maintenance work scheduled overnight, according to Doug Thomas with Independence Demolition.
Thomas said the three prominent stacks will come down slowly as part of phases three and four. However, taking down the boilers will be larger events, creating noise, which Thomas said residents will be warned about in advance with community notices.
Other loud-noise events include hammering on concrete, but noise from the perimeter of the site is not expected to exceed 85 decibels, or normal speaking volume, Thomas said. Equipment maintenance may also create low-level noise.
Dust from the operations will be mitigated with water sprayers to bring down dust and other particles. Addressing resident concerns, Thomas explained that the water will be collected into a basin through existing storm drains on the site and not released into the ground.
Concrete from the existing structure will be ground down and spread over the leveled site before being covered with a 4-inch layer of soil to be planted with grass seeds.
While roads around the site will not be closed during the project, trucks are scheduled to come and go each workday, and three routes will be used between the site and Interstate 25.
While the old main structure and stacks will be taken to ground level, the Drake site will continue to be used for Utilities-related purposes to serve customers into the future.
At several public meetings in October 2022, residents largely said they wanted future plans for the site to improve and use the adjacent creek. Residents also generally said they want to see a "mixed-use" approach to the site, favoring redeveloping the area over allowing it to remain in use for various utility uses, the report states.
Six natural gas units on the site wrapped construction this month in a project that began 2021, and the generators will be fully operational beginning in May, according to Steve Berry with Utilities.
The units are expected to be used 5%-30% of the time during periods of high or low temperatures. They have permitted the transition away from using the old Drake plant by introducing system resiliency, according to Berry.
"We need natural gas in our supply mix for the foreseeable future. That's the only way we can make that transition to more renewables," he said.
Also left intact on the site will be the south substation, which houses a transformer, and a fiber-optic hut to help provide more internet access on the system in that area.
