Planning the anti-nuke struggle in Vermont

BURLINGTON, Vt.--More than 50 people attended a daylong conference on the danger of nuclear power held at the University of Vermont campus on July 23. The meeting was an opportunity to galvanize clean energy activists and organize next steps in the fight to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

The fight against Vermont's nuke has reached a turning point with a lawsuit filed by Entergy Corp. against the state government. Entergy wants to maintain operations despite a 26-4 vote in the state Senate last year to have the power plant closed. The company was recently denied an injunction that would allow it to continue operating while the case is being decided.

Despite this, Entergy has purchased--at a cost of millions of dollars--more nuclear fuel rods, enough to keep Vermont Yankee running well past the deadline set by the state to shut down.

People all over Vermont--but particularly in the southern region, which is most affected by the dangers of the plant--have been organizing since Vermont Yankee first opened in 1972. But the struggle has taken on new urgency as the dangers of the decaying plant become more evident. Those dangers include leaks of tritium and strontium into the river it uses for cooling, corroded piping, cooling tower collapses and the suspension of lethal plutonium waste in a poorly constructed holding tank 10 stories high.

THE JULY 23 conference began with nuclear whistleblower Arnie Gundersen addressing the crowd about the science behind nuclear power--he talked about the health effects of nukes and made an indictment of the whole process.

"The Bobby McFerrin crowd--"Don't Worry, Be Happy"--has had far too much influence on the government's decisions," he said, expressing disdain for the corporate science that states with a straight face that installation of solar panels has killed more people than the operation of nuclear power plants.

With Gundersen's data fresh in everyone's mind, attendees reconvened after lunch to listen to members of the Citizen's Awareness Network describe the history of the anti-nuclear movement in Vermont and Massachusetts. The talk included a discussion of the decommissioning of Yankee Rowe nuclear plant in Massachusetts and the recent attempts to shut down Vermont Yankee.

The conference ended with a panel discussion with author Chris Williams of the Shut Down Indian Point Now coalition in New York City, political activist Dan DeWalt and David Stember from anti-global warming group 350.org. The panel discussed the many paths for the anti-nuclear movement to take from here.

Williams eloquently connected the struggles to close Indian Point and Vermont Yankee:

They are owned by the same corporation. They're roughly the same age, and they're both ticking time bombs in our communities. The whole country is watching to see if Vermont can beat back Entergy. If you succeed here, we'll have a much better chance in New York, and if we win in New York, then the whole industry has to be put into serious question.

More anti-nuclear and climate justice organizing and events are in the works in Vermont. These events are organized by a number of different groups, and there is a growing sense of the need to collaborate more and unite as a larger movement.

350-Vermont and other organizations are mobilizing a delegation of Vermonters to participate in the Stop the Tar Sands civil disobedience protest in Washington, D.C., at the end of August against the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that would pipe oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Texas.

A rally on September 10 in Brattleboro, Vt., is also planned to show that there is strong and widespread opposition to Vermont Yankee. Organizers planned this demonstration to precede the beginning of the court hearing on Entergy's lawsuit against the state.

A strong national movement against nuclear power and for climate justice is needed in the U.S., and we are seeing the seeds of such a movement with the organizing and collaboration among different groups in Vermont, along with their link to sister groups like Close Indian Point Now in New York City.

As conference attendee Robbie Cavooris said, "If Fukushima shows us anything, it's that nuclear is never safe, clean or reliable, as Entergy wants us to believe. If we can't get rid of nuclear now, it may be too late later."