A federal judge will hear arguments Friday that could delay Sunday's scheduled demolition of Murray's smokestacks.
But an attorney who hopes the demolition will go forward is not concerned.
"The judge just needs to hear the whole story, needs to hear the amount of planning and effort that's taken place over the last two years and what has happened in the last week," said Cullen Battle.
Battle is an attorney representing Hi-Ute Investment Co., which owns the former smelter site where the smokestacks sit. They are scheduled to fall to make way for a $100 million commercial development called Chimney Ridge.
A group of residents at the nearby Lost Creek Apartment complex filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court seeking an injunction to halt the 9 a.m. demolition of Murray's landmark smokestacks.
The group, calling itself "Citizens for a Healthy Environment," contends the demolition plan, which has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, is unsafe because of the dust cloud containing toxins that will result when the contaminated stacks are brought to the ground.
In arguments Wednesday before Judge Thomas Greene, the group scored a minor victory when the judge issued an order for demolition crews to stop any additional work that would compromise the integrity of the stacks.
The work is to cease until the judge has a chance to hear the both sides of the argument at 8 a.m. Friday.
Despite the wishes of the nearby apartment residents, Battle said it is too late to stop the demolition and feel good about what would be left standing should the group win its argument.
"We're halfway through the demolition process," he said. "There's no going back. It's even more unstable than it was a week ago, and it was unstable then." The added instability comes from two full days of work this week by demolition crews preparing the stacks for toppling. The chief blaster compared it to felling a couple of trees in a forest.
He said "legging up the stack," the work already completed Monday and Tuesday, compromises the structural stability of the stack. The "legging up" is needed so when the explosives go off, the stacks fall in a predictable pattern.
Eric Kelly, co-founder of Engineered Demolition in Hayden Lake, Idaho, called the task of toppling Murray's stacks a relatively simple job.
"On a scale of one to 10, this is a two."
Kelly and his crew will use 135 pounds of explosives to bring down the north stack, the larger of the two, and 165 pounds to make the south stack fall. The latter is requiring more "boom" because its construction is different.
Kelly, who has devoted 21 years to making things fall and crumble in countries around the world, wasn't overly concerned about Friday's possible decision. "I'll go home."
Eleanor Dwight, with the EPA, wasn't as nonchalant.
"These stacks are becoming more and more unstable by the hour," she said.
Sunday's demolition, if it goes off on schedule, would require Murray police to assign more than 50 officers to guard the perimeter of the blast site, force the evacuation in advance of several nearby homes and require State Street, 5300 South and several feeder roads to be temporarily shut down.
Of more concern than the demolition is what to do with the inevitable crowd of spectators who would show up to catch a glimpse of history.
"Our standing is that the best place for viewing this will be on your television at home," said Murray police detective Rob Hall.
Murray Mayor Daniel Snarr made a plea for the public to sit back in their recliners and take it in live on televised broadcasts.
There are no plans, both Snarr and Hall stressed, on where to put people or facilities to accommodate them should they show up in droves.
"One of our bigger nightmares is what to do with the people," EPA's Dwight said.
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com