The decommissioning of Constellation's nuclear emergency sirens will be coming in the near future, and they have been offered to DeWitt County. 

At last Thursday night's DeWitt County Public Safety Committee Meeting, Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Will Paveleck told the Committee the decommissioning of the sirens is impending, and the new primary alert system for nuclear emergencies will be a service called IPAWS, which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

In case of an IPAWS failure, the backup system will be Everbridge. Paveleck notes that these changes are coming from new federal mandates for all nuclear emergency notices to be issued in a digital format. 

Constellation is willing to transfer the ownership of the sirens to the county, however, they would have to take on the costs of maintenance. This is an offer the previous county board had rejected due to an estimated cost of $2,000 in yearly upkeep per siren. Now Constellation says it would only be $500 per siren, per year. 

While the committee has not taken action on the offer yet, they did request that Paveleck gather more information regarding the change in estimated costs for yearly siren maintenance.