Here is a link to Al Norman’s article on Sprawl-Busters about the Governor’s endorsement of Walmart.

_____________________________________________________________

Good for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, once more doing the dirty job that no one ever seems to want to do!  

They’re calling out the Governor for endorsing developer Jeff Davis’ plan to put a Walmart in the little town of Derby.  He’s comparing location of that gargantuan poverty mill to Bill Stenger’s high-end plans for neighboring Newport.

All I can say is, if they are in any way the same, we’d better take a much closer look at Mr. Stenger’s intentions.

The VNRC’s remarks are far more polite than my thoughts at the moment:

We’re especially disappointed to see the Governor supporting big box sprawl. We are very concerned that this development – which is the wrong scale in the wrong place – will undermine Newport City, one of the many downtowns that the State and so many others have been working hard to revitalize.

Governor Shumlin is making precisely the same statements about Walmart coming to Derby that Jim Douglas made a decade ago about St. Albans.  

To this seasoned veteran of the Walmart wars, Peter Shumlin might as well be a Republican.

Let’s review:

.He opposes increased tax contributions from the wealthy.

…And now he endorses the “Walmartification” of Vermont.

He even parrots the same lie about folks being unable to buy underwear locally that was a feature of the ignorant arguments for Walmart in St. Albans.  

It is beyond me to guess what kind of special underwear Mr. Shumlin imagines is available only at Walmart; but those of us who live and shop in the real world are fully capable of buying cheap underwear and socks in either St. Albans or Newport.  My guess is that he gets his own knickers from far pricier places than JC Penney and the dollar store.

The Governor has disappointed me a-plenty over the past couple of years, but never more so than when he endorsed the completely false premise that Walmart means local prosperity.  

He’s “hopeful it won’t be greeted with lots of opposition” and hints darkly at “forces outside the Kingdom” which he fears might get involved.  

I’m hopeful that there will be plenty of opposition; and as someone “outside the Kingdom” will welcome the opportunity to share all that we in the Northwest Citizens For Responsible Growth have learned throughout the past decade about how Walmart impacts communities and how Mr. Davis works his way through the permit processes.

I wonder whether, over in the Kingdom, the Governor has as casually appointed District Commissioners as he did here in District 6?

When he had barely assumed office, aided in no small part by the efforts of progressive minded folks like myself who abhor the exploitation of Walmart,  the Governor made it clear that his loyalty is to the monied class of developers and pocket padders.  

Brushing aside our objections, he reappointed as commissioner, a man whose family business has recently re-located from downtown St. Albans City to Exit 20, so as to take advantage of the Walmart and other potential development out there; all of which has been and will be under review by that commissioner.  

Not surprisingly, Davis’ Walmart slipped through Act 250 like butter.

Anyone like that on the District Commission for Derby?

Emphasis on educational priorities in Governor Shumlin’s inaugural address was met with restrained enthusiasm by Progressive legislators, who spoke out today in a press release.

Like many of us, they recognize that the devil is in the details, and as desirable as pre-K and higher educational opportunities are for Vermonters, how those initiatives are funded is critically important.

Already known for his reluctance to raise tax contributions by the wealthy, the Governor’s address suggested only one potential funding opportunity, the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The legislators are concerned that the Governor’s vision for redirecting support from the EITC will mean that new educational opportunities will be built on the backs of those least able to afford it.

Asking the Governor to take another look at alternative funding for the initiatives, Anthony Pollina (P-Washington) made the following observation:

Diverting money from the Earned Income Tax Credit shifts funds away from those who need it the most.  It is a new tax that hits lower-income Vermonters hardest.  Some may say this is not a broad based tax.  But it is worse; it is a tax targeted at those least able to afford it: low-income Vermonters, working families, and others struggling to make ends meet.  It is tax that would affect over 40,000 Vermonters.  The Earned Income Tax Credit is recognized as one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in Vermont.  Cutting it contradicts our focus on building a state budget that puts people first.”

