A group of activists this week began an effort to raise public awareness about the area within a 10-mile radius of Vermont Yankee – the plant’s official Emergency Planning Zone – in the lead-up to two politically charged events later this month.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public hearing in Brattleboro on June 22. The next day U.S. District Court will hear arguments regarding Entergy’s injunction request to prevent the state of Vermont from shutting down the plant in March 2012 when the company’s license to operate the plant expires. Entergy is suing the state of Vermont over the Legislature’s refusal to extend the corporation’s license to operate the plant an additional 20 years. The Louisiana-based corporation must place an order for uranium fuel by July 7 in order to continue operating the plant through the winter.
Early Tuesday morning, Jito Coleman and around 20 other volunteers placed signs reading “Vermont Yankee Evacuation Zone” along main roadways at the point where they crossed into the Emergency Planning Zone — 10 miles from Vermont Yankee.
Coleman said the nuclear meltdown of four nuclear reactors at the Daiichi Fukushima plant in Japan that occurred in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami in March demonstrated the vulnerability of the nuclear systems and the potential impacts of nuclear power plant emissions on surrounding communities. Residents within 20 kilometers of the Daichii plant were given $16,000 each and told not to return for six to nine months.
“We wanted to alert people in Vermont, [New Hampshire, and Massachusetts], well maybe this could happen to us,” said Coleman.
Vermont Yankee, located in Vernon on the banks of the Connecticut River, is a Mark 1 General Electric reactor – the same type that failed in Japan. A report from Institute Policy Studies showed that Vermont Yankee is storing three times nearly the amount of spent fuel stored at Fukushima’s Unit 4 reactor, which caught fire, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
Entergy officials say the odds of a similarly catastrophic geologic and climactic circumstances occurring in Vermont are highly unlikely.
Guy Page, communications director for Vermont Energy Partnership, said in an email that he has not seen the activists’ signs. He had no comment except to say that “Vermont Yankee was assessed in depth for several years by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it granted a 20-year license extension earlier this year.”
Coleman says the group purchased around 300 of the custom-printed signs and put up 100 on Tuesday morning. Many more, he said, would be put up today, as property owners supporting the cause will put them up in their yards. These signs may be seen well over 10 miles from Vermont Yankee; the group is offering them to anyone who would choose to evacuate their home in the event of a disaster at Vermont Yankee, even if they don’t live in the 315-square-mile Emergency Planning Zone.
The group of activists, of which Coleman does not consider himself leader – “We’re all equal in this,” he said – is still without a name. Coleman said a small sub-group pooled their resources to have the signs printed and they will ask for donations as the signs are distributed. In an attempt to represent their ideals and not their personalities, the group chose to use Facebook as their primary organizing tool.
“Part of the reason of using Facebook and the media,” Coleman said, “is that it’s less about us.” He said the group is not concerned with remaining anonymous, they “just don’t want the thing to be about names.”
According to Coleman, the group doesn’t feel the potential problem of a nuclear disaster at Vermont Yankee gets enough attention from the media, and is trying to draw attention to the issue before two events later this month.
On June 22, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting at Brattleboro High School to discuss their annual assessment for Vermont Yankee. Coleman says the group “[wants] to make a lot of noise at that meeting.”
The next day, a hearing is scheduled in the lawsuit between Entergy, the parent corporation for Vermont Yankee, and the state of Vermont. Coleman says the group hopes to make sure that the judges deciding the case know how the people feel about Vermont Yankee.
“The context of how the lawsuit is going to be decided is us, the people,” said Coleman.