Nuke watchdog groups say it's time to close Vermont Yankee

July 19, 2008

MONTPELIER – Two nuclear watchdog groups called for the immediate shutdown of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant on Friday, saying the latest failure at the Vernon facility is one too many.

Members of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Citizens Action Network (CAN) said at a Statehouse press conference that they have lost all faith in the ability of state and federal regulators to monitor the nuclear plant.

They also called for the firing of whomever was responsible for approving the faulty fix to last year's cooling tower collapse, which officials believe led to another tower springing a significant leak earlier this month.

"Not even one year ago we got the first pictures of the catastrophic failure of one of Vermont Yankee's two cooling towers," said Paul Burns, the executive director of VPIRG. "After an event like that, you would have thought that the repairs made to the cooling towers...

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