Assessment continues at old Acme Power Plant

Assessment work continues at the old Acme Power Plant, but Carrie Rogaczewski said most of the field work outside the facility is now complete.

Rogaczewski is manager of the Sheridan County Conservation District, which owns the plant.

She said she hopes some kind of outreach meeting can be scheduled later this summer or in early fall.

Rogaczewski said the assessments, when completed, will be used to develop alternatives for remediation and clean-up of the plant and approximately five-acre site, including estimates of what the work will cost.

She said the focus of the current work is the grounds outside the plant. When that work is complete, the conservation district is expected to turn attention to assessment of the plant itself.

The current assessment work is being done by WWC Engineering under a contract with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.

The coal-fired Acme Power Plant was built in 1910 and operated until 1976, providing electrical power to the city of Sheridan as well as, in the early years, the coal mines and coal camps that once dotted the area. After power-producing operations ceased, the plant was allegedly used for other, unregistered activities including car crushing and battery recycling. The Sheridan County Conservation District bought the plant site in 2017 in cooperation with the Sheridan Community Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy.