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Jim Cole / AP
93-year-old anti-nuclear activist Francis Crowe, center, and her friend Anneke Corbett are escorted off the property of Entergy Corp. in Brattleboro, Vt. after being arrested for trespassing.
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- A 93-year-old anti-nuclear activist was among more than 130 protesters arrested at the corporate headquarters of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant Thursday, the first day of the plant's operation after the expiration of its 40-year license.
Frances Crowe, of Northampton, Mass., said she wants Vermont Yankee to cease operations because she feels it's a threat to the people who live nearby.
"As I was walking down, all I could think of was Fukushima and the suffering of all the people, and I don't want that to happen to New England," said Crowe in referring to the Japanese nuclear reactor damaged last year after an earthquake and tsunami.
Fukushima disaster response frighteningly similar to Chernobyl
When asked how many times she'd been arrested, she answered: "Not enough."
A heavy police presence and ropes blocked off access to the offices in Brattleboro. The arrests were made calmly and without any confrontation, with obvious signs that protesters and police had worked out the logistics beforehand.
Unlawful trespass
Brattleboro Police Chief Gene Wrinn said in a statement that more than 130 people had been arrested for unlawful trespass. He said after being processed, they were later released.
The Brattleboro Reformer reported that Thursday's protest was the largest in Vermont in 25 years.
A company spokesman said work continued as normal at the plant 10 miles south in Vernon.
"We greatly appreciate the backing of our supporters and respect the rights of opponents to peacefully protest," said a statement issued by company spokesman Larry Smith. "Inside the gates, our employees will not be distracted. As it is every day, their focus on safety will be laser sharp."
'Shut it down'
A crowd estimated at more than 1,000 gathered in a downtown Brattleboro park before they marched the 3 ½ miles to the headquarters. Some marched on stilts. Others with painted faces carried signs that read "hell no, we won't glow." Many chanted: "Shut it down."
Gov. Peter Shumlin was sympathetic to the protesters.
"I am very supportive of the peaceful protesters gathered today in Brattleboro to express their — and my — frustration that this aging plant remains open after its agreed-upon license has expired," he said.
Jim Cole / AP
Hundreds of anti-nuclear activists march to the local corporate offices of Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Corp. in Brattleboro, Vt., on Thursday.
In a coordinated action in New Orleans, the headquarters of Vermont Yankee's parent company, Entergy Nuclear, another group of seven activists was arrested after going into the building and refusing to leave, police said. The Journal News reported that five others also were arrested at Entergy offices in White Plains, N.Y.
Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley said the New Orleans protesters live near the Vermont plant and traveled to Louisiana to request a meeting with Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard. They didn't get that meeting before they were arrested.
"We're trying to tell Entergy that the whole world is watching, and you can't pollute in one area of the country without consequences for everybody," Quigley said.
Radioactive tritium leaks from 48 US nuke sites
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued the plant a 20-year license extension, but the state of Vermont wants the plant to close and the two sides are fighting a legal battle. In January, a federal judge issued an order that allows the plant to continue operating while the legal case continues in court.
Handcuffed
While the protesters gathered on the Brattleboro Commons, Vermont Yankee supporters sat across the street and watched. A half-dozen signs saying "VT4VY" were posted on the lawn.
"The thing is these people are not going to realize it until it's too late what a benefit it is down there. I feel bad for them. I don't think they're looking at the big picture," said Steve Shaclumis of Brattleboro.
Some protesters, including Crowe, were released immediately with citations to appear in court. Others were handcuffed and led onto a waiting school bus. It was expected they would be taken to a police station and then released.
According to The New York Times, the cost of decommissioning a single reactor is estimated at $400 million to $1 billion.
The newspaper reported on Tuesday that Entergy "is at least $90 million short of the projected $560 million cost of dismantling Vermont Yankee."
The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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HELL yeah please Go!!! and Glow!!!...
Years of research, and some very intelligent people made the rules for a reason. Now its time to play by the rules. That's all.
93000000 miles (150 million kilometers), it stares you in the face everyday. The technology to harness it's power is already developed. It's here, always has been in my lifetime, it's cost effective for users, but not so much for the pay as you go energy industry. Read Ancient History, you'll be amazed...
Nevada was able to shut down the Yucca Mt. waste storage facility despite the fact that it was almost complete. Vermont also wants the ability to say what nuclear facility will operate in its borders. The State ultimately supported the construction of Yankee when it was proposed. Since it was sold to Entergy approx a decade ago the plant has been in almost constant trouble partially because of its age and partially because it is now owned by a company based in Louisiana. Vermont has a different committment to the environment and public health than Louisiana does (and I have lived there so this is not conjecture or regional bias.)
