Skip Navigation

When nuclear plants close, there’s a ripple effect. Ask Zion, Ill.

  • Emily Previti/PA Post
Zion Nuclear Power Plant’s cooling towers and other plant infrastructure have been dismantled since this photo taken in 2010 prior to the start of decommissioning. Currently, work crews are canning the 257-acre site for contaminated soil. Decommissioning is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

 Courtesy of contractor Zion Solutions

Zion Nuclear Power Plant’s cooling towers and other plant infrastructure have been dismantled since this photo taken in 2010 prior to the start of decommissioning. Currently, work crews are canning the 257-acre site for contaminated soil. Decommissioning is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Nuclear energy generates more than half the nation’s emissions-free electricity — but is it safe? Ivey DeJesus lays out the debate in this PennLive story. -Emily Previti, Newsletter Producer/Reporter

Waste question leads to proposed legislation

Zion Nuclear Power Plant

Courtesy of contractor Zion Solutions

Zion Nuclear Power Plant was named for its host city 50 miles north of Chicago, just before the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Zion’s cooling towers and other plant infrastructure have been dismantled since this photo was taken prior to the start of decommissioning in 2010, and work crews are scanning the 257-acre site for contaminated soil.

  • We visited Zion, Illinois, a few weeks ago to see what Pennsylvanians might learn from a community that’s almost through the process of decommissioning a nuclear power plant. Among other things, the city’s a driving force behind federal lobbying efforts relevant to the commonwealth. Web and sound stories are here.

  • PennLive’s Wallace McKelvey gets into the history of nuclear waste and the debate on how to deal with it in this story.

  • Ron Southwick, in this PennLive piece, looks at how the capital region will lose support for emergency management — grants, planning requirements, etc. — if/when TMI is decommissioned.

Best of the rest

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announces charges of fraud and conspiracy against Liberation Way, an addiction treatment center, and other parties.

Kimberly Paynter / WHYY

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announces charges of fraud and conspiracy against Liberation Way, an addiction treatment center, and other parties.

  • The state Attorney General’s office says Bucks County-based drug and alcohol rehab facility Liberation Way overbilled, ordered unnecessary tests and kept patients in treatment unnecessarily as part of an elaborate scam to rack up more than $40 million in profits during a three-year period, WHYY’s Aaron Moselle reports.

  • State health officials are investigating whether there’s a cancer cluster in Washington County after four children in the same school district were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer within the same decade. Reid Frazier has the full story for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

  • Plenty of Pa. school districts expelled students last year — but never for academic reasons. The expulsions all were related to fighting, drugs, weapons, alcohol and/or conduct, PennLive’s Jana Benscoter reports. The story includes this list of the schools with the most expulsions.


Subscribe to The Contextour weekday newsletter

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Up Next
Uncategorized

Three Mile Island accident has implications now