Just east of where Lakeland Electric is assembling its “next generation” power plant with six reciprocating natural gas-powered engines, there is an above-ground landfill that houses the toxic residue of the last generation’s power production.
It’s called the South Byproduct Storage Area — a 45-acre, 30-foot tall, grass-covered mound with commanding views of Lake Parker and the skyline of Lakeland in the distance.
The landfill contains the byproducts of four decades of coal combustion, including fly ash, bottom ash, synthetic gypsum and stabilized flue gas desulfurization.
Lakeland decommissioned its last coal-fired plant, McIntosh Unit 3, in 2021 after repairs became too costly. Over the past year, Total Wrecking and Environmental has demolished the hulking structure in phases and hauled away massive mounds of scrap metal and debris.
The final step is capping the landfill and sealing away its contents under a process prescribed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to ensure no pollutants seep into the aquifer and drinking water supplies.
The containment and cleanup comes with a $10.7 million price tag. But because the site is jointly owned with the Orlando Utility Commission, Lakeland Electric will only pay 60% of the cost — about $6.5 million. OUC will pay the other 40%.
“This has been a multi-year project,” Assistant City Attorney Ramona Sirianni said at Tuesday morning’s meeting.
In January 2022, the commission hired Geosyntec Consultants Inc. to create engineering designs for the closure. The plans, which were submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, call for:
- Removing the top two to three feet of dirt.
- Regrading the area.
- Installing vents for passive gas collection.
- Covering the mound with a 40-millimeter textured membrane barrier and geocomposite drainage layer.
- Adding 18 inches of fill dirt and 6 inches of top soil.
- Constructing berms, channels and culverts for stormwater management.
- And laying 220,200 cubic yards of sod.
Four companies submitted bids to do the work, based on the plans. The City Commission voted Tuesday to approve a contract with Thalle Construction Company, Inc., out of Hillsborough, N.C.
Under the terms of the contract, the project is expected to be complete by October.
Mayor Pro Tem Stephanie Madden said the city knew it would be hit with a bill for cleanup, but she wanted to know if the price tag was about what Lakeland Electric officials expected. “Is it coming out more expensive than we thought or about the same?” Madden asked.
Tory Bombard, LE’s assistant director of production, pointed out that the landfill is funded through an environmental rate and she recently asked for a reduction in that rate. “I don’t have the exact figures, but when I’m lowering a rate that means that they’re coming under cost,” she said.
Mayor Bill Mutz said the city has a responsibility to future generations to ensure the safety of the site.
“This is 45 acres of space that has to be sealed and has to be maintained, that has liability into the future,” Mutz said.
The commission approved paying Geosyntec $313,800 to monitor the project, making sure the final barrier meets all state and federal requirements and certifying the work in a report for the FDEP. The sum is included in Lakeland Electric’s fiscal year 2024 budget.
Lakeland Electric and the Orlando Utilities Commission will share the cost of future groundwater and surface water monitoring, soil sampling, erosion control, stormwater drainage maintenance and landscaping. Geosyntec estimates those costs will be about $98,500 annually.
Also approved: Vibration monitoring for ‘finicky’ Unit 5
City commissioners also approved a $235,300 contract with Siemens to do maintenance work on McIntosh Unit 5, which shut down unexpectedly last year.
The natural gas-powered unit, which produced 64% of the utility’s energy in 2022, lurched to a halt on Feb. 23 when a combustion turbine failed. The repair took four months and $21 million, requiring the 50-ton rotor to be trucked to the Siemens facility in Charlotte, N.C. for reconstruction.
At the time, Lakeland Electric officials said while the unexpected outage was frustrating, the utility planned to make the best of it by performing maintenance that it had intended to do in early 2024.
However, vibration levels in the unit, which a Lakeland Electric official called “finicky” during the commission’s agenda study session on Friday, have been increasing in recent months.
Sirianni said the utility needs to shut the unit down for 24 days from Feb. 22 to March 16 to rebalance the weights and install vibration monitoring equipment. She added that Siemens, as the manufacturer of the unit, is the only provider that can do the work. The cost is included in the FY 2024 budget.
Lakeland Electric General Manager Mike Beckham has called Unit 5 the utility’s “flagship unit” and a workhorse that the city is counting on keeping in service for at least another decade.
During outages, Lakeland Electric purchases power from the Orlando Utilities Commission under short-term purchase agreements. City officials did not say how much that will cost. When Unit 5 was taken offline for about a month from Nov. 6 to Dec. 9, 2021, the city spent $2.2 million to buy 50,594 megawatt hours of power.
The utility tries to schedule maintenance work during cooler weather, when demand for electricity is not as high.
latest news
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
