Fifty years ago, many DeWitt County residents thought they were on the brink of a new age of growth and development. In 1972, Illinois Power Co. announced that it would build a nuclear power plant east of Clinton that would be cooled with water from a 5,000-acre impoundment of Salt Creek.
Visions of a recreation mecca emerged, along with the potential for a population surge and all the economic development that would bring.
It didn’t quite turn out that way.
In 1973, Decatur-based Illinois Power (which was acquired by Ameren Illinois in 2004) unveiled a recreational development plan for the proposed Clinton Lake, prepared by a Michigan planning and landscape architecture firm, that called for a marina, boat slips, swimming beach, visitor’s center, boat-launch sites, campgrounds and 18 miles of hiking trails.
“In this agricultural landscape with limited potential for quality scenic outdoor recreational development, the opportunity lies in maximizing the uses of stream courses and their enclosing edges as linear recreation areas,” said the report from Johnson, Johnson Roy Inc.
“Additionally,” the planner said, “development should provide carefully chosen areas for active pursuits such as power boating, water skiing and swimming as demanded by a large segment of potential users.”
Most of those promised accessories materialized, although the visitor’s center was quickly closed and the marina hasn’t met expectations. But the anticipated economic godsend to DeWitt County still hasn’t shown up, even 47 years after the lake, about 35 miles west of Champaign, began to fill.
“We must be thinking now of changes in our community and be prepared to face those changes,” Stan Stites, executive vice president of the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, said in 1970. “There will be a change in our population. And more people means more facilities.”
For a while, there was that change in the population. Clinton grew from 7,581 in 1970 to 8,014 in 1980. Farmer City’s population went from 2,217 in 1970 to 2,252 in 1980. DeWitt County’s total population rose from 16,975 in 1970 to 18,108 in 1980. But the growth was fleeting, likely the result of an influx of construction workers. The nuclear plant, which originally was supposed to have been completed in 1980, wasn’t finished and in operation until 1987.
The population growth didn’t continue, and in fact, DeWitt County’s 2020 population dropped to 15,516 residents, on a par with its number in the 1870s. Farmer City had 1,823 residents in 2020, about the same number as in 1940. Clinton’s count of 7,004 was fewer than in 1960.
Curt Homann, executive director of the DeWitt County Development Council and a native of the county, said that even with a nuclear plant on the lake, many residents believed it would become a major resort and recreation destination, like Lake Shelbyville or reservoirs in Southern Illinois. Tourism officials at Lake Shelbyville estimate it gets about 4 million visitors annually, about four times the number at Clinton Lake.
“I think there was some expectation that it might become a longer-term vacation destination,” Homann said. “There are some great areas out there (at the lake) with campers who are out there all the time. The fishing and boating has been a great attraction. There are a lot of fishing tournaments that bring people. But in terms of development beyond that, it’s never really progressed to anything like a nice hotel or a restaurant.”
At the time Illinois Power built the power plant and the lake, it gave DeWitt County 80 acres of mostly lakefront property to develop, Homann said.
“We had some studies done over the years and brought in outside groups, but nothing came of that,” he said. “Cabin space was another idea. I always wanted the area to go after a casino, personally. I don’t know if that was a popular thought or not, but I thought it would be a cool attraction at the lake.
“No one has ever reached out to me with a development plan and the money to back it.”
He said he is encouraged that the lake’s marina may have new owners: John and Kayla Fayhee, who also own the Sullivan Marina and Campground. They announced on Facebook last month that they had a purchase agreement with the county to buy the marina, and planned to make numerous improvements.
“We were pleased with what was in their proposal and what ideas they have,” Homann said. “I’m pretty optimistic about it. I think that selling it to someone who can take those initiatives and who has the incentive to improve it because they are owners (past marina managers only had a lease) will make all the difference in the world. It’s not that the people before them did a bad job, but their hands were tied.”
Meanwhile, the “new” owner of the power plant and much of the surrounding property, Constellation Energy, continues to pay a large share of the county’s property taxes. The main power block — the plant and surrounding industrial property — is assessed at $244.55 million, more than a third of the county’s total equalized assessed valuation of $709 million. Constellation (which merged with former owner Exelon in 2012 and was spun off in 2022) is paying more than $13.4 million in property taxes this year.
And, regulators permitting, all that money could continue to flow in for decades. Constellation is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year extension of the Clinton plant’s license, currently set to expire in April 2027. If the extension is granted, the now-37-year-old plant could operate at least until age 60.
The average age of a U.S. nuclear power plant is 42 years, although one in upstate New York has been producing electricity since 1969.