His concerns were echoed by Chris Pearson (P-Chittenden) and Susan Hatch-Davis (P-Orange)

Susan Hatch-Davis:

“As someone who represents an area of the state with a high level of poverty, I want to say this funding source is a bad idea.  It will hurt families who are continuing to struggle in this economy.  This change isn’t a question of scaling back and buying a Lincoln instead of a Cadillac.  The Earned Income Tax Credit helps families afford groceries and heat.  This is bare-budget stuff.

_________________________________

Addendum by jvwalt: I was at today’s announcement, and I’ll attach a few more points to Sue’s summary… after the jump.

Additional notes by jvwalt:

Rep. Chris Pearson said that “using the earned income tax credit to fund this is not a serious proposal. I have yet to hear from any Democrat who supports this idea. Republicans have articulated their concerns, and Progressives are solidly opposed to this funding scheme.”  He noted that he’d just heard Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott speak out against an EITC cut, and said he couldn’t remember the last time he jumped up and down at something Scott said.

Pearson also said the Progs are working on alternative funding schemes, and implied that they might be trying to work around Shumlin’s steadfast opposition to income tax hikes:

We’re preparing some packages that would look at more than just the income taxes we’ve proposed in the past. There are a number of things where Vermont is quite unique; for instance, we’re one of only eleven states that doesn’t tax natural-resource extractions. There are some tweaks to the estate tax we could look at.

Standing in the background at the Statehouse news conference as the Administration’s Ghost-In-Chief, Human Services Secretary Doug Racine. He’d apparently been dispatched to represent Shumlin’s point of view, which he dutifully delivered. Racine noted that the EITC has grown by about 45% in the last seven years, due to increases in the federal allotment. (The state EITC piggybacks on the federal, so the two rise or fall in lockstep.) “The Governor… sees an opportunity to shift resources to a place where we an get a better bang for the buck.”

Racine estimated that the typical EITC recipient would lose about $370 out of a total annual benefit of roughly $2600.

And on the one hand, yes, it’s substantially more than recipients were getting just a few years ago. But on the other, I doubt that too many of those recipients are feeling particularly flush these days. And, as Pearson noted, while the Governor objects to “broad-based tax increases,” a proposed hike in the income tax on high earners would affect about 4,000 families — while Shumlin’s proposed EITC shift would affect more than 40,000.  

As BP reports, 100+ years of settled knowledge has come under attack by members of the congressional Science and Technology Committee: but there are telling signs, even outside of Washington, that America is abdicating its traditional role at the forefront of  scientific inquiry

The New York Times has announced that it is closing it’s nine person “Environment Desk,” which was newly established just four years ago in 2009.

Spokespersons for the Times insist that this is simply a restructuring, in line with other shifts the paper has made, and that it does not reflect a lessening commitment to the subject which has heretofore seen stellar coverage by the Times.  However, industry watchers are less convinced:

Beth Parke, executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists, said that while solid environmental coverage doesn’t always require a dedicated team, the Times’ decision is “worrying.”

“Dedicated teams bring strength and consistency to the task of covering environment-related issues,” she said. “It’s always a huge loss to see them dismantled … It’s not necessarily a weakening to change organizational structure, but it does seem to be a bad sign. I will be watching closely what happens next.”

And that’s not all the bad news.

One of the most important institutions of zoological study for more than a century, Chicago’s cash-strapped Field Museum of Natural History, recently announced plans to gut its natural history research program, slashing the overall budget by $5 million.

The budget cuts will be accompanied by the dissolution, on 1 January, of the 120-year-old institution’s classical academic departments – zoology, botany, geology and anthropology – and by the shuffling of member scientists into a new, leaner organization, broadly titled Science and Education.

A shock-wave from the news has been felt throughout the natural science community, and many fear similar measures may be adopted by other important institutions.

“It’s one of the great research institutions in comparative zoology, biodiversity and natural history, and it has been one of the leading centres of research for more than 100 years,” says James Hanken, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “There’s no way the Field Museum will be able to maintain its position of prominence under those circumstances.”

Without a host institution to house and support their research, many natural scientists engaged in important work may find it impossible to continue.

“The Field Museum has some of the world’s authorities on certain insects and certain kinds of fossils,” says Hanken. “If those people no longer have a job, we in the scientific community have lost their expertise.”

