Wisconsin Monitors Incident At Northern Ill. Nuclear Plant

Wisconsin Emergency Management and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are monitoring conditions at a northern Illinois nuclear plant after the plant lost power and went offline Monday morning.

Officials said there is no danger to plant employees or nearby residents.

The two-unit plant is located at Byron, Ill., about 17 miles southwest of Rockford.

Wisconsin Emergency Management assists with nuclear offsite emergency plans for the Byron plant for Walworth, Rock, Lafayette and Green counties.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the plant automatically shut down in response to the loss of offsite power. Officials said smoke was seen from an onsite station transformer but no evidence of fire was found. Steam is currently being released from the non-nuclear side of the plant to aid in the cooling process and there is no threat to the public, officials said.

The incident at the Byron Nuclear Generating Station and was declared an “Unusual Event,” which is the lowest of four levels of the NRC’s emergency classification system.