Catching Up: The River, Lawsuits and Some Anniversaries

September 12, 2011
In front of courthouse in Brattleboro

It's time for a little catching-up.

Shaffer at ANS Nuclear Cafe on Plant Cooling

At  Vermont Yankee, as at other plants, heat rejection includes the river. (At VY, I say "includes the river" because there are also cooling towers.) Opponents use the thermal discharge as a way to attempt to shut down the plant, or alternately, to harass the plant into unnecessary and expensive use of its cooling towers in all weather.  Howard Shaffer has an excellent post on water issues at Vermont Yankee, and how they are distorted by the plant opponents. His post was published at ANS Nuclear Cafe Tuesday: Plant cooling a stumbling block?

Lawsuits: The Present

Lawsuit about discriminatory taxes: New Lawsuit

Yesterday, Vermont Yankee filed a lawsuit against the state of Vermont in federal court  Vermont Yankee had been paying $5 million a year in a generation tax to the state of Vermont. It had also been paying another assessment, calculated by a formula, to the Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF).  Entergy agreed to this when it moved some of its fuel rods into dry cask storage.

Vermont Yankee paid around $7 million to the CEDF some years.  However, the agreement to pay into the CEDF ended on March 21, 2012.

 In January of 2012, the Vermont Legislature passed a bill requiring Entergy to pay more than $12 million in a generation tax. In other words, as the CEDF agreement with Entergy ended, the state just added that $7 million to the generation tax. The state didn't want the revenue stream to end when the agreement ended. You'd think that an agreement is an agreement, with a date on it.  Not in the Vermont legislature, apparently.

Yesterday, Entergy sued the state in federal court against this discriminatory taxation.

I will blog about this more in the future.  Meanwhile, this AP article gives a good description of the grounds of the lawsuit: Vermont Nuke Plant Sues Over New State Tax.  You might also enjoy reading the comments on this short WCAX article on the lawsuit.

And oh, I can't resist.  A link to my January blog post:  Taxing Fuel Rods: The Vermont Legislature Plans Another Law Which Will End Up in Court.

I was right.  It ended up in court.

Lawsuit about Federal Pre-Emption: New Briefs in Old Suit

Vermont Yankee won its case in Federal Court, and Attorney General Sorrell filed his brief for the appeal. I blogged about his brief in June: It's the Renewables, Stupid? Vermont Files a Brief.

Since then, Entergy has filed its brief, and Amicus Curiae briefs have been filed.  I am not  on the opponent mailing lists, but I am on Entergy's mailing list for plant information.  Therefore,  I received copies of Entergy's brief and the plant supporters Amicus Curiae briefs. (These documents are all part of the public record as soon as they are filed.)

The Vermont Attorney General's Office has a webpage for Vermont Yankee filings, but alas, it is out of date at this point.  But I fixed that!  I didn't fix the AG's website, but I put up a web page on the Energy Education Project Website.  Here it is:

Filings in Entergy Appeal.

This page includes Judge Murtha's ruling, the State brief, the Entergy brief, and five pro-Entergy Amicus Curiae filings.

Anniversaries: The Past and the Pictures

I thought about September 11, and I will always think about it. I didn't blog about it this year, but here's a link to my blog post of last year: The Tenth Anniversary and Conspiracy Theories

More cheerfully, a year ago September 12 was the first day of the court hearing in Brattleboro on the Vermont Yankee federal lawsuit. Anti-Vermont Yankee people, mostly dressed in black, held a vigil in front of the federal courthouse. Vermont Yankee supporters, many with white t-shirts, held a rally.

 I decided to illustrate this post with some pictures from that day.  The picture at the top shows plant supporters on the right, plant protesters on the left, and a documentary film-maker taking a movie of it all. You can read more about the rally at my blog post: Rally Retrospective: On the Sidewalks for Vermont Yankee.

The Tenth Anniversary and Conspiracy Theories

The tenth year anniversary of that grim day. This week's New Yorker cover says so much: Reflection.

September is the month of reflection. It contains September 11. It holds the beginning of the High Holy Days. On a personal note, September is our anniversary month, and our son's birthday month. September gives me many opportunities to reflect.

Like the reflections of the New Yorker cover, the Towers are in my heart.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

What did I learn from 9/11? Things I learned, and that I manage to forget all the time.

• To be grateful for life.
• That some people are brave and disciplined, and willing to give up their lives for others (firemen and other first responders are people like this, and there are others).
• That hating whole groups of people is a worthless attitude.
• That being open to people is a worthwhile attitude.
• That not everyone loves us. Defense against enemies is a real-world requirement.
• That helping others is a real-world requirement.

