Decommissioned coal plant to be demolished

By Terry Murry on Wednesday, August 31st, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

BOARDMAN – Portland General Electric contractors will knock down the 656-foot-tall stack and boiler at the Boardman coal plant on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 10 a.m.

Careful placement of explosives, handled by engineers and explosive specialists, will allow the stack and boiler to complete a controlled fall within a specified location, according to PGE. The demolition is expected to take less than a minute.

The Boardman coal plant, which began operating in 1980 and ceased operations in 2020, is Oregon’s last coal-fired power plant. Since 2010, the closure of the Boardman coal plant has been factored into PGE’s generation portfolio as the company moves to build Wheatstone, a wind, solar and battery storage plant less than 30 miles away.

The demolition of the Boardman coal plant will be live-streamed, available for viewing on PGE’s Facebook and YouTube pages.File photo