Sunday, August 20, 2023–4:05 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Work to dismantle Georgia Power’s Plant Hammond in Coosa is continuing, and plans are underway to demolish the stacks.
According to Georgia Power spokesman Andrew Vickery, an exact date on when the stacks will come down has not been determined, but company officials expect it will be sometime this fall.
“The plan has a lot of moving parts,” Vickery said.
The demolition of the stacks was discussed during Thursday’s Floyd County Public Safety Committee meeting. Floyd County Emergency Management Agency Director Tim Herrington told the committee that a meeting was held recently with Georgia Power where a number of county agency heads were represented.
“It was a very productive meeting,” Herrington said. “We had a lot of agencies involved, expressing different concerns with the demolition of those two towers. We are going to meet again to discuss it.”
Herrington added he is expecting to get more information on September 15 regarding a specific date for the demolition.
Plant Hammond began commercial operations in 1954 and was retired in 2019 as part of Georgia Power’s Integrated Resource Plan. Prior to retirement, the steam-electric generating plant had four coal-fired units capable of producing 800 MW of electricity.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division approved the updated Coal Ash Dewatering Plan from Georgia Power Company on January 20, 2022, for the discharge of treated wastewater from its coal combustion residual pond.
The site has four ash ponds, which are approximately 35, 21, 25, and 54 acres in size, respectively. A dewatering process is necessary to facilitate the permanent closure of Ash Ponds 1, 2, and 4. Ash Pond 3 was permanently capped in 2018. Ash Pond 4 is currently capped but will be closed by removal.
The Ash Pond Dewatering Plan describes the additional procedures, safeguards and enhanced wastewater treatment measures that Georgia Power will implement to ensure the facility’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit effluent limitations continue to be met and the receiving water body continues to be protected during the ash pond dewatering process. The plan provides an overview of the wastewater treatment system, describes the key processes, details the major process control measurements being performed, and explains the effluent monitoring to be completed during dewatering.
