2 Investigators: City With Shuttered Nuke Plant -- And Waste Dump -- Wants Exelon's Help

(CBS) -- Exelon Corp. threatened to shutter two nuclear plants if state lawmakers didn't approve a bailout late last year.

The energy giant got what it wanted. Customers will pay higher rates, but the plants will stay open.

In Zion, the bailout never came.

Exelon shuttered a plant in that city nearly 20 years ago. Mayor Al Hill says in some ways Zion has never recovered.

When the plant was open, Exelon paid more than $18 million a year in property tax revenue. Now, it pays closer to $1 million.

As a result, Zion property owners now pay one of the highest tax rates nationwide -- roughly $7,000 for a home valued at $100,000.

City officials say two-thirds of the homes are now rentals. And while Zion accounts for just 3.5 percent of Lake County's population, it receives 35 percent of the county's low-income housing vouchers.

"Homeowners are stuck," says Roger Whitmore, owner of Zion-based Roger's Automotive. "I hear that all the time. The tax bite here is about three times what it is just over the state line about a mile away from me."

"The only way to lower our tax rate is to get businesses to come here," Mayor Hill says.

But that's challenging, he says, with more than 1 million kilograms of nuclear waste sitting along the shores of Lake Michigan. The waste was removed from the plant and is being stored there indefinitely.

"We continue to meet our remaining commitments which include safely decommissioning the site and safeguarding the spent fuel," Exelon says in a statement, adding it would like to see a long-term storage solution.

Nobody would like to see a solution more than Al Hill.

He says if the waste isn't removed, Zion should be compensated.

But there are no immediate plans to pay Zion, or move the waste.

"And here we are," Hill says. "It's sitting there and nobody seems to care."