House Considering Vote on Vermont Yankee

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According to Terri Hallenbeck of the Burlington Free Press, House Speaker Shap Smith said Friday that the House may vote about the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant following the town meeting break. See BFP

“We may vote on continued operation,” said Smith, D-Morristown. “If there is a vote from both bodies that they believe Vermont Yankee should not continue to operate, that's a pretty clear indication there will not be continued operation.”

 

While some Republicans and Governor Douglas have attempted to paint the legislative push against relicensing Yankee as some type of partisan bickering on the part of the Democratically controlled legislature or the proclivity of gubernatorial candidates, it is clear that such statements are simply last ditch efforts on the part of the lame-duck Douglas administration.

This lame-duck administration is clearly out of touch with the interests of the general public and most of its legislators, as well as Vermont's own statutorily mandated guidelines established in 2008 regarding the public trust water resource statute.

According to Jon Groveman legal counsel for VNRC, “In 2008, the Vermont Legislature passed, and Governor Douglas signed, a bill declaring groundwater to be a public trust resource.” see public trust

House Natural Resources Chairman Tony Klein, a Democrat and Vice Chair Republican Joe Krawczyk are showing real statesmanship by working together to craft bi-partisan legislation that protects Vermont's environmental resources as well as protecting Vermont against the economic repercussions of Entergy's poor operation of Vermont Yankee.

Meanwhile, House Natural Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, said he and Krawczyk are crafting a bipartisan decommissioning bill that would force Vermont Yankee to set up two trusts: one to restore the site to greenfield status by 2022; and the other to cover the cost of waste management at the site. Krawczyk said he's pushing the legislation to prevent Vermont taxpayers from having to pay for cleaning up the plant when it shuts down. “I don't want to see one Vermont penny go into that thing. It's up to Entergy to get the money into the decommissioning fund,” he said,

according to Neal Goswami, Bennington Banner: istockanalyst. 

The House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy has been rigorous in taking critical environmental testimony.  Much of this testimony may be viewed on Anne Galloway's recently created Vermont Digger.

  • Kamps on video: NRC, nuclear industry have leak-first-fix-later philosophy – http://vtdigger.org/2010/02/02/kamps-on-video-nrc-nuclear-industry-have-leak-first-fix-later-philosophy/ Clean energy at what cost?
  • Algonquin leader questions nuclear industry’s uranium mining practices – http://vtdigger.org/2010/01/29/clean-energy-at-what-cost-algonquin-leader-questions-nuclear-industrys-uranium-mining-practices/
  • Irwin on video: We cannot rule out that there is tritium in the Connecticut River; we just cannot measure it – http://vtdigger.org/2010/02/10/irwin-on-video-we-cannot-rule-out-that-there-is-tritium-in-the-connecticut-river-we-just-cannot-measure-it/

4 thoughts on “House Considering Vote on Vermont Yankee”

  1. It’s time to begin what will undoubtedly be quite a struggle to get Entergy to pony-up for decommissioning.  We’ll see just how much of a “asset to Vermont” Entergy is when it come time to shake the piggy bank.

  2. it was a major violation of fair use, quoting extensively from a Reformer article, with no additional comments beyond that.  If the poster would like to repost the comment, edited so as not to violate fair use, I’d appreciate it.

  3. Strip away all the big bucks, all the technology, all the inspections and it mostly comes down to crumbling forty year old pipes and digging in a frozen muddy trench looking for a pipe leaky radioactive water. What more is needed to demonstrate that this plant is worn out?

    The operation is unfolding in a narrow industrial alley between two plant buildings in a late winter jumble of snow, mud, scaffolding and railings covered with bright orange plastic mesh to prevent anything from falling in….

    To prevent a cave-in, the trench is lined with steel plates on each side that are also handled delicately. On Thursday, one of them, perhaps caught on a rock or other obstruction, was refusing to slide down toward the ever-lowering bottom. So supervisors brought in a huge backhoe on caterpillar treads to try to tap it farther down

    .

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02…

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