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DILLES BOTTOM --When contractors demolished the former R.E. Burger plant last year to clear room for a potential ethane cracker along the Ohio River, they left about 3,000 feet of old electricity cables and their accompanying transmission towers in place.
As part of the $13 million sale of the riverfront property from FirstEnergy Corp. to Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical, the electricity producer has until Oct. 31 to remove the old infrastructure. PTT representatives have said a final decision on whether to build the proposed petrochemical plant will come by the end of 2017.
"There are a couple of old power line structures that need to be removed from the property. Also, 3,000 feet of wire will be removed," FirstEnergy spokesman Doug Colafella said Wednesday. "It's been several years since those lines have had any power on them."
In 2009, FirstEnergy officials said they planned to convert the coal-fired Burger plant so that it could burn biomass agricultural waste for electricity. The $200 million project was part of the company's response to reduce system-wide sulfur dioxide emissions to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. This never materialized, however, because FirstEnergy officials eventually decided the biomass project was not economical.
After several years of little activity at the Burger site, officials in 2015 announced that PTT intended to use the area for building its planned ethane cracker.
"The existing power lines will now terminate at the top of the hill," Colafella said of the land around Dilles Bottom.
Colafella knew of no immediate plans to remove the several transmission towers outside the actual Burger site, including those directly along Ohio 7, as he said only the wires would be eliminated.
At the site Wednesday, J.W. Didado Electric general foreman Jake Hostetler supervised the preliminary work. When workers remove the power lines directly above Ohio 7, it will require some road controls, he said.
"Motorists should expect delays on Tuesday and Wednesday. We won't close the road, but they'll be slowed," Hostetler said.
Hostetler said workers hope to be finished by the end of next week.
The approximately 170-acre Burger site is only a portion of the property needed to construct the massive ethane cracker, as the total proposed project area encompasses about 500 acres. PTT retains an option agreement to purchase the remaining necessary land, consisting of the Ohio-West Virginia Excavating property to the south and west of the R.E. Burger site.
Several smaller parcels in the Dilles Bottom area are not under contract, however, despite efforts by PTT to acquire them.