Suit seeks proper use of Zion funds

Over the past two years, several of my Fence Post letters have been published in the Daily Herald zeroing in on the 2,100-megawatt Dual Zion Nuclear Facility, which I continue to feel was prematurely and unwisely shut down in 1998, even before the expiration of both licenses in 2011. Last year, Exelon Corp., owner of the dual Zion Nuclear Plant, transferred the Zion station and its decommissioning trust funds, currently in excess of $800,000, to newly formed ZionSolution for the dismantling.

All monies left over after ZionSolutions had funded the necessary and reasonable decommissioning costs associated with its 10-year Zion Station decommissioning project, as applicable under law, were to be refunded back to ComEd electric rate payers.

A class-action lawsuit filed on July 14 in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, of which I am one of four plaintiffs, challenges ZionSolution LLC and the Bank of New York Mellon over the handling of the decommissioning trust fund.

The lawsuit concentrates on the fact that no qualified person or entity has been appointed to act as a trustee over the trust funds to fully protect the rights of ComEd’s customers as beneficiaries of the unused money under applicable law or to oversee the disbursement made from the trust funds.

Accordingly, the purpose of the class action lawsuit is to ascertain that the funds are being properly managed through a court-appointed trustee who would oversee that payments are being disbursed only if they qualify as reasonable and necessary costs related to Zion’s decommissioning.

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff