In early March—amid subzero temperatures—project team members involved in environmental upgrades to a coal-fired generating plant in Michigan City, Ind., were waiting for the waters of Lake Michigan to warm up so they could resume barge shipments of preassembled components required to complete the dry flue-gas desulfurization of Northern Indiana Public Service Co.'s (NIPSCO) Unit 12. The $246-million project, sited near Lake Michigan's shoreline, reunites many of the firms involved in a similar undertaking at a NIPSCO plant in Wheatfield Ind., including Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Graycor Industrial Constructors Inc., the project's mechanical contractor, and Chicago-based engineer Sargent & Lundy. This time, however, project particulars couldn't have been more different.
"While the Wheatfield station rests on 2,900 acres, our Michigan City station occupies only 114 acres," says Jason D. Klaich, director, major generation projects. "Of that, we have 31 acres for staging." It amounts to scant space for a project requiring nearly 300 tradesmen to install more than 30,000 lineal ft of pipe, 3,000 tons of ductwork plate and 4,000 tons of structural steel, all in support of erecting a pair of spray dryer absorbers, or scrubbers; a pair of pulse-jet filters, or baghouses; and pebble lime and hydrated lime silos, all critical to bringing Unit 12's sulfur-based emissions in accordance with federal regulations.