For some people, the Yankee sale is personal

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2002 by Marcel, Joyce

At that point, Davidson turned all her attention to the Entergy sale.

"If the plant were sold to Entergy, how would that affect the safety?" Davidson said. "I had concerns about whether a huge, multi-layered corporation whose major interest was profit would be led to cut staff or security or plant maintenance.

I was concerned about the accountability. If Entergy owned the plant, they would be accountable to FERC, and I don't have much faith in federal government regulation of nuclear energy.

"As a local person, if you got concerned about something at the plant, who would you even call? At the hearings, one of the men who testified for Entergy wasn't even clear who issued his paychecks, because there were so many layers of administration."

Whether the plant's license would be extended past its closing date in 2012 also became a concern.

"It seemed like the Public Service Board may have something to say in 2012 about relicensing," Davidson said. "But the plant was designed to last 30 years. What about the hidden things, the cracks that happen over time? I don't believe that the plant should be relicensed in 2012. We were promised, as ratepayers, that the license would end then."

Davidson got involved in the Town Meeting Day referendum, which asked voters for a non-binding vote on whether or not to shut the plant and slowly decommission it.

"I felt that was something I could get involved in, something concrete that I could do," Davidson said. "It was a small group of people, very grass-roots. In Dummerston, when I spoke at Town Meeting, it was obvious that there were many people concerned about the plant since September 11, and concerned about the details of the sale, and whether this was in the interest of the utilities but not the ratepayers. There were economic questions as well. Should the decommissioning fund go back to the ratepayers? Should we get locked into a power contract?"

Shutting down Vermont Yankee would not make the safety issue go away, said Central Vermont Public Service spokesman Steve Costello. CVPS is a major owner of the plant.

"The issue is not whether the plant is sold or not, or whether the plant is operating or not," Costello said. "The plant will still be there, all the fuel will still be there, all the waste will still be there. So closing the plant doesn't solve anything at all."

Yankee countered the grass-roots effort with a $250,000 advertising campaign that did not touch upon safety concerns at all.

"They used 'fear tactics' to convince many people that closing the plant would be bad for business, bad for the local nonprofits, and that it would a mean huge loss of jobs," Davidson said. "My belief is that if Vermont Yankee is sold to Entergy, it will result in a loss of jobs here anyway, because they'll be emphasizing profits. They've done layoffs in other places they own. And I think there will be a serious drop in donations to the non-profits anyway. As we've seen from watching our local banks being bought up, there are always job layoffs and a reduction of donations.