Dave Hromanik did not want to miss the spectacle Friday morning when the hulking boiler unit at the former Elrama Power Plant went out with a bang.

Or came down with a boom, as it was.

Still, not all of the building came down, and the demolition contractor held a second implosion at 6 p.m. Friday at the 28-acre site, state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Lauren Camarada said. The second implosion finished off the building, according to Tribune-Review news partner WPXI.

Hromanik of West Mifflin had a special reason for seeing the structure of the former Duquesne Light Co. coal-fired plant along Route 837 in Washington County imploded because he used to work there as an electrician before it was decommissioned in 2012.

“We fixed a lot of problems in the plant. We were able to make power for less money” by burning coal, Hromanik said as he waited for demolition workers to bring down the structure, which contained the turbines that generated power for Duquesne Light’s customers.

As some 200 people gathered in the Dollar General store parking lot across from the plant entrance and crowded against a guardrail off Route 837, the implosion went off at 9:30 a.m. as scheduled. Warned by a shout of “fire in the hole,” a series of explosive charges were set off along the base of the structure and a large section of it fell to ground.

A giant gray cloud of dust ensued, and the wind slowly moved the mass several hundred yards toward the crowd watching the event.

The airborne debris enveloped Route 837, pushing some onlookers away.

“The thing is, you don’t want to get caught in that debris cloud,” Hromanik said as he left his post.

Some neighbors of the plant living in a section of Elrama near the company property had mixed feelings about the plant and its demise more than a decade ago.

“I’m glad it’s gone. The smoke would come out, and there would be constant soot,” said George Frick of Circle Avenue, who has lived in his house since the early 1970s, about 20 years after the plant was built in 1950.

Ron Lorch, however, lived next to plant during the last 30 years of its operation and said it never posed a problem.

“We’re used to it. A lot of people worked there. You did have to scrub your house twice a year” because of the soot, Lorch said.

After the dust settled, a large section of the boiler house — between the Norfolk Southern Corp. railroad tracks and the plant’s coal loading area along the Monongahela River — remained standing, with some of the remnants leaning against others.

The demolition Friday went better for the Elrama Fire Department than in November, when the cooling tower at the site was blown up and the fire department officials had not been notified. This time, the department had trucks in the community and several members of the fire police to help with crowd control.

As demolition continues at the site — the tall red smokestack is to be razed as well — its future for redevelopment purposes remains unknown. Capexel of Puerto Rico owns the property, through a subsidiary of Trogon Development LLC. Spokespersons for both companies could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the Washington County planning department said this week that the ownership group has not presented any redevelopment plans.

Other sites

• About 5 miles upriver from the Elrama plant, FirstEnergy Corp.’s Mitchell Power Station is ripe for redevelopment being shepherded by the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Todd Meyers, FirstEnergy spokesman, said the Mitchell plant remains largely intact and the company has not announced any plans for demolishing it.

• The former Duquesne Light Co. Cheswick Power Plant in Springdale closed in April 2022 after 50 years of operation. Charah Solutions, an environmental remediation firm based in Louisville, Ky., acquired the site last year with the intention of demolishing Allegheny County’s last coal-fired plant. The site now is owned by SER Capital.

• The former Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station along the Monongahela River near Carmichaels, Greene County, also is owned by FirstEnergy Corp. Three emissions stacks were demolished in March, 10 years after the plant closed in 2013. Additional demolition of the boiler house likely will occur in June.

The plant’s two cement hyperbolic cooling towers are to come down this summer, and the remaining demolition should be done by 2024, the company said. The company said it is in the process of preparing the former coal-fired power plant for development.

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