Prep work finished for demolition at Asarco

Watch live video, get updates from Asarco smokestacks demolition on Saturday See photos, past stories on Asarco special section

The stage is set.

The former Asarco copper smelter site in West-Central El Paso is ready for the $1-million-plus demolition of two large smokestacks to take place near sunrise Saturday.

"Our team has been working very hard to prepare the site, and I think we left no stone unturned to make

Most of the preparation work was done last week, and the installation of a huge water-mist system, one of the dust-control mechanisms, was completed this week, Puga reported.

A 612-foot smokestack, about the height of a 50-story building, used at the site's long-closed lead smelter, will be demolished first with a blast of explosives.

That will be followed about eight seconds later with a blast to demolish the iconic, 828-foot smokestack used for the copper smelter, which stopped operations in 1999. That 47-year-old stack, almost the height of a 70-story building, is visible for

It's that stack that Sunland Park restaurateur Roberto Ardovino spent about a year leading an unsuccessful effort to try to save. Ardovino sees the smokestack as a historic landmark that could have anchored the site's eventual redevelopment.

Come Saturday, Ardovino said, he plans to be out of town.

"I won't watch it," Ardovino said of the stacks' demolition. "It's a real low spot in El Paso history."

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Prep work finished for demolition at Asarco