As nuclear plant near La Crosse gets decommissioned, residents express worries

Genoa plant still has residual
radioactivity needing decontamination

A nuclear power plant located just 20 miles from La Crosse was shut down three decades ago but much of the Dairyland Power Cooperative reactor at Genoa is still standing.

That will change over the next few years, as it is being decommissioned – something neighbors of the facility are concerned about.

“People are concerned about the removal of the radioactive waste and the transportation of it,” Bruce Watson, a chief at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said.

Watson was speaking to about a dozen people at a public meeting about the project.

Within a few weeks, demolition will begin on the tall smokestack next to the old reactor building.  

Dairyland will retain the property, and will keep operating a coal-fired plant on the site but it enthused to, more or less, be rid of the nuclear side of the facility.

It’s that process of removing the reactor and nuclear fuel eventually will cost Dairyland millions to settle.  

“It’s a constant issue for us,” Brian Rude from Dairyland said. “It goes much beyond the money. We want to be done with it as much as anyone else.”

A company called La Crosse Solutions will manage the clean-up effort.  

“There’s a little bit of residual radioactivity that we have to decontaminate,” director Gerry Van Noordennen said. “Basically what’s left, the buildings are standing. There’s still some things in there – some components.”

Once the plant is gone, the area will never be used as residential, one Nuclear Regulatory staffer said at the meeting.