After Vermont Yankee: A Poor Area Will Become Poorer

Last week, The Commons newspaper held a forum on the future of the area around Vermont Yankee.  The forum was titled: Toward a Post-Nuclear Economy.  Life after Vermont Yankee: What is Next? My previous blog post on this subject is Yankee Rowe and the Soul of a Nuclear Worker. 

A friend of mine attended the panel, and told me that the panelists were divided between two sets of people:

• Opponents of Vermont Yankee wanted to talk about how to force Entergy to do prompt decommissioning, how to force Entergy to greenfield the plant site. Their main topic was: “Let’s get Entergy!”
• Local people and groups know that Entergy is a major employer, tax-payer, and source of funds and volunteers for local not-for-profits. This employer is about to leave. For local groups, the main topic was: "How will this area cope with VY's departure?"

How can the area move forward?  How can it even begin to replace Vermont Yankee? That is the big question for most people in Vermont.

Economics 101: We Are All Part of A Community

When the community becomes poorer, most of the people in the community become poorer in one way or another.   “Too bad about the plant workers but I’ll be okay” isn't really going to work for the neighboring area.  Other communities have faced these types of problems when a major employer leaves the area:

• Hospitals, doctors and nurses are affected by the sudden local loss of hundreds of people with high-paying private health insurance. 
• Schools will see tax revenues decline: they may drop some of their sports teams, some teachers may be laid off, others may teach bigger classes. 
• Restaurants may keep shorter hours and some may fold.  
• Auto dealerships may sell fewer cars.  

The local community will become poorer.

And Southern Vermont is not that rich right now.  The median annual income for workers in Brattleboro is around $41,000 while the state-wide median is $53,000.  (From the recent Olga Peters article in The Commons.)  According to the United Way report (page 21) between 22% and 60% of Windham County children get free or reduced-price lunches.  The reduced-price-lunch percentage can be considered a proxy for estimating child poverty.

Windham county is not rich now, and it is about to get poorer.  How could the county turn this around?

Economics 102: Creating Prosperity

A community becomes prosperous by making a product or providing a service that other people will spend money to buy.  No community can stand on its own, importing nothing.  Every community has to “export” something, at least to neighboring areas, to get money to buy what it needs.  What can the Brattleboro area export?

I thought of two ways that the Brattleboro area can attempt to revitalize itself after the plant leaves.  Unfortunately, I don’t think either of these two ways will work.

The Tourist Magnet

Brattleboro can attempt to become a tourist magnet. This would not be strictly export, but it is a way of attracting money from outside the area.

While all of Vermont is a tourist magnet of some type, Brattleboro will have a hard time moving up the ladder of “destinations.” Brattleboro is trying to revitalize its downtown, and is very aware of where its downtown visitors come from. (Commons article: Brattleboro's Potential for Greatness)

In my opinion, though, Brattleboro is going to be a hard sell as a tourist destination.  The area is pretty, but doesn't have the high local income and interesting history (Privateers! Clipper ships!) that helped a place like Newburyport re-invent itself.   Brattleboro can’t start a music festival--it’s only twenty miles from the famous Marlboro Music Festival, and could hardly compete.  The area could try to be a theater or film mecca, but that would be a slow build-up.  The places that succeed at that sort of thing (Ashland Oregon for example) generally have multiple stages and have been growing their influence for many years.  The successful arts center of Santa Fe New Mexico has been an artistic center for over a century, and was near the home of the very famous artist Georgia O’Keefe.

“We don’t need Vermont Yankee, we will be an arts center” doesn’t seem to me to be a winning solution.

The Industrial Hub

The Brattleboro area can attempt to get another manufacturing facility into the town, either at the Vermont Yankee site or elsewhere.

Frankly, I think they have shot themselves in the foot about this one.  Given the “protesting” spirit of Brattleboro, most manufacturers would be hesitant to locate there.  Every factory has raw materials: many raw materials are poisonous if spilled.  If I were a manufacturer, I wouldn’t locate in a place where people are likely to begin tying themselves to the gate of  my plant if they heard I had a spill of toxic paints within the plant premises.

The people of Brattleboro might think....oh no, we ONLY protest nuclear plants! We'd love other types of factories!  However,  most manufacturers will NOT want to locate in an area where protesting so-called "environmental issues" at factory gates is a way of life.

In short, I think Brattleboro has messed itself up big-time by its attitude to Vermont Yankee.  In this WPTZ video, you can see Arnie Gundersen suggesting that a new power plant be built on the Vermont Yankee site. He doesn’t say what kind of plant, however!  Can you imagine the local protests if they attempted to run a gas pipeline to the site, build a coal plant, or build a biomass plant? Heavens!

Not an easy future

I wish the Southern Vermont area the very best, if only because many Vermont Yankee workers would like to stay in the area. However,  I don't think it is going to be a very upbeat future around there.  At least, not for many years.



I include a video from WCAX on the future of the area.


 WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Vermont Tourism Supported by Vermont Yankee: Heather Sheppard Guest Post

Heather Sheppard

 For years I have been working on the front lines of the Vermont tourism industry, and it is from this vantage point that my support for Vermont Yankee has developed. On Nov. 7, I traveled to Vernon – a six hour drive round-trip – to tell the Vermont Public Service Board why I support Vermont Yankee.

For many years, I have worked directly with the guests at one of America's leading family destination resorts.  They tell me they come to Vermont because it is beautiful and unspoiled, because the air is clean and the views are gorgeous. If they wanted dirty air or visual clutter, they would have gone somewhere else, or just stayed home. Most of my guests come from nearby out of state - from the other New England states, New York, or the two closest Canadian provinces. Most of them drive part or all of the way. In short, they come not only for the fun of the resort itself, but for the beauty of surrounding Vermont, especially the mountains, for the clean air, and because its nearness makes it affordable, compared to the resort competition out west.

Beauty, clean air, and affordability - Vermont Yankee is a benefit to all three. Beauty, because having an operational Vermont Yankee means we are in less of a rush to clear cut our mountain ridgelines and valleys to make way for wind farms and for crisscrossing new power lines for the hodgepodge of small-scale power generation that some would have replace it. Clean air, because Vermont Yankee emits no air pollutants, unlike the coal and gas plants that will be ramped up if Vermont Yankee closes. Some environmental groups that should know better have suggested a patchwork quilt of woodburning power plants, carbon emissions and all, to replace Vermont Yankee. From an air quality point of view, this makes no sense. To me, one of Vermont Yankee's greatest environmental benefits as a power producer is that it already exists. No more trees need to be cut down, nor rocks blasted, nor tourist-drawing scenic views destroyed. There is no need for lines of slow, loud, exhaust-emitting trucks running to and from construction sites and woodchip plants.

Finally, Vermont Yankee power is very affordable, especially when compared to the renewable power that Montpelier seems determined to make us pay for. Unfortunately the paying public isn't just my family. Resorts use a lot of electricity, and it is a simple rule of business that the customer always pays in the end.

Heather Sheppard
North Cambridge, VT

---------

This is the seventh in a series of posts which share statements made in favor of Vermont Yankee at the Public Service Board hearing on November 7, 2012.