Economic loss, higher taxes worry Davis-Besse neighbors

CARROLL TOWNSHIP - A deep love of fishing has brought Lisa Bennett back to Wild Wings Marina for seven seasons, where she's docked and departed in the shadow of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station's striking 500-foot cooling tower.

She knows the trends. The country is slowly moving away from nuclear power.

And Bennett's read about FirstEnergy's deactivation notice and how the company is losing money on nuclear power and closing Davis-Besse, or trying to find a buyer.

Some people were intimidated by the thought of a nuclear power plant in their backyards, Bennett said.

"But I lived with it right out my backdoor. And we never had a problem," Bennett said as she showed off pictures of her big catch from Wednesday — a 24-inch walleye — as she sat in Wild Wings' restaurant lounge and pondered Davis-Besse's future.

If the plant ultimately is retired as planned in 2020, what will that mean for taxpayers and business owners who depend — to varying degrees — on Davis-Besse workers and contractors to get them through the lean winter months?

Davis-Besse's neighbors and residents throughout Ottawa County are worried about what would happen when contractors stop coming to the plant for scheduled refueling outages and maintenance cycles.

A 2015 study by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes nuclear power, found that for every dollar of output from Davis-Besse, the local economy produces $1.66 and the state economy produces $2.25.

Davis-Besse’s operation generates $805 million of annual economic output in Ottawa County and $1.1 billion statewide.

Bennett worked at Wild Wings from 2011-2013 as a server. She worked all three shifts and saw hundreds of workers from the nearby plant come in for a bite to eat or a drink.

"We always had a lot of Davis-Besse employees come in for lunch," she said.

More: Focus shifts to finding buyer for Davis-Besse

On Thursday, rain and fog shrouded Davis-Besse's cooling tower, cutting visibility in half for a concrete staple of Lake Erie's shoreline that can be seen for miles around.

Doug Huber works at Magee East Marina and Campground's General Store.

He always kind of liked the plumes of steam rising from Davis-Besse's tower.

The steam gave boaters a good idea of which way the wind was blowing on Lake Erie.

"You knew if you could go fishing or not. That will be gone. You'll have to go on the lake and try it," Huber, a Graytown resident, said as he and a couple of his friends escaped the rain Thursday in the general store's seating area.

Huber is concerned about how a Davis-Besse shutdown could impact Benton-Carroll-Salem's school district or what it will do to his taxes.

He's lived in Ottawa County since 1992 and this is his third year working at Magee East.

The campground and marina attracts a lot of contractors that come in for Davis-Besse's refueling and maintenance periods.

This year, about 15 contractors stayed at the campground in trailers or mobile homes and worked at the nuclear plant during its refueling outage.

Only one contractor remained at Magee East as of Thursday, with the refueling outage ending much sooner than any of the workers had anticipated, Huber said.

Huber isn't sure what would replace Davis-Besse if the plant shuts down for good.

"I don't see what they could put in there, other than another type of power plant," he said.

A lot of residents moved near Davis-Besse for the quiet lifestyle and good schools, funded to a significant extent by tax revenues derived from the power plant.

Huber expects that a lot of those same people will move to Toledo, Oregon and Perrysburg if Davis-Besse closes.

Happy Hooker Outdoors features all the fishing and waterfowl hunting gear an outdoorsman could want, plus daily updates on weather and river conditions throughout the region.

Owner Bud Baringer calls the shop on Ohio 2 his retirement plan.

While Davis-Besse employees and contractors only account for about 10 percent of his business, Baringer worries his taxes will shoot up.

"It's going to be a huge tax burden if they go out," Baringer said.

Periodic scheduled maintenance outages at Davis-Besse bring in outside contractors who stay in the area for weeks or months at a time and rent apartments, houses and condominiums.

Baringer said the businesses that would face the most direct impact and losses from a Davis-Besse shutdown would be the restaurants, gas stations, condos and rental units in surrounding areas.

He confessed that he is skeptical about why FirstEnergy would want to spend millions of dollars on shutting the plant down and decommissioning it.

"They say they're losing money on generating electricity. To me, that's hard to believe. We're a captive audience," Baringer said.

dacarson@gannett.com

419-334-1046

Twitter: @DanielCarson7

