A group of activists last week began an effort to raise public awareness about the area within a 10-mile radius of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon - the plant's official Emergency Planning Zone - in the lead-up to two politically charged events later this month.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public hearing in Brattleboro on June 22 on its recent safety assessment of the plant.
The next day, the U.S. District Court in Brattleboro 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 Nuclear, the owner of the plant, is suing the state of Vermont over the Legislature's refusal to extend the corporation's state permit to operate the plant an additional 20 years.
The Louisiana-based corporation claims it must place an order for uranium fuel by July 7 in order to continue operating the plant through the winter, creating an urgency in its civil complaint against the state.
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, of Warren, said the nuclear meltdown of four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi 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.
The Vermont Yankee reactor has a Mark 1 General Electric container - the same type that failed in Japan. Also, a report from the Institute for Policy Studies showed that Vermont Yankee is storing nearly three times the amount of spent fuel stored at Fukushima's Unit 4 reactor, which caught fire, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
Entergy officials say that the odds of a similar catastrophe occurring in Vermont are highly unlikely.
Coleman says the group purchased around 300 of the custom-printed signs and put up 100 last week. Many more, he said, will be put up in the coming days, as property owners supporting the cause will put them up in their yards.
These signs may also 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 subgroup 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; its members “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.
According to the Facebook page, the group will hold a “citizens' rally” June 23 at the Federal Courthouse in Brattleboro in support of the state's right to require Entergy to hold a Certificate of Public Good to operate the plant.