Even though the President and our own Governor Shumlin promise to prioritize education, the outlook is not encouraging. Two decades of anti-intellectual politics and economic folly on Wall Street have already succeeded in undermining the foundations of ingenious curiosity in this country.

If, as it would seem, major new investment in education and pure science is realistically out of the question, I’m afraid we’ve seen the end of the golden age of American invention and discovery.

I know that I seem to drone on about all things nuclear, raising stories that happen far away from Vermont; but I do so because so little attention is paid to the topic outside of any immediate crisis.

As with all technical issues, most of us are ill-equipped to connect the dots and fully understand how systemic dysfunction occurring thousands of miles away may predict trouble we might ultimately face close at home.

Today’s tidbit  was gleaned from the pages of Enformable,  which consolidates a lot of nuclear-related stories from across the globe.  Links are provided in Enformable’s post to the original news sources.  It is a tale of government contracting for nuclear decommissioning which has a predictably bad trajectory.

The story concerns the Hanford Reservation in the desert region of Washington State, where the Manhatten Project was carried out and plutonium produced for military use since the end of World War II.

In all, nine nuclear reactors were built at Hanford, the last of which ceased operation in 1987. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now estimates that as a result of the nuclear work done at Hanford’s facilities, 43 million cubic yards of radioactive waste were produced and more than 130 million cubic yards of soil ultimately were contaminated.

According to Alternet ( also quoted above:)

During Hanford’s lifespan, 475 billion gallons of radioactive wastewater were released into the ground. Radioactive isotopes have made their way up the food chain in the Hanford ecosystem at an alarming rate. Coyote excrement frequently lights up Geigers, as these scavengers feast on varmints that live beneath the earth’s surface. Deer also have nuclear radiation accumulating in their bones as a result of consuming local shrubbery and water. The EPA has deemed Hanford the most contaminated site in North America

Hanford also has the distinction of being the most costly environmental clean-up of all time, thanks in no small part to the current efforts by Bechtel National Inc. to run the bill up as high as possible.

Less familiar to us than the infamous Halliburton, Bechtel has left its own trail of shady and shoddy contracting activity, mostly with regard to pipelines.  But it seems, the more spectacular the failures, the more likely the failing company is to get a second, third and fourth bite at the apple of government contracts.  

ACORN should have been so lucky!

…And Bechtel got to bite off the biggest environmental clean-up contract of all time at Hanford. The numbers are staggering.

Bechtel holds the $12.2 billion contract to build a plant to treat up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium from the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Despite decades of cleanup efforts and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, only a tiny fraction of Hanford’s radioactivity has been safely contained

Apparently even this isn’t going to close the books on Bechtel’s compensation:

Bechtel has submitted a request for at least part of a $15 million incentive payment for reducing sodium. DOE still is evaluating whether payment should be made…Despite decades of cleanup efforts and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, only a tiny fraction of Hanford’s radioactivity has been safely contained, and the situation appears to be getting more polarized if not hostile.

So contentious is the issue within the Department of Energy that a DOE employee claims she was detained and prevented from leaving a meeting at the Hanford facility.

No doubt Bechtel, which has its fine hand in Fukushima remediation as well, will be rewarded with an even more lucrative contract in the future.

Which brings me to my point.  

Does anyone really know how much decommissioning a nuclear reactor like Vermont Yankee will cost by the time the loser in Entergy’s game of hot potato finally has to pony up?  

We know that the reserve fund is significantly less than the estimates; but how realistic are those estimates; and how much power over cost-containment would the state ultimately have (if worst came to worst) when the DOE’s own contractors are able to so successfully game the system?

What was that claim again?  “Cheap, reliable and clean?”

I know that I seem to drone on about all things nuclear, raising stories that happen far away from Vermont; but I do so because so little attention is paid to the topic outside of any immediate crisis.

As with all technical issues, most of us are ill-equipped to connect the dots and fully understand how systemic dysfunction occurring thousands of miles away may predict trouble we might ultimately face close at home.

Today’s tidbit  was gleaned from the pages of Enformable,  which consolidates a lot of nuclear-related stories from across the globe.  Links are provided in Enformable’s post to the original news sources.

It is a tale of government contracting for nuclear decommissioning which has a predictably bad trajectory.

