Piney Power Plant Explosion Part of Controlled Demolition After Attempts to Find Buyer Fail

Ron Wilshire

Ron Wilshire

Published January 15, 2019 5:35 am
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PINEY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (EYT) – A large structure at the Piney Creek Power Plant started in 1990 vanished in a cloud of smoke Friday as part of a controlled demolition.

Branchton Equipment of Butler purchased the defunct power plant as the lone bidder at an auction three years ago.  Branchton hired DemEx, licensed demolition experts from Butler, to implement the state-permitted demolition.

“When we bought it, we really wanted to put somebody else in here and put people back to work in Clarion,” said Dave Chutz, one of the owners. “We held the plant off the market for three years because there was interest in purchasing it and running it as a power plant.  There was also interest in purchasing it and relocating it; one was to South Africa and one was to Mexico, but that never transpired.”

Terry Chapla, owner of an adjacent property who also filmed the video of the explosion, provided some additional background.

“We were told they were blowing up the power plant in the spring but were not given a date,” said Chapla.  “Friday morning they called us and told us they were blowing it up at 10:00 a.m.  They wanted to come on to our property next door and place machines that would register the seismic waves in the ground.  They came over and placed a machine by the house and after the explosion, they came back and retrieved their equipment.”

(Video by Terry Chapla.)

Branchton, primarily a salvage business, decided to market the site materials after failing to attract someone to take over the power plant.

“You can only be in this game for so long, and then it’s time to get your investment back,” Chutz said. “We sold some of the materials and some of the equipment, but right now we are recovering some of our money by selling the scrap, and we are basically in the scrap business.”

“We have some other ideas for this property, but we don’t want to comment on that right now.”

Power Plant Started Operations in 1992

Construction of the Piney Creek Power plant started in 1990, and operations started on December 17, 1992.  It was similar to other power plants around the country designed to take advantage of burning waste coal to produce electricity.

“Most of these types of plants had contracts with utilities, and most of them were very similar,” said former General Manager Kendall Reed.

“We had a 25-year contract with a utility, and the first 20 years of that contract was at a fixed rate that escalated. When we hit the end of the 20th year, that price dropped to a market energy base rate index, and that’s what happened to this plant and a lot of them.  When you get to that point, the energy pricing is low. The energy pricing for ours when we hit that date on December of 2012 was lower than when the contract was written back in 1988.  We were just upside down with energy pricing and also facing environmental issues.”

Photo on by Andy Turner.

Photo by Andy Turner.

The power plant was awarded Pennsylvania’s 2001 Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence, given to organizations and companies in Pennsylvania that have demonstrated a commitment to environmental excellence through leadership in pollution prevention, energy efficiency, and sustainable development initiatives.

The $182 million plant took in waste coal to create 33 megawatts of electricity and had a recently installed biomass system as well as other renovations.

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