Dairyland Power and EnergySolutions Sign License Stewardship Agreement

SALT LAKE CITY, UT--(Marketwired - Nov 3, 2015) - Dairyland Power Cooperative and EnergySolutions announce today that the parties have executed an agreement for the decommissioning of the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor (LACBWR) site located in Genoa, Wisconsin owned by Dairyland. 

Under the agreement, Dairyland's Possession Only License will be transferred to an EnergySolutions company, LaCrosseSolutions, which will assume responsibility for completing the remaining decommissioning of the site except for the spent nuclear fuel storage facility. Dairyland will retain ownership of the LACBWR site and the spent nuclear fuel. The parties will jointly seek the necessary regulatory approvals, including an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to approve the transfer of the License to LaCrosseSolutions. Upon completion of decommissioning, the License will be amended to cover the dry fuel storage facility only and transferred back to Dairyland.

The LACBWR project will be the second "licensed stewardship" arrangement for decommissioning by EnergySolutions following on the successful model used by EnergySolutions for the Zion Nuclear Power Plant Project located in northeastern Illinois.

"As we continue the accelerated decommissioning of the Zion project, the LACBWR opportunity allows us to utilize EnergySolutions talent and expertise from Zion and the rest of the company to support the decommissioning of LACBWR," stated David Lockwood, CEO and President of EnergySolutions. "The key to success is using the best available people and processes and our unique logistics and disposal capability that allows us to expedite decommissioning and retiring project risk."

"Dairyland has found a partner with the necessary expertise and experience to finish decommissioning LACBWR, allowing us to focus on our core mission to safely and reliably deliver power to our members," says Rob Palmberg, Vice President of Generation for Dairyland. "Since we will continue to operate our Genoa #3 Station at the site, we have reached an arrangement where Dairyland and EnergySolutions will work together to ensure success of the LACBWR decommissioning while minimizing any impact to the ongoing Genoa #3 operations."

With headquarters in La Crosse, Wis., Dairyland provides wholesale electricity to 25 member distribution cooperatives and 17 municipal utilities. A Touchstone Energy Cooperative, Dairyland's service area encompasses 62 counties in four states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois). Dairyland's generation resources include coal, natural gas, hydro, wind, biomass, landfill gas, animal waste and solar. For more information, please visit www.dairynet.com.