Area nuclear plants say they're prepared

LAKESHORE - With the state’s two nuclear power plants right here in Northeast Wisconsin, should we be worried about a nuclear catastrophe here? Are the plants prepared?

Both the Kewaunee Power Station and the Point Beach Nuclear Plant say they're prepared for the worst.

But after what happened in Japan, they'll be taking another look at all safety measures.

"When something occurs within the industry, we all take a look at it and we've gone already today and taken a look at the number of our different safety systems and we'll re-evaluate everything that we have in place here, to learn lessons from what happened and improve it so we're able to best mitigate it here," explained Kewaunee Power Station Local Affairs Manager, Mark Kanz.

While Point Beach Nuclear Plant officials declined an interview, they did release a statement saying...

"Each plant has been specially designed to withstand a variety of natural events. Even though an event of this nature is unlikely given the plants' locations, all NextEra/ FPL plants have had additional safety margin added to the "worst case" scenario factors to ensure they fully meet our commitment to protect public health and safety."

Officials say both plants use pressurized water reactors. The facilities in Japan use boiling water reactors.

However, both types can run into the same cooling issues in an event of a disaster.

So officials say meltdown is possible, but they have plans in place to try to make sure that doesn't happen.

"We have a number of redundant systems that would be available to come in and support our safety systems, needed to cool things down," Kanz said.

The Kewaunee Power Station has one nuclear reactor; however it is currently offline for a routine re-fueling outage.

When is up and running, it produces enough electricity to power 300,000 homes.

Point Beach has 2 reactors; one is currently offline due to maintenance.

However, both produce enough electricity to power 900,000 homes or a sixth of Wisconsin's electricity needs.

In an event of a disaster, both plants say they work closely with the surrounding communities to make sure everyone is up to date with any type of emergency plan, whether it is an evacuation or response to a terrorist threat.

The Kewaunee County Sheriff says it's a never-ending process.

"It's year round. It's ongoing. We are in constant communication with them. We do a lot of training scenarios with them," said Kewaunee County Sheriff, Matt Joski.

The Kewaunee Power Station is licensed to 2033. Point Beach is licensed to 2030 and 2033.