“It’s going down, I’m yelling ‘Timber’.”
No, they’re not actually made of timber, but the lines of Pitbull’s popular song by the same name come to mind as workmen have started on the decommissioned Powergen facility in Port-of-Spain, which will eventually result in the removal of the popular towers.
With cranes already taking apart parts of the facility, a recent Powergen update stated the following:
“Standing prominently across the Port of Spain skies, four familiar stacks have guided commuters for decades as they head westward as they veered off of Wrightson Road onto Colville Street. A new chapter in Port of Spain’s history is about to be written as The Power Generation Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (PowerGen) gets ready to deconstruct and demolish these city icons.
Phase One of the ‘PowerGen POS Decommissioning Project’ got underway last June, when the company held a public consultation with its host community ahead of scaffolding and abatement works to remove regulated industrial materials present within the plant.
The completed schedule of works included the de-energising, decommissioning and disconnection of electrical interconnectivity with the national grid and abatement works.
This required a rigorous pre-work assessment of potential social, safety and environmental impacts, public consultations, and the required approvals from the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), and other regulatory bodies.
Local content and expertise has been a key focus of the project with abatement works being conducted by Green Engineering.
The company is awaiting regulatory approvals from the EMA to commence Phase Two activities, which will be preceded by our next Public Consultation with neighbouring residents and other key stakeholders.”