The Enemies We Are Comfortable With

I see bumper stickers frequently: "9/11 was an inside job!" I think this is a very comforting belief for some people. With this belief, they don't have to learn how to live in a complex world where people have enemies as well as the requirement to be helpful to people. Once the conspiracy theorists have eliminated the idea that real enemies from another country did this, they can go right back to business-as-usual. They need only acknowledge the enemies they are comfortable with: business owners, the CIA, right-wing politicians, whatever. It's a little cocoon of beliefs, and the difficulties of the real world don't penetrate.

In a similar manner, we have some women around here who like to get arrested at Vermont Yankee. A letter in True North Reports describes these women's activities during the flooding. I recommend reading the letter.

On Tuesday August 30, first responders were busy with scenes like this in nearby Brattleboro, or scenes like this fly-over, further north in Rutland. On August 30, these women marched into Vermont Yankee, chained a gate, and refused to unlock it or go away peacefully. Several policemen had to take time from rescuing people to cut the chain and arrest the women. These women had their comfortable enemies and their comfortable activities, and the suffering of other people during the storm didn't appear to matter to them.

I think they have a mindset similar to that of conspiracy theory people. Conspiracy theorists tend to look down on the rest of us as as "not understanding" reality, "being fooled" by conspiracies. I think they cannot bend their minds and emotions to living in a complex world that contains enemies and floods and heroism and the requirement to be kind. By indulging in conspiracy theories, they feel they can choose their enemies, and they stay in their comfort zone.

Today is a Day to Acknowledge Reality

I think that today is a day to acknowledge reality, not conspiracies. To understand that reality includes enemies, enemies not picked-and-chosen. Reality includes huge, deep sadness. Huge. As big as the hole at Ground Zero, and bigger. For me, reality includes the memory of the pervasive smell of decay and smouldering fires that lingered in New York for weeks.

Huge, deep sadness.

First responders saved many lives in Vermont. First responders died trying to save lives in New York.

In a small return for the suffering, reality also gives us heroes.

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Verse from the Rubaiyiat of Omar Khayyam

Handcuff image from Wikipedia

New Yorker cover from New Yorker website. This is a web story about ten years of New Yorker covers on September 11, and well worth reviewing.

September 11 and Some Notes

September 11

I can't forget it happened. I don't want it to be a call to war. So I fall back on what I did on the first anniversary of September 11.

I had volunteered to teach a noon yoga class once a week at TIBCO software while they looked for a more qualified teacher. About a dozen people came to my class regularly, including six or seven people from India. Most of the Indian class members were Hindu, but there was one Sikh. He wore a simple headcovering in yoga class, not his turban.

When I first realized that I was going to be teaching on the anniversary, I almost cancelled class. I didn't know what to do. Ignore it? Moment of silence? What?

Finally, I decided to remember the day by using Gandhi's favorite hymn, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram which he and his followers sang on the Salt March. The original hymn was dedicated completely to Rama. Gandhi added a healing reference to Allah. (That's the kind of thing he would do.)

Beloved, praise Sita and Rama,

God or Allah is your name, (meaning that the supreme can be called by many names)

Lord, bless everyone with this wisdom.

It worked out well in the yoga class that day. All the people from India knew this song and its meaning and its connection to Gandhi. I started the class terrified of singing in public. But when everyone joined in, the lifted voices were warm and loving. One woman in particular had a beautiful voice, and I learned that she had studied Hindu chanting for many years. After the September 11 class, I began asking her to lead a chant near the end of each yoga class.

If I hadn't decided we would sing Raghupati, I would never have known about her voice and her knowledge.

May today be a day of healing for all, and of openness to learning from others.

A Few Notes

The 18th Carnival of Nuclear Energy is now posted at the new blog, ANS Nuclear Cafe. I am particularly fond of Charles Barton's post about pro-nuclear activists: we are people with a viewpoint, not "shills." Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues also reviews anti-nuclear propaganda, a post with the intriguing title Poisoned Rats Aren't Ham. Visit the Carnival! Always something new! Always something interesting!

I also want to point Rod Adams blog today. Rod challenged Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School in a conference call. Cooper, a sociologist, writes papers containing slanted economics of nuclear power. (Cooper often quotes Mr. Lovins, that famous economist.) In this call, Rod asks Cooper one question and he is supposed to be able to ask a follow-up after receiving an answer. He can't ask the follow-up. It doesn't happen. He tries to get back in the queue, he tried everything. No dice.

A technical glitch, no doubt, which was peculiar to Rod's connection.

I also like Rod's post because there's a picture of me in it. It's the jolly group of bloggers in France. In the picture, we are standing in front of the new construction at Flamanville. As I disclosed earlier, Areva paid the majority of my expenses on the trip to France.