Closure of Cheswick Generating Station sparks mixed feelings in community

Some mourn the loss of jobs. Others celebrate the demise of a coal-burning plant and related environmental concerns.

All acknowledge their Alle-Kiski Valley communities surrounding the Cheswick Generating Station will be forever changed.

The station, which is Allegheny County’s last coal-fired power plant, is scheduled to close permanently in mid-September. More than 50 people will lose their jobs.

Gunner Gaschler, who works as a supervisor at Beer & Beyond a few blocks from the plant, said he sees workers from the site stopping in the store about five days per week. He’s concerned businesses like his will lose revenue without those workers patronizing Springdale businesses.

“It’s going to not only affect the pizza shops and the beer shops, but a lot of the bars and stuff,” he said. “It’s a small town.”

But Glaschler is still happy it’s closing.

“Me, personally, I think it’s good that they’re shutting down,” he said. “I think that it’s going to be kind of good for the environment.”

Plans unknown

Cheswick Generating Station in Springdale is owned and operated by Houston-based GenOn Holdings LLC, which announced in June that the plant will close by Sept. 15. GenOn also is closing coal-fired plants in Avon Lake, Ohio, and Newburg, Md.

No power generation operations will continue at the 565-megawatt plant after its retirement, GenOn said.

The decision to close the site, which was commissioned in 1970, was based on “unfavorable economic conditions, higher costs including those associated with environmental compliance, an inability to compete with other generation types and evolving market rules that promote subsidized sources,” GenOn said in a statement issued in June.

The company said it will continue to provide benefits “common with this situation to all affected employees.”

Springdale Councilman Mike Ziencik — who previously told the Tribune-Review he felt the closure and lost jobs were “not good” for the community — said last week that local officials still do not have updates about plans for the site.

GenOn did not respond to inquiries about what it plans to do with the site.

State Rep. Carrie Lewis DelRosso, a Republican whose legislative district encompasses Springdale, said she has reached out to GenOn to discuss plans for the site. The company, she said, is “looking into their options from a development perspective of what next steps are.”

They haven’t made any decisions at this point, Lewis DelRosso said.

“As a representative, the last thing I want to see is nothing happen there,” she said, explaining that she wants to “have it remediated into something that would benefit the Allegheny Valley.”

The loss of jobs that comes with its retirement, she said, is a detriment to the community.

“We need to keep our energy jobs in the state, and this closure does nothing but ruin our economy further and steal family-sustaining jobs from our citizens,” she said.

Lewis DelRosso said the plant was “faced with some difficult decisions” because of Gov. Tom Wolf’s desire to begin imposing a price on greenhouse gas emissions and join the Region Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a consortium of Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, in an attempt to fight climate change.

Allegheny County Councilman Nicholas Futules, who represents Springdale, said he wasn’t surprised when he heard of the station’s impending closure. He called the plant “a dinosaur” and said officials at the plant previously had told him the facility’s life expectancy was about 50 years — roughly the age of the Cheswick Generating Station now.

“It’s the end of an era,” he said. “It was expected. It’s nothing that’s a surprise to anyone, including the workers there.”

Futules said he recently had talked with several workers from the site, who already were exploring new career options.

Over the course of her tenure representing the area, State Sen. Lindsey Williams said she, too, had gotten to know some of the workers at the plant, who had shown her around the site.

“To see them lose their jobs, especially in a recovering economy, is heartbreaking,” said Williams, a Democrat who represents the 38th Senatorial District.

The impact of those lost jobs, she said, will have a ripple effect on other businesses.

“We know that the entire community is going to feel the loss of these jobs, directly or indirectly,” she said. “We need to come up with a real, sustainable plan to help these workers transition to new jobs that use their considerable knowledge and skills when these plants close.”

The closure also means the “loss of a tax-paying business,” Springdale Councilman Shawn Fitzgerald Jr. said.

“The closure of the GenOn power plant is huge, especially as our town and business community has been on a path of growth in recent years,” he said. “They have also been a great neighbor in our community for years. It is sad to see it close and see 56 hardworking people lose their jobs.”

But Futules said not everyone will be so sad to see the plant go.

“I’m pretty sure there are people in the local community who are glad it’s going to be closing,” Futules said. “The plant was built in the middle of a community. Most plants are not built surrounded by homes. Some people living in the community might be happy at the closure of the plant.”

Pollution concerns

Tom Schuster, Pennsylvania’s Clean Energy Program director for Sierra Club, an environmental organization that has sued the plant on multiple occasions, was among those glad to hear the plant would be shutting down.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Schuster said. “I think Cheswick is no different from the other coal plants in the country that are essentially facing obsolescence. They’re no longer competitive with cheaper, cleaner sources of electricity. It’s been polluting the area for far too long.”

Cheswick Generating Station, Schuster said, has “been subject to more protective controls over the years,” which have added to operating costs. Add multiple lawsuits, tightening restrictions and pushback from environmental activists, he said, and such factors can contribute to a plant’s demise.

The Sierra Club had a lawsuit pending over the plant’s water pollution permit, which, Schuster said, “they appeared to be violating.” He said the Sierra Club lawsuit contended the generating station was violating a provision “that was intended to control the amount of thermal pollution going into the Allegheny River.”

Schuster said his hope is that the plant is decommissioned and reused “hopefully for something that is much less polluting and more compatible with residential neighborhoods.”

Eli Wilson, who owns Glen’s Homemade Custard adjacent to the site, said he’s hopeful it will be repurposed for something positive — like a clean energy plant or even a housing development.

He grew up at the ice cream shop, he said, and has witness firsthand the plant get stricter on its anti-pollution measures.

“I think they really made it clean,” he said. “We noticed a difference here just from the fact there’s no soot or anything like there used to be.”

He said he never had any concerns with having the plant as a neighbor, but he is worried about businesses like his losing customers and revenue if the site isn’t put to good use again soon.

“Most people around here who have businesses will be impacted by it, be concerned with it,” he said of the closure. “Loss of sales is always going to be No. 1.”

Shawn Steffee, a business agent with Boilermakers Local 154, which sends staff to the site, said the union was sad to see the plant close.

“It hurts to lose it,” he said. “We’ve had thousands of man hours over the years. The plant gave us a lot of business.”

Steffee said renewable energy sources — such as wind turbines and solar energy — can’t keep pace with plants like the Cheswick Generating Station. Rather than watching coal-powered plants shut down, he said, he would like to see a combination of energy sources thrive.

“In my opinion, we’re going to need a good mix of gas, coal, nuclear and renewable energy sources,” he said.