Two Illinois communities are getting a lesson in the dangers of relying too heavily on one taxpayer as Exelon Corp. prepares to close a pair of nuclear power stations next year, eliminating thousands of well-paying jobs and eviscerating local budgets, Bloomberg News reported. Illinois’s largest electric utility announced in August it will close a money-losing plant near Byron next September and its Dresden generating station a hundred miles away two months later. The company blames federal regulators for changing rules and making nuclear power less competitive in the biggest U.S. regional power market, which stretches across 13 states. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has indicated he’s not going to let one company that’s looking for more subsidies dictate energy policy in his state. The shutdowns underscore the deep financial risk to small communities with economies tethered to single employers or industries, a dependence that’s likely to get increasingly perilous nationwide as the deepest recession since World War II drives a wave of corporate bankruptcies. Carlton, Wis., lost almost 70 percent of its revenue when a nearby nuclear plant was shut in 2013. The Byron Community Unit School District 226, about 96 miles (154 kilometers) west of Chicago, relies on the local Exelon plant for about three fourths of its property taxes. Revenue from the stations also funds libraries, fire districts and forest preserves. “It would be devastating,” said Buster Barton, superintendent of the school district, where roughly a quarter of the almost 1,500 students are low income. Exelon and other nuclear operators have shut at least 11 U.S. reactors since 2013 and pressed legislatures for subsidies to keep others running. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut implemented subsidies to keep stations open. Exelon closed its Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania last year after a proposed bailout bill foundered.
