If all goes well, a series of 53 explosions using 726 pounds of dynamite will cause the remaining portion of the huge powerhouse at Lakeview Generating Station to start folding in on itself in collapse early on June 25.

The remaining structure, about 1,200 feet long, 300 feet wide and 200 feet high, will implode, causing a giant dust cloud that will drift out over Lake Ontario, if weather conditions cooperate, a spokesperson for Murray Demolition said yesterday at an information session for local ratepayers.

“The key is to wait for the right weather conditions,” Kareem El-Khatib told The News at the former coal-fired station, which closed in April 2005.

The ideal conditions would be a northwest wind of at least 20 km/h and pouring rain, El-Khatib said.

The wind is critical to blow the dust out over the lake and away from the residential area to the north. Rain will help reduce dust when the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of equipment and steel hit the ground.

The implosion is designed to have the structure destroyed in sequence, so that the demolished sections pile up on one another. The twisted remains should be about 100 feet deep.

Instead of removing huge pressure vessels suspended from the roof, it was deemed safer to leave them up and have them fall into the pile of refuse that will be created below.
If there's not a strong northwest or north wind, the explosion will not go ahead, even if it means waiting all day or until later in the week.

Because the main force of the dust ball created by the demolition will go out over the lake, the exclusion zone for boats has been extended from one to two kilometres. There will be a 500-metre ban on movement around the plant for people and cars. No traffic will be permitted on Lakefront Promenade for an hour before the scheduled 7:30 a.m. blast.

The debris created by demolition of the iconic “Four Sisters," the nearly 500-ft. tall stacks at the plant knocked down one year ago, has been piled up around the site to create a kind of berm to reduce the impact on surrounding homes.

Most of the equipment in the powerhouse has already been removed and disassembled. The coal pile, which along with the stacks was the identifying symbol of the plant for 43 years, has also been removed. That area has been cleared to the ground and re-seeded.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has donated several artifacts from the plant to the City of Mississauga, which included the plant in its cultural landscape inventory because of its historical significance. It's hoped the artifacts will be displayed in local parks near the site.

Richard Schwass, OPG senior communications advisor, said about 90 per cent of the material from the powerhouse will either be reused or sold for recycling, including much of the high-quality steel used to construct the plant in the 1950s.

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