The story concerns the Hanford Reservation in the desert region of Washington State, where [part of] the Manhattan Project was carried out and plutonium produced for military use since the end of World War II.

In all, nine nuclear reactors were built at Hanford, the last of which ceased operation in 1987. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now estimates that as a result of the nuclear work done at Hanford’s facilities, 43 million cubic yards of radioactive waste were produced and more than 130 million cubic yards of soil ultimately were contaminated.

According to Alternet (also quoted above):

During Hanford’s lifespan, 475 billion gallons of radioactive wastewater were released into the ground. Radioactive isotopes have made their way up the food chain in the Hanford ecosystem at an alarming rate. Coyote excrement frequently lights up Geigers, as these scavengers feast on varmints that live beneath the earth’s surface. Deer also have nuclear radiation accumulating in their bones as a result of consuming local shrubbery and water. The EPA has deemed Hanford the most contaminated site in North America

Hanford also has the distinction of being the most costly environmental clean-up of all time, thanks in no small part to the current efforts by Bechtel National Inc. to run the bill up as high as possible.

Less familiar to us than the infamous Halliburton, Bechtel has left its own trail of shady and shoddy contracting activity, mostly with regard to pipelines.  But it seems, the more spectacular the failures, the more likely the failing company is to get a second, third and fourth bite at the apple of government

contracts.  ACORN should have been so lucky!

…And Bechtel got to bite off the biggest environmental clean-up contract of all time at Hanford. The numbers are staggering.

Bechtel holds the $12.2 billion contract to build a plant to treat up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium from the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Despite decades of cleanup efforts and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, only a tiny fraction of Hanford’s radioactivity has been safely contained

Apparently even this isn’t going to close the books on Bechtel’s compensation:

Bechtel has submitted a request for at least part of a $15 million incentive payment for reducing sodium. DOE still is evaluating whether payment should be made.

Despite decades of cleanup efforts and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, only a tiny fraction of Hanford’s radioactivity has been safely contained, and the situation appears to be getting more polarized if not hostile.

So contentious is the issue within the Department of Energy that a DOE employee claims she was detained and prevented from leaving a meeting at the Hanford facility.

No doubt Bechtel, which has its fine hand in Fukushima remediation as well, will be rewarded with an even more lucrative contract in the future.

Which brings me to my point.  Does anyone really know how much decommissioning a nuclear reactor like Vermont Yankee will cost by the time the loser in Entergy’s game of hot potato finally has to pony up?  We know that the reserve fund is significantly less than the estimates; but how realistic are those estimates; and how much power over cost-containment would the state ultimately have (if worst came to worst) when the DOE’s own contractors are able to so successfully game the system?

What was that claim again?  “Cheap, reliable and clean?”

I just read something on Enformable that bears sharing; especially since we got a little off-track on the gun control thread and ended up discussing bombs.

It could be that  Japan’s epic nuclear tragedy may still have a third act to play out.

Apparently, there is an effort afoot to turn the Rokkasho Nuclear Reprocessing Facility in Aomori prefecture into the mega spent-fuel dumping ground for a host of other Asian countries including Korea and Viet Nam.

Rokkasho, which re-processes spent-fuel into MOX fuel is already handling as much domestic material as it possibly can, and has come under criticism not only because of the controversial nature of its product but also because, just last month, geomorphologists reported that it has been found to be situated over an active earthquake fault.

The controversy surrounding MOX fuel production has two aspects.  The first concern for the international community is the plutonium storage that is involved:

Japan already has enough plutonium stockpiled to create hundreds of nuclear bombs, which with Japan’s current stance on nuclear weapons, is only becoming more and more of a proliferation and safety risk to keep in temporary storage

Secondly, the reprocessed fuel has proven to have practical issues:

The nuclear village and government officials have been working hard to deflect criticism that the Japanese nuclear fuel cycle plans are a complete waste of money, as neither the Monju fast breeder reactor nor the Rokkasho facility has been able to overcome frequent malfunctions and delays… Since 2009, only 4 nuclear reactors have burned MOX fuel, one of which melted down at Fukushima Daiichi.

