The owners of Vermont Yankee, Entergy, are trying to break another promise to Vermont. When Entergy bought Vermont Yankee they agreed to pay to clean up the site when the plant closes. Now they are trying to leave Vermonters with the $1 billion cleanup bill.
We can stop this! The legislature just announced that they’ll be voting on a bill that ensures the out of state corporate owners of Vermont Yankee, and not Vermonters like you and me, pay for the closing and cleanup costs of their aging nuclear reactor.
Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning fund is a pot of money we invested in to make sure the site is cleaned up when the nuclear reactor shuts down. If there’s not enough money in the fund to clean up the site Vermonters could be left to raise the remaining $650 million (or more) to clean up Entergy’s toxic nuclear waste dump. It seems that Entergy hasn’t learned the lesson that every parent teaches their child: you clean up your own mess.
The legislature decided to close Vermont Yankee as scheduled, now we need to make sure that Vermonters don’t get stuck with the cleanup bill. The legislature needs to make sure that VT Yankee’s multi-billion dollar out of state corporate owners don’t go back on their responsibilities to Vermont.
