More than 1,000 pounds of explosives were used to demolish the Navajo Generating Station’s three boilers today.
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LECHEE – More than 1,000 pounds of explosives were used to demolish the Navajo Generating Station’s three boilers yesterday.
Salt River Project, along with demolition contractor Independence Excavating and blasting contractor Dem-tech LLC demolished the three, 245-foot-tall boilers with 1,238 pounds of explosives, said George Hardeen, spokesman for NGS.
In just 10 seconds following detonation, each of the 20,000-ton boilers and support structures rolled to the ground east of the old power plant.
Doug Thomas, the senior project manager for Independence Excavating, said the magnitude of today’s demolition was one of Independence's biggest.
“Every blast is unique, and each has its own level of critical and technical concerns,” Thomas said in a statement. “By sheer scale, this is in the category of the IX’s larger blasts.”
Thomas Greiwe, president of Dem-tech, said 540 pounds of linear-shaped charges were used to cut through steel support beams – some 5 inches thick – and 480 pounds of dynamite kicked them out of the way, so the boilers fell where planned.
This demolition event is part of SRP’s continuing decommissioning of NGS that ceased operation on Nov. 18, 2019. The late power plant’s three, 750-megawat electric generating units were demolished on Dec. 18, 2020, and the electrostatic precipitators of Units 1 and 2 were demolished Jan. 19. The Unit 3 precipitator was demolished when the stacks came down.
Under a 35-year extension lease, the five NGS participants – Arizona Public Service Co., Bureau of Reclamation, NV Energy, SRP, and Tucson Electric Power – will make payments totaling about $110 million to the Navajo Nation that will allow continued access to the site for decommissioning, long-term monitoring and ongoing operation of the transmission system, according to SRP.
Decommissioning is anticipated to take about three years to complete. The decommissioning project was halted early last year because of COVID-19.
Before the COVID pandemic, Independence brought down the first structure: the Limestone Handling Building on the south side of the old plant site, followed by the Absorber Maintenance Tanks.
The Nation has elected to keep a number of facilities at NGS, including the warehouse and maintenance buildings, lake pump system and railroad.
