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Part I: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Ray and Irene Zukley of Zion, Illinois were forced to sell this Lake Michigan beach cottage to make way for Zion Nuclear Station back in the late 60s. The Zukley's and other Zion residents hoped the plant would last for at least forty years, but after fits and starts, it closed fifteen years early. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Transcript

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Irene and Ray Zukley have been together so long, they finish each others sentences.

Especially when I ask how things were in Zion, Illinois back in the 60s.

Zuckley: “The factories were getting downgraded.”

Allee: “What were those?”

Zuckley: “It was the curtain factory, the cookie factory, chocolates and Zion fig
bars.”

But just then, the power company said it would spend hundreds of millions on a nuclear
power plant.

Irene Zukley says most people welcomed it.

“Ray and I never worried about it, you know we just wanted progress is what we
wanted. When you think of having taxes lowered for everybody in Zion, that made
you feel, what else would come in and do that?”

Irene and Ray Zukley were forced to sell their family’s beach cottage to make room for
Zion reactor number one.

Beachfront neighbors did the same.

But, like the Zukleys predicted, taxes and jobs rolled into Zion.

It was supposed to be a forty year windfall.

But it didn’t last.

When you visit the power plant, it’s nearly empty.

“What we’ve got here is what used to be a full-fledged control room.”

Ron Schuster runs what’s left of the Zion nuclear power plant.

Once, it had more than eight hundred employees.

Now, Schuster and about fifty workers help manage the regional power grid.

They also monitor radioactive spent fuel waste.

The generators have been offline since 1997.

“There were large pieces of equipment essential to making electricity that would
have needed total replacement going forward. We’re talking significant dollars so
the economic decision by the board of directors that Zion station would go into safe-
store mode.”

That means the power plant and Zion have been in limbo for ten years.

The radioactive fuel is still on site, but the plant provides no power, few jobs and a
fraction of the property taxes.

Delaine Rogers is Zion’s economic development director. She says the town didn’t plan
on this.

“You’re in a community that has welcomed you. We haven’t had an antagonistic
relationship. They’re not going to close. But they did. And it took 17 million dollars
of our local revenues. We were facing losing all our arts and music and sports in our
schools. How do you fund police the police department. How do you fix potholes? It
was a very scary time.”

Lately, the power company’s gone back and forth about when it will decommission, or
dismantle, the power plant.

It could be done ten years from now or it could take decades more.

But even when most of the buildings are gone, there’s still the radioactive spent fuel.

“They’re just going to leave it. They’re going to put a football-sized concrete pad
filled with 80-90 casks of stored fuel on site, above ground. Tell me how you get a
private developer to think residential or retail. I’m not buying the first condo.”

Dozens of towns are stuck in relationships with dormant nuclear power plants.

Delaine Rogers says the town of Zion is in the same position.

She won’t call it a bad relationship, but says it sure would be nice to know exactly where
it’s going, or when it will be over.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Part Ii: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings, one of which is depicted in this photo that dates from the time of Zion, Illinois' founding. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Transcript

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Illinois’ Zion nuclear power plant hasn’t produced electricity for eleven years.

It’s so close to Lake Michigan you can smell the beach. But other than that, the empty
parking lots and office space make the place seem dead.

The plant manager says that’s not the case.

“I think a lot of people have a vision of us playing cards or swinging our golf clubs
on the beach. I would say we’ve been extremely busy the entire time.”

Ron Schuster says he and other workers remove hazards from the station, like diesel fuel
and electrical equipment.

But one hazard is still here: the spent nuclear fuel.

And when the power plant is dismantled, that radioactive waste will be put in new
containers.

They’re concrete casks.

Schuster: “A cask is approximately fifteen feet tall. It looks like a small silo and
there is no radiation exposure on the outside of these things.”

Allee: “So from this office window, can we see where the casks might go?”

Schuster: “We’ve got four spots on this site that have been at least looked at. When
it comes time to actually put the fuel in dry-cask storage it will be a huge structure,
about as big as a football field.”

Schuster’s confident this will be a simple and safe solution.

Not everyone in Zion so convinced.

“This cask issue, just sitting on the site was never appealing to me.”

Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings close to the power plant.

In other towns with spent-fuel casks, nuclear power plants sometimes get turned into non-
nuclear power plants or into parks.

But Delisle and the city of Zion are hoping to do more – maybe build new commercial
buildings or even homes.

Delisle says having concrete containers full of radioactive waste left on-site could make
their work harder.

“So, I hope the casks are relocated somewhere else. Having them next to a
population of about 23,000 people is probably not a great place for it to be.”

Other communities are in the same position – they’ll be left with spent fuel casks even if
their dead nuclear plants get torn down.

There’s a simple reason.

“We don’t really have a final resting spot for these casks at the moment.”

Dave Lochbaum is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

“The federal government is way behind schedule providing a repository for high-
level waste.”

Lochbaum says the government has one storage place in mind.

It’s inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but that’s still just being studied.

Power companies can sometimes move spent fuel to other plants or facilities.

But Lochbaum says politically, that just won’t fly.

“There’s no revenue from electricity being generated, so it’s a hard sell to go to a
community and say we’d like to have you store spent fuel for decades into the
future. The easiest way out is to leave it where it is, because those communities have
already accepted that fate.”

Well, cities like Zion say they didn’t accept this exact fate.

