Replies

In 1983, the State of Illinois and the Commonwealth of Kentucky entered into the Central Midwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact (CMC). This was in response to a federal policy set out in the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, which made each state responsible for assuring that disposal capacity is available for certain categories of low-level radioactive waste generated within its borders.

A three-member commission administers the CMC. Presently, the Illinois commissioners are Gary N. Wright, director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Division of Nuclear Safety, and Philip J. Rock . Dr Edward S. Ford is the chairman and commissioner representing Kentucky. Marcia Marr is the executive director for the commission.

This section includes notices of upcoming meetings, and the availability of reports.

Central Midwest Interstate LLRW Compact Commission

_______________________________________________________

What happens when a nuclear plant closes? Few options show promise for idle U.S. nuke plants

By Bon Susnjara
STAFF WRITER

(Originally published in The News Sun, Aug. 21, 1997)

Perhaps when ComEd's Zion nuclear power plant closes in the next century,the utility might hold a used-equipment sale on the site.It's not like area residents descended on an area south of Sacramento,Calif., for a bargain-hunting excursion when a nuclear plant closed therein 1989 and sold some equipment. Instead, a business in China bought twodiesel generators.

What makes the Rancho Seco situation different from ComEd's plan for Zionis that Sacramento residents voted to close the plant in 1989. While somesay Rancho Seco was plagued by management and operational problems,Sacramento Municipal Utility District spokesman Dace Udris said acombination of factors contributed to its demise.

"I don't think you can say there was one reason why people voted to shut it down," Udris said.

Rancho Seco, which opened in 1975, is about 30 miles southeast ofSacramento in what is known as cattle country. Unlike the Zion plant, fewmade their home near the plant, so its dormancy has not proved to be aneyesore.

The utility district has received approval for its shutdown plan from theNuclear Regulatory Commission. It currently is going through what is calledincremental decommission.

"You take it on a year-by-year basis," Udris said.

One futuristic-sounding plan for one of Rancho Seco's 420-foot coolingtowers surfaced within the past year, only to be rejected by the utilitydistrict. It would have been a test tower for an aero-electric method ofcleaning the air.

Targeted for use in Los Angeles, such towers would rinse pollutants fromthe air. As proposed by physicist Melvin Prueitt, nearly 100 of the towerswould be placed across Los Angeles with water pumped into them from thePacific Ocean.

In 1990, another proposal to re-use Rancho Seco went nowhere. That ideainvolved a company that was considered the country's foremost builder ofsolar electric plants.

Before the Sacramento-area plant shuttered, a lawsuit was filed in 1985that alleged residents were exposed to dangerous radiation levels through adeliberate discharge of contaminated water into a stream. A judgesubsequently dismissed the complaint, which sought $1 billion in damages.Udris said that was not the only suit filed by residents in connection withthe plant. She said a complaint was filed by a group that did not want thenuclear operation to close.

Other plants that have closed within the past eight years are in areas evenmore remote than Rancho Seco. Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts and Fort St.Vrain in Colorado both are away from metropolitan areas, unlike Zion.As part of a phased-in shutdown at the San Onofre nuclear plant inCalifornia to be completed by 2013, one reactor was taken off line in 1992.San Onofre is seaside between San Clemente to the north and Oceanside tothe south.

Oceanside Mayor Dick Lyon said San Onofre is far enough away so that thereare no real economic effects on his city from the plant.
_________________________________________________________

Twin Towers made their impact on Zion

Plant enabled humble city to offer top-line amenities

By Craig Peterson
STAFF WRITER

(Originally published in The News Sun, Aug. 19, 1997)

When John Alexander Dowie founded his church and theocracy in Zion nearly a century ago, his grand plan left out nuclear reactors on the lakefront. In the past 20 years, the hulking power station has had as much of an impact on the city's destiny as Dowie's master plan.

Tax revenues from the plant have improved the education provided to two generations of schoolchildren. The money also has transformed a park district from a loose confederacy of weed lots into a kingdom of neighborhood parks, community centers and recreational facilities. The revenue has had similar effects on all the other local taxing bodies as well.

ComEd property taxes -- nearly $20 million in 1996 -- have bankrolled development of neighborhood parks and recreational facilities at David Park, Hermon Park and the Leisure Center, which was built on a scope unrivaled for a park district the size of Zion's.

"The park district was acquiring (land) for that purpose, but the (nuclear plant tax) money made it come faster," said former Park Board Director Chuck Paxton, who is now the city's mayor. If the plant had never been built, "everything would have taken longer," he said.

ComEd's $19.8 million in taxes last year to Zion Township, whose boundary lines coincide with those of the city, funds 55.1 percent of the local tax base supporting six main taxing bodies: the city, township, two school districts, the park district and the library district.

Residents enjoy neighborhood parks, playground equipment, dozens of basketball and tennis courts, a softball complex, indoor ice-skating rinks, a couple of gymnasium facilities and a bike trail loop around the city. Bolstered by the revenue, the park district and high school jointly built an indoor swimming pool at the high school.

The increased funding improved the district's capability to maintain the large amount of acreage set aside as parkland in Dowie's master plan. The windfall put the district in a strong financial state, which allowed it to issue bonds to do the development immediately.

When Eugene Latz came to Zion as a junior high principal in 1968, the average class size was 38 pupils, many of whom were testing very poorly, he said. Within a few years after the plant was built, class size was down to 25 and test scores were improving by a full grade level in several consecutive years.

The revenue from the plant was the primary reason for the change, said Latz, who retired as the elementary school district's superintendent a few years ago.

The revenue paid for more teachers and allowed the district to implement specialized curriculums, such as high-intensity reading and math instruction for slow-learning students, which proved to be so successful that a high-intensity class outscored the regular classes during year-end testing.

Like the other taxing bodies, the nuclear plant's taxes accounted for 60 percent of the elementary school district's revenue, he said, which eased the burden of moderate- to low-income residents of the community. Unlike school districts in areas with comparable economies, Zion elementary and high schools, subsidized by the utility's property taxes, were able to levy much lower tax rates on residential property taxpayers.

"It would have been very, very difficult for the community to absorb the cost of the education programs had not the plant been there," he said. The elementary schools expanded program offerings, renovated Central Junior High and built Beulah Park School during the first year of the plant's operation.

The revenue windfall also allowed the school district to offer many more programs at higher educational quality than a standard property tax base could have supported, he said, including a student tracking program, a staff development program that increased staff size and promoted higher-quality programming, other curriculum, and recognition and awards for higher test scores.