PUTNEY — Entergy's lawsuit against the people of Vermont took place this week.
The central premise of this legal action is that the state of Vermont is attempting to keep our state safe by closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, and that the state has no right to do so because only the federally designated Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is legally mandated to concern itself with the safety of the population living around the reactor.
Unfortunately, the NRC once again has blatantly disregarded the safety of the thousands of people living in the evacuation zone around the reactor, this time through its silence and absence following the flooding and destruction caused by Tropical Storm Irene.
In the event of an accident at Vermont Yankee, we are supposed to follow an “evacuation plan,” set in place by public safety officials.
This plan makes many bogus assumptions at the best of times: that those who drive school buses will transport schoolchildren instead of attending to their own families in a time of crisis, that those many Brattleboro residents who live without cars will successfully find their own ways out, and that the road system will be fully functional.
In pre-Irene days, the road system would be inadequate, and those of us with cars would be sitting in a parking lot instead of beating a hasty retreat.
Post-Irene, however, the road system in the area surrounding Vermont Yankee was a mess. Route 9 was closed west of Brattleboro for two weeks, as was Route 30 from the Rock River westward. Interstate 91 is a single lane in Brattleboro due to ongoing construction. Many, many smaller roads, such as the Dover Road in South Newfane, were destroyed, as well as some bridges. Some of these local roads are closed for the foreseeable future.
Vermont Yankee will be closing in six months. It should be closed right now, due to the dire state of our local transportation system. If the NRC were really paying attention to our safety and well-being in the areas surrounding Vermont Yankee, they would be present and would see that there is even less of an opportunity for evacuation now than the slim chance under their highly optimistic assumptions.
The NRC, yet again, missed an opportunity to stand up for our safety.
We need to speak up. We need to speak with our Congressional representatives and let them know that Vermont Yankee should close until the road system is up and fully functional.
We need to let our public officials know that an evacuation map will not get us to safety in the face of a dangerous failure of Vermont Yankee.