Within that “nuclear village and government,” a corrupt culture  not only contributed to worsening outcomes at Fukushima, but continues to operate a frantic spin cycle, moving heaven and earth to sway Japanese public opinion and save  a powerful industry.

Korean officials say Japanese reports of their interest in reprocessing at Rokkasho are without substance.

In response to the news of the report, Korean officials assured the press that they were not considering Japan as a resource for reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel, inferring that this had only been another last ditch effort by Japans officials to “look for silver lining,” no matter what the reality may be.

Looks like poor beleaguered Japan may have a tough time shedding the yoke of nuclear folly.

What should we make of this?  

‘Digger is reporting that Entergy’s poor economic outlook might portend the closing of Vermont Yankee.  This, according to UBS Securities of Switzerland.  

They suggest there are strong indications that Entergy might consider resolving some cash-flow issues by closing both Yankee and another relic of happier times, NY Fitzpatrick.

On the face of it, this looks like good news; and the sooner the better.

But then there is that small matter of a decommissioning fund that is significantly inadequate to handle the thirty-year job of reclaiming Yankee from its toxic past.

“Entergy guidance clearly illustrates no cash generation from nukes”

If Entergy is hemorrhaging cash with little prospect of improvement on the nuclear horizon (something that comes as no surprise to readers of GMD); and if the company was prepared to drag the State of Vermont through multiple appeals only to pull the plug all by itself; that same perversity will undoubtedly see Entergy move heaven and earth in order to slide out from under its decommissioning obligations.

Soon dawns the certain knowledge that nuclear energy is anything but cheap and clean.

As if that isn’t enough provocative news on the nuclear front, ‘Digger carries another related story about Vermont and New York teaming up to ask the NRC to take a closer look at spent fuel storage at facilities on their soil.  

This request has been made in light of a 2011 court decision which effectively negated the long-standing rule allowing on-site storage of spent fuel, pending further investigation related to the findings from Fukushima.

The NRC wasted no time in extending VY’s operating license in the immediate wake of Fukushima.  Now that undo haste is coming back to haunt them.

‘Just another nail in the coffin of Entergy’s future commitment to Vermont Yankee.

The premier voice on environmental policy in Vermont, the Vermont Natural Resource Council, has just issued a position statement against the proposal for a moratorium on wind projects.

The opening lines of the statement recognize the good intentions of proponents for the three-year moratorium; however, the VNRC does not believe that the moratorium serves the best long-term interests of the state.

A point-by-point rundown of the reasons for this conclusion includes the urgency of the need to cut fossil fuel consumption; the responsible and timely efforts now underway in Vermont to develop effective guidelines for siting wind projects; and the fact that

Many of the environmental concerns commonly associated with wind energy development – including habitat fragmentation and stormwater runoff – are widely associated with a range of land use and development activities both at high and lower elevations that are subject to much less stringent – or no – state regulation and oversight.  A moratorium on wind energy facilities does not address the vast majority of land use impacts on forest and habitat fragmentation and water quality.

In conclusion, this summary observation is offered:

VNRC believes that carefully sited renewable energy generation facilities – including wind turbines – coupled with aggressive energy conservation and efficiency strategies, are a responsible response to climate change, peak oil and the need for an independent, clean energy economy.

The topic of wind has been a thorny one in Vermont, and will no doubt continue to be; but the VNRC can be credited for its effort to show the environmental community a path out of the thicket by reminding us that we can ill-afford to make an achievably better environment the victim of an impossibly perfect one.

The full text of the VNRC statement is reproduced here, “under the fold.”

VNRC opposes the proposed three-year moratorium on wind energy development in Vermont.  While VNRC appreciates that the motivations of the moratorium’s sponsors are well intentioned and grounded in a desire to protect Vermont’s mountaintops and ridgelines, a moratorium is not in the best long-term interest of the state. VNRC’s position is based on the following considerations:

Climate change and fossil fuel scarcity are major threats to Vermont and the world. Deployment of a full range of available renewable energy technologies, including well-sited wind power, is among the many important strategies to reduce those threats.

The Vermont Energy Generation Siting Policy Commission, appointed by Governor Shumlin this past October (at the urging of VNRC and other conservation and environmental organizations), is currently engaged in an aggressive process of identifying improvements to the siting and permitting process for energy facilities in the state.  Their work is scheduled for completion in April 2013.