They bought into nuclear power for jobs and property taxes – they didn’t count on
babysitting spent fuel waste.

But that’s likely to happen, because the government won’t take it. The power companies
won’t dare move it, and the towns can’t move themselves away.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Whooping Cranes’ Poor Parenting

  • Whooping cranes have been abandoning their nests, and eggs, in search of food (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

About 70 whooping cranes now migrate between the Southeast US and the Midwest.
Wildlife experts have been hoping that more pairs of the birds would start hatching eggs
and raising chicks in the wild.

This spring, at their northern home in Wisconsin, several female cranes did lay eggs and
sat on the nests during cold weather. But when it warmed up, the adult birds abandoned
their nests to look for food.

George Archibald is co-founder of the International Crane Foundation.

“If there is a food stress, when it becomes warmer their drive to feed may increase much
more than when it’s cold.”

Some of the crane eggs were saved and hatched out by wildlife centers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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‘Land Bank’ Reinvests in Inner City

  • Heavy cleanup crews from the Genesee County Land Bank use chain saws, wood chippers, tractors and brute force to move piles of debris on the lot of an abandoned house on the north side of Flint, Michigan. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes. Those problems have led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes.
They’ve led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the
community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up
properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of work crews operating wood chipper)


Cleanup crews are sending downed branches through a wood chipper on a vacant lot.
They’re also removing tires, used diapers, car seats, sinks, old clothes and dead animal carcasses.
The workers are from the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan. They’re trying to
make abandoned property useful again. Dan Kildee is the Genesee County Treasurer and the brains
behind the land bank. He thinks this new approach can recover unpaid property tax money and help
improve the Flint Metro area.


“The community gets to make a judgment on what we think we should do with this land. We get
to take a deep breath.”


Empty lots and rundown homes have been multiplying for a generation. That’s left the city of
Flint in a terrible economic state. But the land bank is beginning to change things.


Until just three years ago, Michigan was like most other states. No one had come up with
a solution. The state would auction off a city’s tax liens. Then conflict between the tax
lien buyer and the property owner could go on for up to seven years. In the meantime,
properties were left to neglect and often vandalized.


Under this new program, the treasurer’s office forecloses on a property and hands it over
to the land bank, which acts as the property manager. The land bank might then demolish
a house; it might throw out the owner and let a tenant buy it; or it might auction it off
to the highest bidder. A private investor can’t just buy a tax lien. He has to buy the
property along with it and take care of it.


The land bank is financed in two main ways: through fees on back taxes and through sales
of the few nicer homes or buildings the land bank acquires that bring in relatively big
profits. Treasurer Dan Kildee says it makes sense to take that revenue to fix up old
properties and sell them to people who deserve them.


“There is no system in the United States that pulls together these tools. Both the
ability to quickly assemble property into single ownership of the county, the tools
to manage it and the financing tools to develop that property.”


The land bank program hopes to change the perception of Flint. As thousands of abandoned
homes, stores and vacant lots become eyesores, people and their money go other places,
usually to build more sprawling suburbs. The perception that people are abandoning the
inner city then speeds up that abandonment. Many people who can afford to leave the city do.
And those who can’t afford to move are left behind.


According to data gathered by the research group Public Sector Consultants, Flint has the
state’s highest unemployment and crime rates and the lowest student test scores.


Art Potter is the land bank’s director. He thinks the downward spiral can be stopped.
When it is, those folks in the central city won’t have to suffer for still living there.


“Even though the City of Flint has lost 70,000 people in the last 30 years, the people who
are still here deserve to have a nice environment to live in. So our immediate goal is to
get control and to clean these properties now.”


Urban planning experts are watching the land bank approach. Michigan State
University’s Rex LaMore says Flint is typical of Midwestern cities whose manufacturing
base has shrunk. Private owners large and small have left unproductive property behind.
As the land bank steps in, LaMore says it’s likely to succeed and become an example that
other municipalities can follow.


“They can begin to maybe envision a city of the 21st century that will be different than
the cities of the 20th century or the 19th century that we see around the United States.
A city that reflects a more livable environment. So its an exciting opportunity. I think
we have the vision; the challenge is can we generate the resources? And the land bank model
does provide some opportunity to do that.”


But the land bank is meeting obstacles. For example, the new mayor of Flint who took over
in July canceled the city’s existing contracts. A conservative businessman, the mayor is
suspicious of the city’s past deals. They included one with the land bank to demolish 57
homes. This has slowed the land bank’s progress. Its officials are disappointed but they’re
still working with the mayor to get the money released.


(sound of kids chatting, then lawn mower starts up)


The weeds grow rampant in a neighborhood with broken up pavement and sometimes
no houses on an entire block. It’s open and in an odd way, peaceful. Like a
century-old farm. It’s as if the land has expelled the people who invaded with their bricks,
steel and concrete.


In the middle of all the vacant lots, Katherine Alymo sees possibilities.


“I’ve bought a number of properties in the auctions from the land bank and also got a side
lot acquisition from them for my house. My driveway wasn’t attached to my house when I
bought it. And it was this huge long process to try to get it from them. But they sold it
to me for a dollar. Finally.”


And since then, she’s hired people to fix the floors, paint walls and mow the lawns.
She’s also finding buyers for her properties who want to invest in the city as she has.
Together, they say they needed some help and the land bank is making that possible.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.


(lawn mower fades out)

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