Unstable smokestack is being manually demolished.
The Cedar Rapids smokestack that garnered so much attention in recent months began coming down yesterday morning with little fanfare.
Two workers from D.W. Zinser of Walford sprayed water and used a pneumatic jackhammer to dismantle the 55 metre (180-foot) tall smokestack at the former Sinclair meatpacking plant.
At a rate of about one foot an hour, the century-old brick structure began falling, beginning about 9:30 a.m. Only a handful of reporters and city staff watched, with one observer who had known workers at the plant, also known as Wilson & Co. and Farmstead Foods.
“They’re moving right along now,” said John Riggs, the city’s project manager for flood demolition.
Riggs said the entire Sinclair site, flooded in 2008 and damaged by two subsequent fires, is treated as if contains hazardous materials, such as asbestos.
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