There are no pending applications for wind generation facilities. There is a pending proposal for a meteorological wind testing tower (Newark), a very recently approved met tower application (Windham) and one potential project – Grandpa’s Knob – that would have to meet significant hurdles before it could proceed.

That all adds up to providing ample time for the Legislature to act on the recommendations of the Energy Siting Commission prior to any likely submission of a new application.

Wind energy can, and should, play an important role in meeting Vermont’s goal of 90% renewable energy by 2050. It is the most affordable, reliable renewable resource in Vermont, and the state is currently undertaking serious steps to mitigate or avoid the impacts of wind development.

Vermont can develop some upland areas for wind energy generation safely and without undue adverse environmental impacts.  Many of the environmental concerns commonly associated with wind energy development – including habitat fragmentation and stormwater runoff – are widely associated with a range of land use and development activities both at high and lower elevations that are subject to much less stringent – or no – state regulation and oversight.  A moratorium on wind energy facilities does not address the vast majority of land use impacts on forest and habitat fragmentation and water quality.

A moratorium on wind projects in Vermont – regardless of one’s view of such an initiative – more broadly undermines other efforts both here in Vermont and across the country to address climate change because it has the effect of minimizing the threat.  

VNRC believes that carefully sited renewable energy generation facilities – including wind turbines – coupled with aggressive energy conservation and efficiency strategies, are a responsible response to climate change, peak oil and the need for an independent, clean energy economy.

With all the toothsome issues competing for our attention these days, it’s difficult to give nuclear energy concerns their due.

But Vermont Yankee still rumbles away, unchecked, on the banks of the Connecticut River; and the catastrophic events at Fukushima continue to be compounded by regulatory failures, corporate corruption and public deceit.

So at the dawn of 2013, almost two years after the Fukushima disaster coincided with NRC relicensing of VY, here is a GMD run-down on some things nuclear.

Let’s start with a new Fairewinds video release.

Revisiting the principle technical issues which affected outcomes at Fukushima, Arnie Gundersen explains how revelations over the past two years have borne out Fairewinds’ early analysis while effectively demonstrating the culture of denial that still plagues the entire industry.  

He goes on to discuss how this fundamental dysfunction has resulted in regulatory paralysis, with the NRC

avoiding analysis of damage to many nuclear plants’ emergency cooling systems (Ultimate Heat Sink) from storm surges, tsunamis or dam failures.

The bad news from Fukushima just keeps on coming.

New estimates for the overall cost of the disaster are now in excess of $60 Billion.  Compensation costs alone have increased steadily and now stand at $38 Billion and counting.

It has recently been revealed that, at the height of the disaster on March 16, 2011 communications between TEPCO’s head office and workers at the plant were severed:

the communications line between TEPCO’s head office in Tokyo and the on-site workers was cut off, but the emergency responders at Fukushima Daiichi were unable to deal with the problem because its communications staff had been evacuated.  The disconnection is thought to have been caused by the erroneous severing of the fiber-optic cables during work to restore a power substation in Fukushima prefecture.

And crewmembers of the USS Ronald Reagan, who were enlisted in the relief effort, are now suing TEPCO for misrepresenting the radiation levels in order to minimize the sense of risk.

On March 14th, the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and other US Navy ships in the Pacific were repositioned after detecting radioactive materials from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, in total seven US Navy ships were swiftly moved to the eastern coast of Japan, and the crews were exposed to radiation from airborne plumes.

“TEPCO pursued a policy to cause rescuers, including the plaintiffs, to rush into an unsafe area which was too close to the FNPP [Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant] that had been damaged. Relying upon the misrepresentations regarding health and safety made by TEPCO … the U.S. Navy was lulled into a false sense of security,” the complaint states.

The U.S.’s aging “fleet” of nuclear power plants have not been without their share of incident, either.

The San Onofre plant operated by South California Edison has been out of commission since last January due to structural integrity issues and a radiation leak. Now, as Edison seeks permission to restart the plant, regulators have declared the plant unsafe and it will likely be offline for many more months, if not forever.

