Three 775-foot concrete stacks were imploded at the Navajo Generating Station on the Navajo Nation near Page, Arizona, on Dec. 18, the Associated Press reports.
Phoenix Business Journal reports that the project was carried out by Tempe, Arizona-based Salt River Project, which was the former plant operator; Pasadena, California-based Tetra Tech, which served as the decommissioning program manager; Independence, Ohio-based Independence Excavating Inc., which served as decommissioning general contractor; and Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Dykon, which was the explosives subcontractor.
The Navajo Generating Station was a 2,250-megawatt coal-fired power plant that served as one of the largest in the Southwest before being shut down in November 2019. The plant was constructed in phases during the 1970s.
Demolition crews sawed the stacks and removed blocks of concrete to ensure they fell easily in a uniform fashion. Contractors also took out transformers, wiring and elevators from the bottom 30 feet of the stacks for preparation of the implosion. Windows and vents were also removed.
Roughly 1,530 pounds of dynamite were used to bring down the stacks.
The buildings that housed the power plant’s boilers are scheduled to be demoed during the next phase of demolition.
The work is part of a $150 million decommissioning project that will return the land to the Navajo Nation within a few years.
Watch a video of the smokestack implosions below courtesy of EcoFlight: