Three Stacks and a Rock

For most of a lifetime, Morro Bay had two skyline giants. One was natural and ancient, Morro Rock. The other was man made and modern, a trio of towering concrete smokestacks standing roughly four hundred fifty feet tall.

Together they earned the town an affectionate nickname, Three Stacks and a Rock. The stacks belonged to the Morro Bay power plant, which Pacific Gas and Electric began building in the nineteen fifties on the shore of the bay. The location was chosen so the plant could draw ocean water to carry away the tremendous heat it produced.

For decades it burned oil and natural gas to make electricity, and its stacks became such a fixed part of the view that residents used them as a compass. Times changed. The costs of upgrading the aging plant to meet modern environmental rules, especially rules protecting sea life from the plant's water intake, led to its shutdown in twenty fourteen.

Under an agreement with the city, the owner is set to demolish the plant and take down the three stacks, with a deadline of twenty twenty-eight. When they come down, they will be mourned. A landmark can be loved even when it is a smokestack, and generations of locals grew up with those three concrete towers standing watch beside the rock.