The Kennecott Smokestack is a 380 metre high smokestack near Tooele, Utah, USA and west of Salt Lake City, Utah at 40° 43′18″N, 112° 11′52″W. It was built in order to spread the exhaust gases far away from the area of the Kennecott [1] smelter for copper. This was done when environmental rules were such that waste gases could be released in large quantities as long as they were diluted. At that time, up to 48,000 pounds per hour of sulfur dioxide were released. The stack remains as monument of that time but is still used to exhaust remaining gases after a thorough recovery/scrubbing operation. In 1995 a cleaner smelter was built in cooperation with the Finnish company Outokumpu. Only a few pounds per hour are now released. The company produces and sells approximately 1,000,000 tons of sulfuric acid made from the formerly released gas. [2] The stack is 120 feet in diameter at the bottom and rises directly from the ground. It was built in the mid 1970's. A large glass fiber reinforced plasic duct passes up the stack and carries gases to the top. The top can be accessed by a Swiss-built elevator that crawls up a gear track on the inside surface. It takes 10 minutes to ascend the stack. It is not open to the public, but those few who have been at the top are priveleged with a magnificent view of the adjacent Great Salt Lake [3] and Oquirrh [4] mountain range. Tooele is a city located in Tooele County in the U.S. state of Utah. ... ...
The history of Kennecott Copper Corporation is inseparable from the story of the development of copper mining in Utah.
Construction of the Bingham and Garfield Railroad commenced in 1907 to transport ores from Bingham to the Magna and Arthur mills at the northern base of the Oquirrh Mountains.
Kennecott, under RTZ, continued to expand in various mining ventures in the United States and throughout the world.
Kennecott is well into more than a dozen expensive moving and construction projects to clean up and contain its hazardous wastes, and it is working on plans to deal with major long-term problems, such as the groundwater contamination.
Kennecott knew in the late 1960s that a reservoir for holding leach water at the mouth of Bingham Canyon was leaking millions of gallons a day.
Kennecott favors a $102 million plan to contain the core area of contamination with pumps and to build a treatment plant to deliver clean water to residents in the contaminated area.
Feeds |
Contact