Carlsbad Aquafarm is leaving Agua Hedionda Lagoon for other environmental enterprises after the property owner, NRG Energy, discontinued the lease on the site.
“We have other things,” owner Tom Grimm said Tuesday. “We are pivoting our business model to living shoreline projects … such as using oyster shells to create reefs and nesting areas.”
NRG Energy began demolition of the 400-foot Encina Power Station stack this week. The apparatus mounted around the top of the stack, known as the Mende Spider, is equipped with a jackhammer that breaks the concrete in a cylindrical pattern; the pieces of the stack fall through the center of the stack and are recovered from the bottom. NRG estimates the device will remove the stack about 10 feet per day. At this rate, NRG anticipates removing the top 350 feet of the Encina stack by the end of April. The remaining 50 feet will be removed from the ground by an excavator.
Anyone who’s driven past the Encina Power Station, a coastal Carlsbad landmark since the 1950s, can’t miss the changes in recent weeks.
Demolition of the old power plant is finally underway. Scaffolding lines the seaward side of the boxy concrete building, and there’s more at the top of its distinctive 400-foot-tall smokestack.
