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.
A 498 kilowatt solar installation soon will occupy a Jamaica property formerly used for lumber and construction operations.
Cement Plant Solar LLC has received a certificate of public good from the Vermont Public Service Board to build the group net-metered solar array off Route 100 in Jamaica. Cement Plant Solar is a local business name taken by Essex Capital Partners, a Massachusetts company that has been a significant player in the growth of Vermont's solar-power output.
Charlie Grant, who is managing the project for Essex Capital, said it is possible – though not certain – that the Jamaica array could begin generating electricity later this year.
“The soonest the site could be up and running is December, depending on weather and construction scheduling,” Grant said.
Take one look at the pale-green wall covered with white gauges in the Vermont Yankee control room, and it's clear that the panel hasn't changed much since the nuclear plant began operating in the early 1970s. But there is something new: Blue signs carrying the word “abandoned” dot the...
About four years ago, in search of lower costs, Turning Point of Windham County moved from downtown. Just one year later, administrators of the addiction-recovery center began plotting their return. The problem, Executive Director Suzie Walker recalled, was that “the people who needed us most couldn't get to us.”
Facing the four overseers of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a Sept. 9 hearing, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch saw an opportunity to ask about Vermont Yankee. His two primary questions: Can the NRC allow more state and local input on nuclear-plant decommissioning? And can the federal government hasten the decades-long cleanup at VY? The NRC's answers were, respectively, “maybe,” and “no.” In the most telling exchange between commission Chairman Stephen Burns and Vermont's sole representative in the House, Burns said...
A developer that has proposed Windham County's first commercial wind turbines will have another two years to study the weather at the secluded project site in the towns of Windham and Grafton. The Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) has granted the request of Atlantic Wind LLC - the local business name of international wind-power developer Iberdrola Renewables - to allow its meteorological-testing towers to continue gathering data until December 2017. The extension was approved despite objections from the town of...
Though Windham County is taking a big economic hit from the closure of the Vermont Yankee, it's business as usual - at least, so far - at the elementary school across the street from the nuclear plant. Despite worries that Vernon Elementary School would see an enrollment dip after the first significant layoffs at Vermont Yankee earlier this year, officials are reporting the same number of students - 160 - as last year. Officials are offering demographic and financial reasons,
Like its name, the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel is a bit unwieldy: Its 19 members include government officials, private citizens, and representatives of the nuclear industry. “I think it's unlikely that there's any topic that we would find that we have consensus on, given the range of parties on the panel,” said Martin Langeveld, a citizen member of the panel. At the same time, though, the word “advisory” is in the panel's name and its charter. So, at...
Eighteen years ago, Mary Ellen Copeland began drawing up a new method for dealing with mental illness. She was looking for a way to reclaim her own life after years of battling anxiety, depression, and mood swings, and Copeland decided “personal empowerment” - allowing a person to take charge of one's own treatment - would be key. The Dummerston resident's WRAP strategy, standing for Wellness Recovery Action Plan, was the result, and it appears to have worked on a large...
