Officials with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) say demolition is expected to be completed by next April.

The owner of the site is identified in a DEP asbestos and demolition form provided to the Times Observer as Trogon Development LLC, which is based in Canovanas, Puerto Rico.

“Asbestos removal began back on June 14, 2021 and the demolition began on October 11, 2021,” Tom Decker, DEP Community Relations Coordinator, explained. “Both are to be completed by April 2, 2022.”

The form details the asbestos work that is to be completed and states that “once all hazardous materials are abated, the facility is to be demolished by B&B Wrecking,” a Cleveland, Ohio, firm.

Times Observer file photo The coal-fired arm of the Warren Generating Station operated from 1948 until 2002. A natural gas and fuel oil-fired facility now operates on the site.

Online county assessment records indicate that the firm owns two parcels — one identified as 20085 Route 6 and the other identified only as “Route 6.”

The company purchased the two parcels for a total of $3.32 million in March 2021 from RRI Energy Inc. and Genon Rema LLC, respectively.

Together, the parcels include nearly 100 acres.

According to a 1977 article published in the Times Observer, the plant was coal-fired. The coal itself largely came from strip mines in Clarion County and was trucked to the facility.

The coal was crushed on-site into a fine powder, which made it burn hotter and more efficiently in the boiler system. The steam then entered the turbines, also called the generator shaft, that powered a rotor, a direct current electromagnet revolving in a housing that produced a magnetic field. Electricity was produced as the rotor continually passed through that magnetic field.

The Times Observer report indicated that the capacity was 82,500 kilowatts, 42,500 from each of two identical units. That was estimated to be able to likeht 850,000 100 watt lamps, though the electricity generated in Starbrick was “integrated into a tri-state network assuring adequate power supplies for all customers.”

DEP information indicates that the current use of the site includes a 57-megawatt natural gas and fuel oil-fired generation station.

The station being demolished “previously had housed two coal-fired 40-megawatt steam electric generation units that were installed in 1948 and 1949, respectively, and retired in September 2002,” according to DEP.

The site drew heavy public interest several years ago over a permit renewal for a coal ash wastewater outfall permit — that had been in place for decades — that permitted treated water to enter the Allegheny River.