Nuke pollsters blanket state living by plants, NEI finds

Saturday, October 13

BRATTLEBORO -- People who live near a nuclear power plant who are comfortable with it being in their backyard outnumber those who are not so enamored of nuclear energy by a ratio of nearly 15 to one.

But, cautioned one of the people who conducted a survey on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute, that's a nationwide attitude and is not representative of any single nuclear power plant in the country.

The Nuclear Energy Institute is a public information resource funded by the nuclear power industry.

People in the area have also received phone calls from other pollsters, including the state's Department of Public Service and Charlton Research. A spokesman for Vermont Yankee confirmed Entergy, which owns and operates the power plant, had commissioned the Charlton survey. A call to Charlton Research was not returned for comment.

Jim Matteau, the executive director of the Windham Regional Council and a member of an advisory committee that was established to review the questions in the DPS survey, said Entergy's claim that the timing of the surveys is just coincidence "is complete bull."

"For (Entergy) to be doing a survey at the same time as the state is not only trying to shift public opinion in their favor, but also to confuse the whole thing," he said. "Entergy should be ashamed of the survey it has under way."

The Department of Public Service's survey is being conducted by that agency with the help of pollsters from the University of Texas and Stanford University. The poll advisory committee included representatives from the utilities, the state's regulatory assistance project, alternative energy providers, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Windham Regional Commission.

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