Recently, a pair of engineers asked the Senate to investigate safety threats to the security of the Indian Point power facility in upstate New York and at Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina.  

Another Entergy albatross, Indian Point sits atop gas lines which, in the event of  engineering failures or natural disaster, have the potential to unleash a disaster to dwarf that of Fukushima due to the facility’s close proximity of New York City.

Oconee is located downstream from a dam, which represents similar risk from engineering failure or natural disaster.

The engineers point out that the risk to these two facilities has been common knowledge for some time now, but both the NRC and Congress have refused to take action.

Here at home in Vermont, we seem to be unable to shed the spectre of Vermont Yankee.  Even if the miraculous came to pass and the plant shut down tomorrow, our children and grandchildren would still have to live with the legacy of decommissioning costs and associated risks for decades to come.

And, after twenty-five years of uncertainty, the future of Yucca Mountain’s nuclear waste repository remains in limbo.

The German word for poison is ‘gift.’  ‘Giftig’ means ‘poisonous.’

It is ironically appropriate for describing nuclear energy, which once was sold to the American public as the ultimate clean, cheap, and safe energy solution.

If we’d only known.

Art Woolf is at it again, making a mountain out of a molehill through the magic of exaggerated chart curves.

There’s nothing new about the alarm du jour.  Mr. Woolf, like his Ethan Allen Institute buddies is married to the idea that Vermont is “bad for business.” He fondly jumps on any statistic that can be used to reinforce that meme.

The aging of the population is one of his favorite bugaboos, and he revisits it on a regular basis.  Perhaps owing to a dearth of other material, The Free Press routinely gives him space in their “How We’re Doing” to say the same thing, over-and-over-again.

How are we doing? Frankly, we’re a little bored.

Mr. Woolf’s charts routinely describe relatively modest statistical differences with sweeping graphic overstatements. In this instance a population change from 60,000 seniors in 2000 to roughly twice that figure in 2020 is rendered so as to look like a quadrupling of the number.

Mr. Woolf ought to know better than to indulge in such visual trickery, but all that is very much beside the point. As usual, Mr. Woolf has chosen to cluck over specific conditions in Vermont while ignoring the rest of the country.

Yes, Vermont’s population is aging; but so is the population of the entire country.

The states that are looking at the most long-term growth in their youthful population are those with a large hispanic demographic.  That is a cultural phenomenon which has nothing to do with whether or not a state is “good for business.”

That same cultural phenomenon will ultimately tip the balance in favor of a non-“white” majority in this country; something that will most certainly not benefit the political agenda of Republicans like Mr. Woolf and the company he keeps.

And even the economic arguments around the “aging population” meme are faulty.  They maintain that prosperity depends upon retention and growth of a youthful population.  

While it is true that young people consume more than do older adults, this does not necessarily translate to overall prosperity if what they are consuming is no longer produced here in the U.S.

It does ensure prosperity for corporate America, who source their products elsewhere, then employ people at home in low-paying service jobs.  

This is the Walmart model; and Mr. Woolf, who is known to be a great proponent of the Walmart model, is unsurprisingly oblivious to its downside.

How are we doing in Vermont?  Most indicators suggest the we are doing rather well when compared to other states.  Can we do better? Of course we can.  

But better for whom?  If the benefit of a “better” business environment is not felt throughout the population, elevating the most disadvantaged Vermonters and maintaining a strong middle class while preserving a sustainable future, can it truly be described as prosperity?

A smart economic move for a state…any state…faced with an aging population, would be to build a skilled service economy around that demographic.  

People are living longer, thank goodness; and that is where the increase in the overall age of the population really lives.  

Those older folks may not consume as much material goods as their younger counterparts; but they will potentially consume far more in the way of skilled services like healthcare, quality food items, public transportation and specialty living aids that might be sourced from close to home…if we recognize the opportunity and devote some resources to education, research-dand-development, and innovative planning around those needs.  Successfully building such an economic model in Vermont will, in itself, attract a new generation of skilled workers to raise their families in Vermont, rejuvenating the state in the natural cycle of things.

Mr. Woolf is clinging to unsustainable economic assumptions from the past.

It’s time for Vermont to demonstrate that it can be nimble; to embrace and adapt to its changing demographic