TONAWANDA, N.Y. — Did you hear a loud boom at 6 a.m. Saturday? If so, don't be alarmed. It was just the planned implosion of three large smokestacks on an environmental brownfield and superfund site in Tonawanda.
The former Tonawanda Coke facility closed in 2018, after years of controversy, environmental disaster, and countless community meetings that ultimately led to the plant's demise.
Cleanup crews have been remediating the site of the former Tonawanda Coke plant since October of 2019. OCS, Inc, based in Buffalo, has been working on the site remediation. According to officials with OSC, more than 4,000 tons of waste, asbestos, and other chemicals have been removed from the site since it shut down in 2018.
Now the removal of the three smokestacks are the next steps in remediating the site for a future technology park.
"It's really the only way we can do it in a controlled manner, as old and degraded these chimneys are," said John Yensan, President of OSC, Inc.
Ahead of the implosion, officials were telling Western New Yorkers "don't come here to try and watch."
"We don't want people here," Yensan said. "We have to control the size of the crowd, we're limited to the area we can safely accommodate people.
Yensan added: "We have COVID-19 restrictions in place, and it's really the only safe place on-site to view it. We have areas outside the site to see it from, River Road, Grand Island Boulevard."
Yensan stressed to not create a potential traffic hazard to see the implosion.
Much of the Tonawanda Coke faculty has been removed, including 13 storage containers on the site. Once the stacks come down Saturday morning, even less of the facility will remain, making room for further environmental cleanup and a new chapter in the history of this site.
