Low-level Waste Success at Vermont Yankee

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Low-Level Waste is a Success Story at Vermont Yankee

Vermont Yankee shipped its first container of low-level waste to a disposal site in Andrew, Texas.    The original agreement for this disposal site was signed in 1993--at that point, only Vermont, Maine and Texas could use the site.  Later Maine pulled out and Texas announced plans to expand the site to take wastes from more states.

Naturally, this announcement from Texas was a view-with-alarm situation in Vermont. Many anti-nuclear people in Vermont claimed that the Texas site would fill up and  the site wouldn't have room for Vermont Yankee rubble when Vermont Yankee would be decommissioned.  This non-rational "controversy" about the Texas site generated many comments by Governor Shumlin and many column inches of coverage in local papers.  I didn't cover the low-level-Texas-disposal-site-size issue in this blog, because I try to cover reality, not political posturing.

Vermont shipped some low-level material to Texas last month.  You can read about at and see the echoes of the posturing in this article by Andrew Stein in Vermont Digger: Vermont sends first shipment of radioactive waste to Texas.

Comments

You might find the comment stream on the waste article interesting.  A guide to the people who posted comments:

• Howard Shaffer and me (you know us if you read this blog!)
• John Greenberg, an active plant opponent.  I believe that Greenberg owns a bookstore in Brattleboro
• Bob Stannard, former Vermont legislator, active plant opponent, and full-time anti-Vermont Yankee lobbyist, employed by Citizens Action Network
• Sally Shaw, active plant opponent.  Shaw is semi-famous for putting manure compost into the water glasses of NRC and Entergy people at an NRC meeting, and throwing compost at the Vermont Yankee site vice president.  

(Also, in a recent comment stream about earthquakes and nuclear plants, Howard Shaffer and John Greenberg have a lively debate.)