Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Even as Vermont Yankee administrators continue to struggle with a groundwater problem, swimming pools are no longer part of the solution.
At a March 9 press conference updating the Vernon nuclear plant's decommissioning process, officials said they've stopped using commercially available swimming pools to store contaminated groundwater that has seeped into the turbine building.
In a town with no zoning, the potential developers of a 600-megawatt, gas-fired power plant wouldn't even need a building permit to start work here. But that doesn't mean town officials intend to step away from the proposed project. While Vernon voters gave clear support to a theoretical gas...
A Brattleboro businessman's push to reform Vermont's alimony laws appears to be gaining traction in the Legislature. The state Senate Judiciary Committee on March 11 unanimously approved a bill that would create a “Spousal Support and Maintenance Task Force” to consider whether changes are needed in the state's alimony...
As operations chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New England District, Frank Fedele oversees a $47 million budget, 33 flood-management projects and 116 recreation areas. Lately, though, he and his staff have been hearing a lot about one particular Army Corps property – Townshend Dam. And the conversations have not been pleasant, with town officials joining state and federal legislators in raising economic and environmental concerns about the site. Fedele said the Army Corps, after hearing from Vermont's...
Vermont Yankee's contribution to Vernon's coffers will drop by 26 percent this year, the first in a series of declines in a new tax deal between the town and plant owner Entergy. Vernon Tax Committee members say they can't yet release many details of the six-year contract pending a state review. But this much is clear: Entergy's tax payments for the shutdown nuclear plant will be shrinking, and that will start with a $266,750 decrease in the company's 2016 payment...
The battle over long-term storage of Vermont Yankee's spent nuclear fuel has spilled into criminal court. Clay Turnbull, a trustee and staffer of the Brattleboro-based New England Coalition, was cited March 3 by the Windham County Sheriff's Department for unlawful trespass at the plant property in Vernon. Turnbull is scheduled to appear in Windham Superior Court Criminal Division next month to answer the allegation. But in an interview the day after the incident, the 53-year-old Townshend resident said he was...
Since Vermont Yankee's 2014 shutdown, it's become clear that state officials have a long list of complaints about the nuclear-decommissioning process. So it should come as no surprise that they have an equally long wish list as the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers ways to improve that process. The state's requests range from the straightforward - for instance, enhanced public input and emergency planning - to the arcane, such as a deeper analysis of zirconium fire risks. Vermont officials are...
Entergy has filed official notice of the next round of layoffs at Vermont Yankee, telling state and local officials that 97 positions will be cut May 5. That's a smaller number than the 150 layoffs that initially had been estimated. But a spokesman said that's only because employees have been leaving the Vernon plant, so overall staffing levels are lower than had been anticipated. After the May layoffs, administrators expect there to be roughly 150 staffers remaining at Vermont Yankee,
