After being shelved for a year, a study of decommissioning the coal-fired Martin Drake Power Plant downtown is back on the table.

The Colorado Springs Utilities Board is poised to decide Wednesday whether to move ahead with the study or continue to wait until next year.

The board, which is composed of the City Council, voted 7-2 in July to wait until 2013 to conduct the study. But since the vote, the board has been under pressure to launch it right away.

“I think there’s a lot of support, let me put it that way, to go ahead and start the study now rather than waiting until 2013,” City Council President Pro Tem Jan Martin said Tuesday.

Martin, who voted with the majority in July, said she’s changed her mind.

“I think there’s been a lot of community interest in the future of Drake, and I think it’s time to move forward,” she said.

The Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and EDC is among the interested parties. The group sent a letter to the board Sept. 10 requesting an “expedited study.”

“The Chamber and EDC Board believes it is imperative that the Drake study be conducted immediately to protect the long-term public interest of our community,” board Chairman Doug Quimby wrote.

“Calling for the immediate commencement of the Drake study raises the question of whether installation of the NeuStream technology at Drake should continue at this time,” Quimby added, referring to a clean coal technology being tested at the aging facility.

“The Chamber and EDC takes no position on that issue, as deciding how to proceed is the responsibility of the Utilities Board,” he said.

Martin emphasized that the board’s earlier decision to move ahead with plans to install the so-called scrubber technology at Drake won’t change Wednesday. Neumann Systems was awarded a $73.5 million contract last year to install its NeuStream sulfur dioxide scrubber system at Drake.

“This is very different than the decision that was made to move forward with Neumann,” she said.

The two issues, however, are intertwined.

During the Utilities Board meeting in July, Councilwomen Angela Dougan and Brandy Williams voted to conduct the study immediately.

At the time, the board considered moving the technology to the Ray Nixon Power Plant south of Colorado Springs. But the board majority decided to wait until 2013 to conduct the study and move forward with plans to install the technology at Drake.

In August, after several people asked the board to reconsider its decision on the study, Councilmen Tim Leigh and Val Snider sided with Dougan and Williams. But they still were in the minority.

This month, the proposed study was added to the agenda at the last minute.

Dougan said she didn’t find out about it until contacted by The Gazette.

“I was going to walk in blind tomorrow,” she said.

Mayor Steve Bach has been urging the board to move ahead with the study and even went so far as predicting an outpouring of community support.

“I think you’re going to find a growing number of other community leaders believe that we are at a point in time where we need to rethink everything we’re doing” at Colorado Springs Utilities, Bach said in August.

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Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623

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The Martin Drake power plant in 2001. Photo by