Not everyone who opposes VY opposes nuclear energy altogether. Many people opposed to VY are opposed because of the age, deterioration and management of the facility, not the technology in general.
The last paragraph tells the story of what the real cost of nuclear power is. Many plants haven't been decommissioned, due to cost, leaving our grandkids with the expense. Price-Anderson caps liability at $11.2 billion per accident. Think Fukashima can be fixed for $11.2 billion?
It always amazes me how people will bring up the Fukushima reactor as if that's to show how nuclear power is dangerous
Dude... there was a freakin' 9.0 earthquake that morming! The resultant tsunami took over 20,000 lives. The Fukushima reactor's partial meltdown is totally insignificant by comparison.
If you are sober, pragmatic and rational, I do not understand how you can argue against actively building more nuclear reactors in the USA. Especially those new thorium reactors.
Just shoot these scumbags, or better yet, bury them in our nuclear waste dumps. Their carcases can provide shielding.
Retreaded Vietnam War protestors. You didn't really see any young folk in the crowd.
How many times was she arrested? Not enough to make a difference.
Anti-nuclear activists fail science and history forever. Most of them haven't even picked up on the fact that the technology has advanced in the last 50 years.
"Nuclear waste" so SCAAAAAARY. France uses nuclear power for 80% of its electricity, why aren't they drowning in waste?
Because in France they didn't have stupid hippies to stop them from building a breeder reactor, which is used to safely reprocess nuclear waste into a much less toxic form, AND generate more electricity.
Old plants like the one in VT wouldn't have to be kept running if the loonies would let them be upgraded or replaced with newer, better ones.
Here, hippies, read this, it's SCIENCE: http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Okay. A link to a chart created by someone who admits to not being a radiation expert (see bottom of chart) with a disclaimer that there may be a lot of mistakes in it?
Um. Thanks for your contribution.
CanDoMath,
"Nuclear waste" so SCAAAAAARY. France uses nuclear power for 80% of its electricity, why aren't they drowning in waste?
Answer -
1. The French reliance on nuclear energy has created a mountainous and unsolved radioactive waste problem. One million gallons of liquid radioactive waste is discharged annually into the English Channel. At least 80 metric tons of plutonium are stored in hundreds of vulnerable containers at the La Hague reprocessing site. There is no operating high-level waste repository. And so-called intermediate and low-level radioactive waste dumps are leaking, including in the important Champagne region... see http://www.beyondnuclear.org/france-radioactive-waste/
2. France has decommissioned 13 reactors, only one has been dismanteled, the others France chose to partial dismantling and postponed final dismantling and demolition for 50 years... see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf19.html
Everyone wants power, no one wants power plants
I have worked in a couple and found out that safety is always #1 over everything else. If you want to protest something you really should get to know it very well and make a educated decision. If other industries would operate like nuclear, we would definitely have less accidents and death on the job( oil and coal ).
Agree. Design of nuclear plants take years, not months like most chemical plants. The criticality aspects of a nuclear plant are studied and reviewed over and over again until your head hurts. Then, you analysis and review it more. Seems it never ends, but it is worth it because the industry's safety record is unparalleled.
Anyone thinking wind is a viable and reliable replacement for nuke plants is seriously misinformed!! They're all over the countryside here in northern Illinois, and I'm here to tell you that they sit IDLE more than they are actually producing power. When there's no wind, they don't turn, and when the wind is TOO strong, they have to shut them down so the blades don't spin out of control and tear the turbine apart. Yep....REAL effective! NOT!
They were all missing the florescent clothing.
Notice one thing in the picture. The protesters are mostly old women, remnants of the 60's. All their husbands are dead. The Jane Fondas of the world. This is their way of feeling relevant. The problem is their mind is still 60's vintage. They have no clue to the latest nuclear technology and neither do all their defenders on this thread. I do work near a nuclear site and we see these protests about once every couple of months outside the facility. Again, they are mostly old women.
They should have tazed her.
