Quad Cities Generation Station

About the Program
The Quad Cities Generation Station is Exelon's nuclear power plant situated along the Mississippi River just outside of Warrenville, Illinois. The facility supports a wide-ranging number of conservation projects. Given its proximity to the Mississippi River, much of the focus is aquatic-related, including a 3.5-acre wetland restoration, monitoring of invasive zebra mussels and the re-introduction of the extirpated alligator gar. 

Practices and Impacts

• The invasive zebra mussel has been a focus of the facility for years. Population density is monitored at the station, and data is shared with state and federal partners who are attempting to manage the species.
• The facility manages a collection of 34 bluebird houses for cavity-nesting birds.        
• The facility has historically used a 3.5-acre pond adjacent to the plant for fish production, but recently has facilitated its conversation back into a wetland. This was done to provide additional migratory and breeding habitat for wetland birds using the Mississippi River flyway. The site was flooded and allowed to naturally vegetate. Within a year, a wide variety of both native plants and animals have re-colonized the site.