FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2, 2018
CONTACT: Schuyler Gould, President 802-479-7227
Raymond Shadis, Expert Witness 207-380-5994
James Dumont, Attorney 802-453-7011
Clay Turnbull, Staff and Trustee 802-380-4462
Agreement Reached on Sale & Clean-up
of Vermont Yankee
Today a Memorandum of Understanding was filed at the Vermont Public Utility Commission outlining an agreement amongst nine of the ten intervenors reviewing the proposed sale of Vermont Yankee by Entergy to NorthStar. New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, after much give and take with Joint Petitioners Entergy and NorthStar during the course of negotiations, supports this agreement.
Raymond Shadis, NEC board member and technical adviser in these proceedings, said “We now consider ourselves allies and partners with NorthStar and will do our best to help them achieve a state-of-the-art, best-practices, and environmentally responsible decommissioning, as free of nuclear pollution as it can possibly be made.”
NEC president Schuyler Gould says, “Despite our concerns when the sale was first proposed, we have always been hopeful for an expedited decommissioning fully protective of the environment. Our immediate concern has always been for the safety of the decommissioning process itself. Our long term concern has been for the health of future generations which will soon forget what lies beneath their feet. We believe this agreement addresses our concerns, and we support its provision for stakeholder establishment of an appropriate public engagement process.”
A formal review of the MOU will take place over the next few weeks, including the filing of evidence and arguments made by all the parties to the negotiations. The Commission will soon set a date for a public hearing to get input regarding the MOU. “This hearing is not icing on a cake already out of the oven,” says Gould. “It is an integral part of the information the Commission needs to decide whether or not to issue a Certificate of Public Good allowing the sale to go forward. A good outcome is virtually guaranteed if we take it upon ourselves to make it happen.
“We who call this beautiful valley home are the most important voice in this entire process. One needn’t understand every aspect of the agreement to show up at the public hearing and let your voice be heard!”
New England Coalition encourages everyone to review the terms of the MOU by going to the following link or at its website www.NewEnglandCoalition.org.
The short URL of the present article is: https://necnp.org/waeux