The power company NRG will need a few extra months to demolish the old Encina Power Station on Carlsbad Boulevard, but the work will start on schedule and there’s no chance of preserving the plant’s signature seaside smokestack, officials said.

The Carlsbad City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an extension of up to nine months to complete the demolition. Under an agreement NRG signed with the city in 2014, work was required to begin this December and be finished in two years.

However, two components of the now shut-down plant remain in service and require the delay. One is the seawater pumps, which were installed to cool the fuel oil- and natural gas-burning plant. The pumps now provide water to the nearby desalination plant operated by Poseidon Water.

Poseidon has ordered its own replacement pumps, which are expected to be delivered this year and installed by the end of April 2020, Poseidon Senior Vice Present Peter MacLaggan said at Tuesday’s meeting.


The other hold-up is that the 400-foot-tall smokestack holds an antenna used by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department for its radio communication system, which is also used by the Carlsbad Police Department. The antenna is needed until the Sheriff’s Department completes the installation of a new communications system to be finished in March.

The Encina station was replaced by the construction of a more efficient power plant that went into service last December on the property.

NRG Vice President Eric Leuze said Wednesday he views the demolition with mixed emotions. The old power plant was built in the early 1950s, and the smokestack was added in 1978 to replace four smaller ones as part of an expansion.

“I also empathize with some of those in the local community who believe the stack should be preserved,” Leuze said. “But ... that’s just not possible.”


The city’s agreement with NRG requires the company to remove the building and the smokestack to ground level, he said. Also, the demolition plan was approved by the state Energy Commission in a public process that requires its completion.

“We are fully committed to fulfilling our obligations under the settlement agreement, but we need an extension of the demolition deadline,” Leuze said.

“The stack will not be imploded,” he said, to the disappointment of some who had hoped for a more dramatic end.

The tower will be taken apart gradually, starting at the top, with a jackhammer suspended from a crane. The concrete that’s broken up will be dropped into the stack and sprinkled with water to hold down the dust, he said.


The power plant was one of the city’s first large employers, aside from farming, and has long been a landmark on the North County coast.

“It’s a big part of our history,” said Councilman Keith Blackburn, who asked NRG to assemble some statistics about the plant that could be used by schoolchildren and others. Leuze agreed.

Resident Kerry Siekmann, a former city planning commissioner, told the city that extending the deadline should not be necessary. She said it will allow more time for increased noise and other environmental effects in the neighborhood, and that it “makes no sense.”

“You guys need to toughen up on them and say, ‘What are you going to do for us?’” Siekmann said.


Leuze responded that the delay “should not imply any lack of commitment ... to pursue the demolition as quickly as possible.”

“We are responsible for the full cost of demolition to grade,” he said. “The quicker it’s done, the better it is for us.”