Blue Valley Retirement

 Blue Valley Power Plant

Reflecting on how it electrified our town

WHEN it opened a solider/president named Ike was midway through his second term. 

The nation was experiencing a stunning World War II baby boom. Automobiles, new roads, home financing all contributed to the sudden and dramatic growth transformation of small communities into growing suburbs. That included Independence.

The new interstate highway system was under construction. I-70 provided 250-miles of concrete highway connecting St. Louis and Kansas City - as well as points further east and west.

The new open-air Blue Ridge Mall had opened in 1957 - an innovative approach to retailing with clusters of stores and anchor business like the Jones Store, Sears and Pennys.

Civic boosters reveled in the rapid growth while others lamented how it was changing the character of the historic small town of former president Harry Truman who had returned to his home and the place he declared as "the center of the world."

The change was rapid and irreversible. In 1940, the population was Independence was 16,066. Twenty years later it had swelled to 62,328 through through a combination of new residents and ambitious annexation unincorporated areas on the western and eastern edges of the city limits.

With the population ballooning - over 46,000 additional residents in two decades - the city utility was hard pressed to meet electrical demand.

The city-owned utility, established by voters in 1901, originally provided electricity to street lights on the Independence Square but grew as the household use of electricity expanded.

The main power plant - now the Sermon Recreation Center - was constructed in 1931 and no longer could meet demand.

What to do?

Build you a new massive power plant.

That was impetus for construction of Blue Valley Power Plant - the modern physical symbol of the city-owned utility with its smokestacks rising above the site on Truman Road. When constructed in 1958, the power plant was actually three miles outside city limits but included in a later annexation.

The $10.5 million project ($94 million in 2020 dollars) was the largest construction project in the history of the city utility. The city paid another $2.5 million to take over a 10.7 mile square territory - served by Kansas City Power and Light - which were annexed by the city in 1948 and 1956.

The Kansas City Star, in an article about the 1958 opening of Blue Valley, noted:

"For the first time in 57 years final connections enabled the company to serve the entire city, plus amass a reserve for industrial expansion and anticipated subdivision development in the recently expanded city limits."

The two Allis-Chalmers steam-driven turbines had a combined capacity of 44 MW. A third 54 MW turbine was added in1965 providing a total capacity of 98 MW - its current configuration.

The number of IPL customers grew from 6,835 customers in 1955 to 29,317 by 1965 - a 400% increase. It reached a peak summer load of 54 MW in July 1963. NOTE: The all-time summer peak was 315 MW in 2003. The population was over 115,000 and most homes were air-conditioned adding the to electrical load.

The rapid growth and additional revenue allowed IPL to modernize including installing traffic and street lights.

Independence continued to grow.

Blue Valley was a work horse meeting a significant part of the community's electric demand. The plant, at various times, burned natural gas or coal depending on the availability and pricing of the fossil fuel.

Blue Valley was the heart and soul - and a considerable source of pride - for the city-owned utility.

Things change

Fast forward.

The community continues to grow. The electrical industry undergoes several major changes. It becomes cheaper to purchase power rather than generate your own. For external appearances, Blue Valley looks much the same but inside the turbines fire up less and produce little power.

Blue Valley becomes largely irrelevant running infrequently. In recent years, Blue Valley produced less than 2% of IPL's system load. The turbines run rarely, they are inefficient and expensive to repair.

The chart, showing Blue Valley production, tells the tale.

A resolution to close Blue Valley was considered by the City Council in December 2018, but delayed while the utility figured out how to replace the 98 MW generating capacity that would be lost by the plant closure. Once that was resolved - it entered into a 10-year agreement for capacity - there was little reason to keep Blue Valley running.

Retirement

After 62 years, like a long-time employee, the Blue Valley power plant will be officially be retired next month.

In March, city employees at Blue Valley received 60-day notices about potential job losses. The IPL Power Production department is being reduced from 25 current positions to 14 with expected further reductions down to 10 employees in the next 18 months.

The city is considering possible alternatives for the power plant - perhaps a battery farm on site or converting to the plant to bio fuels - but this will be private endeavors. 

The decision to finally close has been a long time coming and perhaps long overdue.

But we should pause, for a moment and appreciate the role Blue Valley played in the development of modern day Independence.

The 1958 Kansas City Star headline trumpeting the Blue Valley opening read:

BIG POWER UNIT GOES INTO USE

Who or how will note this concluding chapter - its retirement - and what an appropriate headline for that occasion should be.