Highly visible site in Greece soon will be gone

Here's one longtime landmark in Greece that won't be around for too much longer. Russell Station, a generating plant of Rochester Gas & Electric, has been shut down for years and is scheduled for demolition. With its large twin smokestacks, the Beach Avenue plant can be spotted from miles away and has long been a landmark for boaters on Lake Ontario.

For decades, fishermen and women of all sorts flocked to the creek in front of Russell Station. Brownhead trout, steelhead trout and salmon were abundant there.

"A tunnel goes way out into Lake Ontario," said RG&E spokesman Daniel Hucko, who used to fish there. "It sucked in the cold water for the boilers and it would discharge back out through Slater Creek. The large plume of warm water would attract fish. People would catch there all the time."

Russell Station was dedicated in 1948. A brochure from the dedication called the plant "the latest and most efficient type of steam-operated electric generating plant." The site covers 124 acres, and the plant is set back about 1,000 feet from the shoreline.

"The plant will produce three times as much electrical energy from each pound of coal as was possible 20 years ago," notes the brochure, which was provided by RG&E officials.

Alexander Beebee, then-president of RG&E, called the lakeside plant "one of the most modern of its kind in the world." Upon completion, the plant represented a $27 million investment by RG&E, Beebee noted in comments in the brochure, and would double the generating capacity of RG&E's electrical system.

The plant was named after Herman Russell, who worked his way up the ranks at RG&E before serving as company president from 1929 to 1946. The name was not revealed until just minutes before the dedication; the working name during initial construction was "Lakeside Station." (A plant near High Falls, also now closed and slated for demolition, was named after Beebee.)

An RG&E newsletter from 1956 noted that Russell Station was selected as "The World's Most Beautiful Utility" by the American Association of Nurserymen. RG&E's award was part of the Industrial Landscaping Contest. The American Landscaping Association had started distributing the awards just three years prior, to "encourage and stimulate more interest in the landscaping and beautification of industrial and other buildings."

Russell Station was RG&E's largest power plant until the Ginna nuclear plant went into service in 1970, according to RG&E documents.

Costly environmental requirements led RG&E to close Russell Station in 2008. Four years later, the demolition plans were announced and still are in effect, Hucko said. Environmental cleanup will include removal of asbestos and lead-based paint, and contaminated soils will be removed and replaced with clean fill, Hucko said.

"We're going to take it down to the ground," he said. The work is expected to begin this year.

Story by Alan Morrell, a Rochester-based freelance writer.