Christina Murray

Director of business development, York1 Demolition

TOPIC

Former OPG Thunder Bay Generating Station Decommissioning

SYNOPSIS

The former coal fired power generation station had three boilers over 91.4 m (300 ft), three turbines, three precipitators over 60.96 m (200 ft), a 198 m (650 ft) concrete stack, a water inlet and outlet, and associated outbuildings.  Work started onsite in April 2021 with a large asbestos abatement of Boiler# 1 and prepping the stack for felling and removal of the turbine hall to the north of the boilers.

The stack was felled using explosives in September 2021, the precipitators were detached from the boilers and dropped using explosives in December, and finally the top hung boilers were toppled using explosives in June 2022. A large piece of the project is the sorting, categorizing, preparing, and shipping offsite the ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metals.

Large second member shears and torch men have been working diligently to move the material offsite via truck and rail. The project included abatement of the boiler refractory, demolition of the power generating station, processing and disposal of all construction and demolition waste, and recycing all scrap steel.