This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 17, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Concerned by the safety of the four nuclear reactors in Illinois that have the same design as the severely damaged Japanese reactors, Gov. Pat Quinn said Thursday that he has ordered state emergency management officials to intensify their scrutiny of those and the other seven reactors in the state.
"The events in Japan have underlined the importance of reviewing everything once again. I don't think we can take anything for granted," Quinn said, in response to a question from the Beacon. "We're going to be looking very carefully" at the four reactors at the Quad Cities and Dresden plants that have the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi reactors that were nearing a partial meltdown after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and tsunami.
"We want to work with federal officials and [utility company] Exelon on these reactors" to make sure they are safe, Quinn said. He told reporters in the U.S. Capitol that he had "a long meeting" Wednesday in Springfield with the director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Jon Monken, and his deputy to discuss nuclear safety issues.
Quinn also said, "We are going to seek through the General Assembly higher fees from the generation company, Exelon, to make sure that our Emergency Management Agency has everything it needs to do its safety review job." He said that fee increase might be higher than the 2 percent increase proposed in his state budget.
The governor said he "asked about tornados, flooding" and other potential disasters that could hit reactors in Illinois. "We have a fault in Illinois -- the New Madrid fault -- that is pretty far away from the nuclear reactors," Quinn said, with the Clinton, Ill., plant being the closest to the fault that lies in southwestern Illinois and southeastern Missouri.
"We have 11 reactors in Illinois -- more than any other state," Quinn said. "Half of our power in Illinois comes from nuclear. Some of these plants had their licenses renewed for another 20 years" -- including the four oldest Illinois reactors with the General Electric Mark I design.
Some nuclear energy critics contend that the safety of those four reactors -- Quad Cities Generating Station reactors 1 and 2 near Moline and Dresden Generating Station reactors 2 and 3 in northern Illinois -- needs to be reassessed, along with the safety of the 19 other U.S. reactors of the same design nationwide.
But a spokeswoman for Exelon Nuclear, which owns and operates the Illinois reactors, told the Beacon that the reactors are completely safe -- recertified by the NRC in recent years. "Our plants are equipped with numerous redundant safety systems designed to protect them from earthquakes, flooding and other natural disasters," said Krista Lopykinski, communications manager at Exelon Nuclear.
The Dresden reactors, in rural Grundy County southwest of Joliet, came on line in 1970 and 1971, while the Quad City reactors -- co-owned (25 percent) by Iowa-based Mid-America Energy Corp. -- began commercial operations in 1973. Japan's troubled Fukushima reactors, experiencing partial meltdowns after their cooling systems were knocked out by last week's earthquake and tsunami, came on line in the early 1970s.
Noting that Mark I reactors have cooling pools for spent fuel on the upper level of the reactor building, Quinn said that -- in light of the Japanese experience -- he is "concerned about whether water can be delivered to cool off [fuel rods] in an emergency, if normal cooling systems are disabled by a disaster.
"We have four [reactors] that have that higher Mark I design. So we have to really study this," Quinn said. "And I think it's important that Exelon work with us."
Illinois Wants 'No-Gitmo' Letter Before Selling Thomson
Quinn, who met with Illinois' U.S. senators and several House members at the Capitol, also told reporters that the state was "very close" to completing a deal to sell the now vacant Thomson Correctional Facility to the federal Bureau of Prisons for about $180 million to be converted into a maximum-security prison.
"Sen. (Dick) Durbin and I have worked on that for some time," Quinn said, "and we're very close on the price" to be paid by the Bureau of Prisons.
But Quinn said that Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and several other Illinois members of Congress are insisting that the White House first certify that no detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility would ever be transferred to Thomson. Kirk and others have vowed to block funding for the Thomson sale without that guarantee.
"That would allow us to sell the prison to the Feds. They need it desperately [to relieve overcrowded federal prisons] and it would create a couple of thousand jobs" in northwestern Illinois. He said Illinois would use about $60 million of the money to pay off its debt for building the prison, which was vacated last April in the anticipation of selling it to the federal government.
Durbin, a Democrat, was working to get White House approval for such a document, Quinn said, "and he told me that he thought he was pretty close" to convincing the administration of President Barack Obama that it should sign such a letter.
Push for St. Louis to Chicago High-speed Rail
In the session with reporters, Quinn also said he and Durbin met Thursday with the head of the Federal Railway Administration, Joe Szabo, to discuss the St. Louis to Chicago high-speed rail route and other proposed routes in Illinois.
"We want to make this corridor the pre-eminent one in America," Quinn said. "The key route is Chicago to St. Louis. We want to get Cubs fans down to Busch Stadium faster so they can see better results than they've seen in recent years."
Quinn said that Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon "is very much committed" to the high-speed rail project, which is under construction -- with considerable progress so far between Alton and Springfield. "We see rail transportation, both passenger and freight, as a key part of the Illinois economy."
Quinn said he hoped that Illinois would receive at least some of the federal high-speed rail funds rejected by the governor of Florida. Durbin sent a letter to the U.S. transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, asking that he redistribute some of the Florida-designated money to the Chicago Hub Network.
This week, Durbin helped form the Bi-Cameral High-Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail Caucus, a coalition to serve as the leading advocates to advance high-speed and intercity rail programs across the country. Durbin, founder of the Midwest High Speed Rail Caucus, will serve as a co-chair of the national group.
Quinn said that China's president, during a recent visit to Chicago, told him that "he sees Chicago and Illinois as a bridge and gateway to the Midwest."
Among the Illinois lawmakers who attended the meeting with Quinn in Durbin's Capitol office were Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and U.S. Reps. Bobby Schilling, R-Ill., Danny Davis, D-Ill., Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Mike Quigley, D-Ill., Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Joe Walsh, R-Ill.
Quinn said it was "a real good meeting," with the main agenda being achieving economic growth in Illinois. "I want to make sure our state gets every dollar it can from the federal government," Quinn said.