The Massengale power plant – shuttered since early 2024 – is a “pending environmental nightmare” in need of demolition, according to Joel Ivy, chief administrative officer for Lubbock Power and Light.
“In the past, we have kicked the can down the road for doing projects like that, and we always, always, always regret it,” Ivy told the Lubbock City Council on September 8.
Lubbock Power & Light (LP&L) plans to spend about $7 million to tear down and remediate the old Robert Massengale power plant at 402 Massengale Drive in North Lubbock.
“It must come down,”
christy martinez garcia
Mayor Mark McBrayer disagreed with Ivy and thought demolition could be delayed in favor of diverting money back to electric customers in Lubbock. He’s not convinced the defunct plant is an urgent problem.
The council was considering LP&L’s rate structure and the demolition plan came up as part of the overall discussion.
LP&L will pay for the demolition with money soon to be freed up by ending payments to ERCOT transmission customers. When Lubbock switched to ERCOT from the Southwest Power Pool, LP&L had to make “hold harmless” payments to offset the cost of adding the city. When those payments end, it frees $14 million in the coming year.
Reasons to tear it down
During the council meeting, Christy Martinez Garcia, councilmember for District 1, described a sense of urgency – just like Ivy.
“It must come down,” Martinez Garcia said to the council.
She later told LubbockReport.com, “We have an asbestos issue. We have vandalism happening. We have birds that have made it their habitation, which you know creates not the most hygienic environment for a facility like that. Plus, it’s an older facility. So, it has become an eyesore.”
Matt Rose, chief public affairs officer for LP&L, told LubbockReport.com, “Absolutely it’s going to be asbestos and all of the chemicals that you have to properly dispose of. That’s a part of why this process is important and it’s part of why it can become expensive.”
“Every year that you don’t deal with that plant – that’s now been taken out of service – is just more years that it can possibly contaminate and do other harmful things in the area,” he said.
“I don’t know what the rush was now. They say it’s a nuisance – it’s a liability. I’m not 100 percent sure.”
mark mcbrayer, mayor
Martinez Garcia said, “That facility is about less than half a mile from one of the neighborhoods.”
People in District 1 are tired of being the place industrial buildings pile up, she said.
“We have a lot of empty buildings too. We need our neighborhood to have as much pride and also to be a priority as any other neighborhoods in the community,” Martinez Garcia said.
She and Rose both said homeless people have broken into the place looking for shelter. And people also broke in – looking for scrap metal to steal.
Rose said, “The minute that a facility goes out of use on a day-to-day basis, it becomes an attraction for people believing that there are some sort of precious metals inside of it. So, the monitoring and the upkeep and the safety of it again becomes an increasingly large budget number every year.”
The cost includes insurance, and if something leaks, environmental violations become very expensive, he added.
“We have an example of a power plant – that is Plant 1. That’s the original power plant [at 5th Street and Avenue J] that’s down in the arts district across from LHUCA. That building is still standing there today because several decades ago, work was not done to just fully bring that to the ground,” Rose said.
Official records showed the city sold Plant 1 to a Lubbock-based company “as-is” for $50,000 in 2019. Lubbock had done some but not all of the environmental cleanup before the sale, according to the sale contract.
But since then, the plant is still sitting there with a “for sale or lease” sign out front.
“You still have an old power plant structure that’s just sitting there,” Rose said.
LP&L does not have a specific plan in mind yet for the Massengale property, but the city owns it and can “make the best use of it,” Rose said.
Behind the Massengale name
The City Council renamed LP&L Plant No. 2 as the J. Robert Massengale Generating Station on May 14, 1998.
His son, Steve Massengale, told LubbockReport.com, “The naming of that facility coincided with them installing a new turbine out there to generate electricity.”
“Dad was just a really great leader, and he treated people fairly and he always got the job done,” Steve said.
That leadership included being the financial director, assistant city manager and later the LP&L director.
“I still run into people that served on the City Council that want to talk about dad, who, by the way, is still around,” Steve said.
The family has known for years, since the time Steve was serving on the City Council, that Lubbock would join ERCOT and the power plant would be shut down, he said.
When asked if he’d like the city or LP&L to name something else in honor of his dad, Steve said, “I would love to see them honor his service with the city.”
Mayor questions the urgency
McBrayer told LubbockReport.com, “I don’t know what the rush was now. They say it’s a nuisance – it’s a liability. I’m not 100 percent sure.”
The plant has been there for years, he said.
“It’s not in someone’s neighborhood. It’s over on Municipal Hill with the city property and all that. I just didn’t think it was that big of a priority for me. … I think there are other priorities that are more important.”
LP&L promised the public as the “hold harmless” payments went away, citizens would see a reduction in the LP&L portion of their electric bills, the mayor said.
“They decided they needed to spend that $14 million on capital improvements, including tearing down Massengale,” McBrayer said.
A portion of the monthly bill in Lubbock comes from LP&L. The most of it comes from providers in the state’s competitive electric market.
“I was trying to get votes for LP&L to lower their rates a little bit,” McBrayer said.
The city’s Electric Utility Board sets the LP&L budget, however, the City Council still has oversight of the budget, including rates for transmission fees.
Martinez Garcia said to Ivy in the public discussion, “I want to see reductions, because I complained to you about my own utility bill.”
But she also wanted to see the shuttered power plant torn down.
“They have a funding opportunity that they have been very careful in preparing for,” Martinez Garcia said.