San Juan County Commission will consider approval of power plant demo, remediation plan
FARMINGTON — Officials at the Public Service Company of New Mexico, the primary owner of the San Juan Generating Station, have submitted a demolition and remediation plan for the shuttered facility, one that San Juan County commissioners could approve during a meeting this week in Aztec.
The plan was received by the county in December, three months after the plant was retired, as required by a county ordinance adopted in November 2021. The county contracted with the engineering firm of Mountain West Consulting LLC to review the plan, and officials from that company recommended the county accept the plan — a move later endorsed by the county staff.
Commissioners will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 7 in the Commission Chambers of the County Administration Building, 100 S. Oliver Drive in Aztec, to review the plan and act on the staff’s recommendation.
A contingent of county officials, led by County Manager Mike Stark, toured the shuttered plant on Jan. 24 with PNM officials to go over the particulars of the plan.
The plan itself is a dry, straightforward document that matter-of-factly lays out the manner and sequence in which the facility — for decades, one of San Juan County’s more significant economic drivers — will be torn down and disposed of before the site on which it rests is returned to a state that more closely matches the surrounding landscape.
The plan lists eight steps by which that process will happen. Most of those steps are expected to take only a few months, but others will require years to complete.
The process began with the shut down and decommissioning of the plan last fall, followed by electrical isolation and modifications. Next on the list is abatement and demolition bidding — something that will happen once the commission has signed off on the plan — followed by abatement and demolition implementation, which is expected to last approximately two years.
Work on the groundwater remediation systems operation will be next, along with work on the evaporation ponds, the process ponds and coal runoff basins, and, finally, the evaporation ponds. The groundwater remediation systems operation work is the longest-running step in the process, as it is slated to continue for more than 13 years.
Some of the more notable specifics of the plan are the demolition of the four 300-foot chimneys that served as the plant’s most distinctive features. The chimneys likely will be demolished by implosion, according to the document, and all the brick, block and concrete generated by their demolition will be crushed and used for backfill or granular cover for such below-grade spots as basements, pits or trenches. The plan calls for the entire site to be returned to the height of the prevailing grade and sloped to accommodate stormwater flows.
Implosion techniques likely will be used to demolish all of the plant’s larger structures, the plan states, while manpower and large equipment will be used on smaller structures.
The plan notes that a small amount of asbestos containing material was identified at the plan during a 2019 survey. That material is required to be removed and properly disposed of by the contractor prior to any demolition work, the plan states. Any such abatement activities must be preceded by a 10-day warning, according to the plan.
As for the considerable amount of underground piping that exists at the plant, it will be sealed and abandoned in place, the plan states. Pipes larger than 24 inches will be filled with flowable fill to prevent their collapse.
The only significant elements to be left in place once the facility has been demolished likely will be the station’s switchyards. According to the document, the demolition and remediation plan does not include those facilities. The owners plan to use them for continued electrical transmission and distribution, and they are not considered retired.
The document also lists each of the station’s owners and lays out their share of responsibility for the demolition and remediation work, based on percentage of ownership. PNM, the largest owner, will bear 48.9% of the costs, while Tucson Electric Power, the second-largest owner, will be responsible for 20.2%. The M-S-R Public Power Agency will assume 7.6%, while the City of Farmington will cover 2.9%. The remaining costs will be paid by the Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, Los Alamos County Utilities, the Southern California Public Power Authority, the City of Anaheim and the Utah Associated Municipal Power System.
Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com.
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This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Document outlines plan for tearing down San Juan Generation Station