I have lived in New England my entire life and I could go thru the list of NE states and rate them. Out of all the NE states, VT is the prettiest and the least obnoxious. Unlike New Hampshire, they NEVER boast or brag about anything, even though they are MORE like NH thinks they are than they are. A large portion of the state is protected land. They have tough environmental laws. Their education system last year got a very high rating. The economy there is tough, and there are some very rich people and some very poor people. Mass has the best social programs, NH's is terrible, and VT probably doesn't rank too high either. But, VTs are fiercely independent. It is a culture that accepts all lifestyles and choices. It's population is aging because there is not a lot of oppotunity. The good news is that it is NOT overdeveloped. VT and parts of Maine, which is a huge state with a lot of undeveloped parts, are the ONLY remaining parts of New England that are locked in time. Good for them. They are active participants in government WITHOUT bragging or taking their cause all over the place, unlike, well, NH, whcih has a chip on its shoulder. By the way, I live in Mass, and we are the educated, intillectual, a little too corrupt, big mouthed, but on the other side, aware and involved, but cuts the rest of the country the wrong way. Connecticut is a NY suburb, wealthy becasue of the New Yorkers who live there, but pretty much mind their own business. I'd like to write an article on this. Anyway, good for VT.
the word is intellectual, and Maine is a huge state? Maine is the size of a county.
I think the picture of the 93 year old activist was the best part of this article.
Nuclear energy is not a bad thing. It is much safer for the environment than using coal plants for electricity.
When will man learn that nuclear energy is not the answer! Generations to come will be dealing with the aftermath of Fukushima and Chernobyl, long after everyone alive today is dead and gone. There will be other incidents of that nature in the future and when it happens here and a large part of the US is rendered uninhabitable, watch how fast people scream to end nuclear power in this country. They will be coming out of the woodwork!
Evenstar is probably a member of the flat earth society!! (the crowd erupts in laughter)
No one is saying that Nuclear is the final solution. Everyone that supports nuclear is saying that for the time being, nuclear is a better/cleaner solution than coal and oil. Then we buy ourselves time to develop better technologies (like solar/wind/algae/geothermal/etc.)
i know talk of pollution is passe, but what about the waste? remember the romans? remember the lead? even a great society can cut its own throat! the same goes for carbon and 'global warming' ...could or could not be a red herring... it's the air we breathe that matters, but nobody talks about that any more.
Did the Romans use nuclear power? As for waste, we have ways to store, contain and isolate it very efficiently, but Obama has stopped its development. The Yucca Mountain facility where billions have been spent to study for safety, the latest waste technology was to be utililized. It consists of springling waste into moltened glass and embedded/solidified in glass logs and stored deep underground. Contamination would be elimininated. Even in the event of an earthquake, the worst thing that can happen is a log breaks into several sections, in which case only the film of waste at the end of the sections would be exposed. 99.9% of the waste in the glass log is still contained.
We all live in a newkular submarine, a newkular submarine, a newkular submarine...
What a great example of civil disobedience - it takes me back to the 60's when people could peacefully protest, get arrested, processes and released all without any brutality on either side.
I happen the think the no-nukes crowd are on the wrong side of the equation, but I absolutely support their right to peaceful protest!
Note to the anti-gun crowd; Vermont has no restrictions on carrying a firearm either openly or concealed, and please not that not a shot was fired by either side!
Strength in numbers-- You should stop using your computet and save energy. You are selfish.
More people die from radiation from the sun every year...Say no to solar power!! iThe sun causes cancer,, it causes starvation and drought,, lets protest the sun since its killing so many of us...I also think we should start a movement to put rubber corners on the universe so no one gets hurt ever again...
A lot of the protesters look like they have already been nuked.
I don't care who you are. That's funny right there!
Lets see, the plant is 40 years old and not built to present day standards and guidelines. There is not enough nuclear fuel to supply the needs of all of the nuclear plants in operation today not to mention all of the plants that are still on the drawing board yet our tax dollars are being wasted for their design and construction. 400 million to 1 billion dollars to decommission a single plant yet after 40 years of operation they do not have the money to decommision a plant that is out of date and past its lifetime of safe operation. How do they consider it more affordable to risk plant failure along with the loss of land and property as well as the possible loss of life, not to mention the continued construction and operation of plants we do not have the fuel supply for rather than shutting these plants down and investing the money in safer forms of generating power. Someone should sue the power industry for waisting taxpayer dollars and force them to show that they have enough fuel supply and reserves to justify the continued construction and operation of nuclear plants. I believe that as of the last study we only had enough nuclear fuel to fully operate existing plants for the next eight years.
COOL IT
It's not the power companies, it's the politicians we elect. They are the ones that make the rules and allow this mess. In the end we will pay for all this.