Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance

*HELP THE STATE DECIDE ITS ENERGY FUTURE – WITHOUT NUKES! *

In October, a series of public workshops will be held in different towns to secure input about the future mix of electricity sources. At the end of each workshop, participants will vote on their preferred mix. The results will be presented to the legislature.

Therefore it is very important that Vermonters who oppose nuclear energy attend one of the workshops and vote!

Voting privileges may be limited to the first 150 persons who register for each workshop. So choose the location nearest you (see below) and ** REGISTER NOW * *

To register, go to this website: http://www.raabassociates.org/WebComponents/vtsignup/welcome.htm

Locations and dates:

Oct. 3, 2007 St. Johnsbury Elementary School
Oct. 17, 2007 South Burlington High School
Oct. 18, 2007 Montpelier Elks Club, Montpelier, VT
Oct. 29, 2007 Dean Technical Center, Springfield, VT
Oct. 30, 2007 Rutland Intermediate School, Rutland, VT

More info:

Five evening public workshops will be held in locations throughout the state
this fall. You can attend the workshop closest to you. These workshops were
authorized by the Vermont Legislature, endorsed by the Governor, and
spearheaded by the Department of Public Service.

The goal of the workshops is to gather informed and thoughtful citizen and
ratepayer input for the State and its electric utilities as they make decisions
about how and where Vermont obtains its electric power for the coming decades.
In 2012, contracts providing for two-thirds of the state’s electric power begin
to expire. This leaves the future source of Vermont’s electricity open for
discussion and examination.

Choices about the future will have to be made and will weigh trade-offs among
cost, reliability, environmental impact, large and small scale generation, and
in versus out-of-state sources

All workshops will begin at 5:30 p.m. with light dinner fare and a prompt start
at 6 p.m. and end around 10.

Look for the solar rollers blog to begin on August 15th!

Aug 13, 2007
The Solar Rollers are leaving tomorrow for a two and a half week tour of Vermont, stopping in every corner and every county of the state to bring the message: It’s time to close the dangerous, aging nuclear power plant in Vernon and make way for a ‘Decade of Change’ to a truly Green, renewable safe energy future. It’s time to put Vermont energy dollars to work for the local economy, instead of the Louisiana boardroom of Entergy.

There are excellent leaflets prepared, with the names and phone numbers and addresses of all the Vermont state legislators. We’ll be handing them out along the route, urging people to call or write their reps and ask that they hold hearings on Vermont Yankee, high level nuclear waste storage on the Connecticut River, and a renewable energy future. Most of all , we will be asking them to Say No to a 20-year license extension for the Vermont Yankee Nuke.

The Vermont legislature has decided to vote on whether to allow VY to operate for 20 more years. Without a certificate of public good, the plant must shut down by 2012. Vermont is the only state in the country that has taken back the power to accept or reject a nuclear plant’s operating license. Our future in Western Mass is hanging in the balance.

The Solar Rollers are an anti-nuclear bicycle group formed during the occupation of the Seabrook Nuke in 1978. Since then, 60 of us have ridden to Rocky Flats, Colorado, canvassing along the way for peace and safe energy, and toured Vermont in 1981 in support of a shutdown of VY and a nuclear weapons freeze. Twenty-six years later, a few of us are hitting the pavement again, for pretty much the same cause: for the link between nuclear power and weapons has never been clearer than it is today.

For the planet to survive, we must end the threat of nuclear destruction, and shut down the Vernon nuke. If this 34-year old boiling water reactor (BWR) is retired, dozens more US reactors with the same unsafe design could follow, shutting down like dominoes. BWRs like VY are inherently unsafe because they store reactor fuel on upper stories, in non-hardened areas. At Vernon, the reactor has more than one million pounds of lethally carcinogenic high level waste in a storage pool on the seventh floor.

Other states have seen reactors shut by citizen activity. With Maine Yankee, Rowe, and Connecicut Yankee all permanently retired, a shut down of Vernon could create a nuclear-free zone in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, important for life on all levels to flourish in our region.

The Solar Rollers have always been about outreach, and as supportive legislators from Windham County have told us, outreach right now is the key to the campaign to shut down Vermont Yankee. Multiply our efforts by riding with us for a day, or for the whole 2 1/2 weeks tour. Call us on the road at 413-775-3973 and we will send you our ininerary. Or email us and find out how to start a Solar Roller group in your community, and we will send you copies of our flyer to distribute there.
====================================================