This infamous photo of Vermont Yankee's 2007 cooling tower collapse was sent to media reporters by whistleblowersBob Bady, a founding member of the Safe and Green Campaign, has penned an op-ed at the Vermont Digger entitled "What Killed the Beast?"
He writes: "...The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is actually what prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come.
Certainly cheaper natural gas was a signficant factor, as was an old plant that would require significant maintenance in the coming years. Pending costly federally mandated safety improvements, precipitated by the Fukushima disaster, also loomed.
The tipping point, however, the thing that might have really sealed Vermont Yankee's fate, was grassroots activism...".
He concludes that "because the anti nuke environmental community in Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire and western Massachusetts worked hard, long and intelligently to rally public opinion, and educate the Vermont Legislature," state laws signed by Vermont's former, pro-nuclear Republican governor became a "big expensive problem" for Entergy.
Bady adds "Entergy's income was first impacted when, by late 2010 and early 2011, its reputation had become so damaged by its own misdeeds, brought to the spotlight by activists, that Vermont electric utilities played hardball in contract negotiations. As a result, no deal emerged between Vermont Yankee and Vermont utilities, and Entergy was left to sell its product on the "spot" market, where prices had dropped because of cheaper natural gas."
Author Richard Watts asked the same question: how could Vermont Yankee go from being seen as a good neighbor and mainstay of the Green Mountain State's economy by some, to being almost universally disdained, even by former supporters, as a pariah, with top elected officials referring to Entergy publicly as a "rogue corporation"? Watts' book, Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee, shows that Entergy's cover ups and lies under oath to state officials -- such as the 2007 cooling tower collapse brought to light by whistleblowers (photo, above left), and Entergy executives' perjury regarding radioactivity leaks into groundwater -- combined with widespread grassroots activism, turned the tide.
The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is what actually prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come. - See more at: http://vtdigger.org/2013/09/04/bady-what-killed-the-beast/#sthash.P2w00GE2.hAzAkQRZ.dpuf
The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is what actually prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come. - See more at: http://vtdigger.org/2013/09/04/bady-what-killed-the-beast/#sthash.P2w00GE2.hAzAkQRZ.dpuf
Bob Bady, who is a founding member of the Safe and Green Campaign, a group he has worked with for the past seven years to muster the voices of residents in the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s evacuation zone - See more at: http://vtdigger.org/2013/09/04/bady-what-killed-the-beast/#sthash.P2w00GE2.hAzAkQRZ.dpuf
September 6, 2013
