It was 20 years ago that Bruce Springsteen and friends collaborated to produce an album called “No Nukes” as a warning against the proliferation of nuclear power plants. At the same time Commonwealth Edison was touting nuclear power as “safe, clean and economical.”
How times have changed. The permanent closure of the Zion Nuclear Power Plant marks the end of the nuclear expansion policy of ComEd. Wall Street lauds the Zion closing and calls for more. It turns out that the nuclear protesters were right and the people who countered them with the slogan of “More nukes, less kooks” were really fiscally irresponsible.
A parallel should be drawn to a similar situation unfolding right now in the Tri-Cities. Tens of millions of dollars will soon be spent on sewage treatment technology that is expensive, inefficient and prone to failure. The result will be the continuing use of our greatest natural asset, the Fox River, as a vehicle to carry away human wastes. Carry it away to Aurora, that is, where the same Fox River is used for drinking water.
What is so sad is that we know a better way. The Tri-Cities should pump their sewage to the west, reclaim the nutrients in the wastewater through irrigation and preserve forever a border of beautiful green open space that will absolutely stop Kane County from becoming another DuPage.
Contrast that with the imminent plan for Geneva, St. Charles and Batavia to each spend millions to “upgrade” their sewage treatment plants so that they can continue to treat sewage as something to be flushed away rather than as a valuable resource out of place.
Imagine a clean Fox River suitable for fishing and swimming and a green belt of open space stretching to the west of the Tri-Cities. In the words of John Lennon: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Just ask your kids which way we should go. The answer is as obvious today as ComEd’s decision to close Zion.
