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Lake County Commissioner is Trying to Keep the Perry Nuclear Plant Open

The entrance to the Perry Nuclear Power Station.
TIM RUDELL
/
WKSU
The entrance to the Perry Nuclear Power Station.

With thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue at stake, some northeast Ohio political leaders are trying to get rate increases approved for the region’s nuclear power plants. 

Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirino
Credit Lake County Commissioners' website
/
Lake County Commissioners' website
Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirino

Perry Nuclear Power Station is in Lake County.  It and Davis Besse in Ottawa County are likely to shut down unless First Energy Solutions can raise prices.  The company says it can’t compete on cost with natural-gas power generation.  But regulators have said no to the hikes. Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirino is trying to get state legislators to mandate financial support to keep the plants in business.  “If we had a company that wanted to come to Lake County or Ohio to bring 700 people that would create other peripheral jobs and spend $65-million dollars a year in the community, they’d be tripping over themselves to bring that company here.”

Both state and federal regulators have said that a rate increase is unwarranted. 

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Tim Rudell
Tim Rudell has worked in broadcasting and news since his student days at Kent State in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when he earned extra money as a stringer for UPI). He began full time in radio news in 1972 in his home town of Canton, OH.