The Presque Isle Power Plant is seen in a photo taken Sunday. Piece by piece, the former coal-fired generating facility is being demolished with completion expected early next year. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

MARQUETTE — Take a stroll down Lakeshore Boulevard in Marquette’s Upper Harbor, and the view you see is most likely to be different every single day.

The view of the Presque Isle Power Plant, that is. Demolition of the plant is continuing safely, officials with We Energies told The Mining Journal recently. The Milwaukee-based energy company owns the property.

The plant’s two chimneys were removed last summer and universal waste such as light bulbs, ballasts, oils and grease, refrigerant and other materials were also removed.

Work has now commenced on other portions of the site.

“The demolition is continuing safely,” said Brendan Conway, media relations manager for We Energies’ parent company, WEC Energy Group. “The Unit 1-4 and Unit 5-6 back end emission control equipment, including the baghouse, have been removed from the site. All turbine and generator equipment have been removed and the turbine building demolition is near complete. We recently finished removal of the intake structure from Lake Superior. The boiler buildings and boiler demolition is underway.”

Demolition on the plant’s baghouse was temporarily halted by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy in February after concerns of dust coming from the demolition.

In order for baghouse work to resume, EGLE requested the demolition team, Brandenburg Industrial Service Co., enclose the exposed portion of the baghouse to prevent further dust contamination within the vicinity. Work on the baghouse resumed soon after EGLE’s pause.

Conway said demolition remains on course.

“We remain on schedule to complete demolition activities in the second quarter of 2022,” he said.

The coal-fired plant was retired and taken offline in March 2019 and replaced with two natural gas plants located in Baraga and Negaunee Township.

We Energies previously stated that it’s aiming to make its electric generation fleet net carbon neutral by 2050 and reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 70% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Ryan Spitza can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. His email address is rspitza@miningjournal.net.