The outage is annual refueling of the power plant. According to Brett Nauman, Communications Manager, the outage brings hundreds of additional workers for maintenance that can only be done with the plant is offline.

 

 

In addition to providing maintenance to the power plant, Nauman says the 1500 additional workers are staying in local hotels and eating at restaurants. He says it's a huge economic boom to the area.

 

 

Had it not been for the efforts of local lawmakers, an outage right now may not be happening. Nauman says the workers and other employees are still grateful for the Clean Energy legislation that was passed in Springfield.

 

 

Nauman says the outage should last another few weeks. He says contractors are from local unions and total over 1500 additional workers.