Fairbury Power Plant Continues To Cost City

By Gordon HopkinsThe City of Fairbury recently spent $37,115 to make portions of the now-defunct Fairbury Municipal Power Plant accessible to city staff.In 2022, a company that contracted with the City of Fairbury to remove obsolete machines from the power plant left the building so badly contaminated with friable asbestos that no person was allowed enter without a respirator. While the power plant no longer provides electricity to the city, it must still be accessed by city staff for a variety of reasons. Most notably, the pumps for the Crystal Springs wellfield are located in that building.With that in mind, the city hired Lincoln-based Bockmann Inc., a company that specializes in environmental remediation, abatement and demolition, to make portions of the building safe. Fairbury Mayor Kelly Davis told FJN, “It has been professionally cleaned and sealed off from the rest of the building. They also made a tunnel so we can access the high volume water pumps and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system.” The city opted to clean only parts of the building because abating the entire building is expected to cost between $1-$1.5 million, according to Ron Thompson, project manager for Bockmann Inc. Thompson emphasized this is a very rough figure in an email to city staff earlier this year, “I think that may be a little high but it depends on time of year the work is done and a few other circumstances.”It should be noted that the power plant will still need to be cleaned of asbestos at some point before the building can be demolished. To find funding for the abatement, the City of Fairbury has applied for a Brownfields grant from the EPA (Environmental protection Agency), as part of a Coalition Assessment Grant application lead by the Southeast Nebraska Development District. An announcement is anticipated in late May of this year.Last week, the White House announced a 65 percent cut to the EPA’s workforce and activities. However, Frank Uhlarik, Brownfields and Sustainability Senior Project Manager with Stantec Consulting Services, advised FJN on an email that he doesn’t believe the Brownfields grant will be impacted by the cuts. Uhlarik wrote, “(T)he FY 25 announcements are still on target for late May announcements, and we are hearing that funding levels are expected to remain strong. Because the Brownfields program is largely an economic driver, it has generally had bipartisan support through the years.”

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