The nuclear industry – and Entergy in particular – sure seems to have problems keeping promises.  Back in the 70s, nuclear power was “too cheap to meter.”  With Vermont Yankee, Entergy officials swore under oath there were no underground pipes.  Then those pipes were found to be leaking.  Last month, Entery told a federal court judge it needed an immediate court order to stay open to make the $65 million investment in new fuel.  The Court didn’t buy Entergy’s bullying and last week declined to order a preliminary injunction.  Today, Entergy announced it will purchase the fuel anyway.

Entergy’s fuel purchase decision is not surprising.  The court’s order noted that refueling will cost between $60 and  $65 million, and Vermont Yankee will generate $90 million in revenues by operating until March 2012.  Vermont Yankee’s revenues will cover its fuel costs.

Still, this is a dubious and risky business decision for Entergy.  Their Nuclear Regulatory Commission license is on appeal.  CLF is representing the New England Coalition in this appeal.  Also, Vermont Yankee does not have the needed permission to operate from Vermont past 2012.  This is an old reactor with a long and troubled history.  Retiring the facility as planned on March 2012 is the responsible thing to do.

Entergy’s credibility is buried along with its leaky pipes.  Any economic risk is Entergy’s own making.  Vermont continues to have a strong legal case.  States have the right to decide their energy future and land use and shouldn’t be forced to accept polluting, unreliable and untrustworthy nuclear plants and operators.  Let’s leave a clean energy legacy to our children and grandchildren.

Vermont moves a step closer to shuttering the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility as planned in 2012.

In a strong rebuke to Entergy, the facility’s owner, the United States District Court denied a request to keep the plant open while Entergy’s legal challenge proceeds.  Entergy sued Vermont in April.  Entergy seeks to prevent Vermont law – which requires state approval - from taking effect.

The Court denied Entergy’s request for a preliminary injunction, stating:  ”This Court declines to order short-term drastic and extraordinary injunctive relief that will not offer certainty either in the short or long term, and will have no operative effect on state actions before trial.”

The Court rejected each of Entergy’s claims of harm.  The Court noted that a decision about refueling is “a business decision made very difficult by the uncertainties of litigation.”  The Court stated:  “In the unique circumstances presented here, the decision to refuel is either not harmful if Entergy prevails on the merits, or is not a cognizable injury if Vermont’s statutes are upheld.”    Refueling would cost between $60 and $65 million.  Revenues of $90 million would be earned from operating the plant until its planned closure in March 2012.

A full trial will take place this fall.  The Court’s decision on the injunction is a solid victory for Vermont at this stage.

On Monday, June 27, the National Ocean Council (NOC) held a listening session in Exeter, NH for New Englanders to learn about and comment on the NOC’s Strategic Action Plans to achieve the nine priority objectives of the National Ocean Policy (NOP). Panels of speakers from diverse backgrounds and organizations, including the NOC, discussed the strategic action plans . However, it was a listening session, and many panelists urged that their intent was not to lecture, but to listen.

Panelists (including our own Sean Cosgrove) at the listening session. (CLF Photo)

Members of an assembled panel and most public comments held great support for the National Ocean Policy and urged its implementation. It’s not lost on ocean users that ecosystem-based management (EBM) and coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) are the foundation of the NOP and have overarching effects and influence over the other seven objectives. While discussing EBM, several speakers voiced the importance of focusing on the health of our oceans, making the case that all other objectives of the NOP could be achieved as long as the ultimate goal was a healthy ocean, which would result in both economic and environmental benefits.

Concern for stakeholder engagement was a common theme, with many noting the lack of representation of specific interest groups. Many stressed that an informed and engaged public  and communication and collaboration among a diverse array of interest groups and governmental bodies were vital to the NOP’s success. These are all points on which we certainly agree.

The event provided an opportunity for the public to voice opinions on the National Ocean Policy. (CLF Photo)

New England is already a national leader in ocean planning, and has many organizations, institutions and policies already in place to assist in the creation of New England’s regional ocean plan. We recognize the necessity of a national, comprehensive policy, but also the importance of recognizing the differences between regions and using different approaches to solve region-specific needs. Without a doubt, New England should be a priority region for the implementation of the National Ocean Policy.

Public speakers also stressed the fundamental need for fiscal resources to implement the plan. CLF’s Sean Cosgrove highlighted the need to recognize the Gulf of Maine as a nationally significant water body in the NOP and various action plans. He urged specific recognition to be written into the policy – an idea that was reiterated throughout the public comments. (Watch the video here.)

Most notably, the importance of swift and steady implementation of the NOP was of primary concern. The public didn’t want another “plan to plan.”  With ocean conservation a time-sensitive area of strong interest, constituents demanded a plan to act.

CLF applauds the balance regulators struck in approving the Kingdom Community Wind Project in Lowell, VT. The order allows the controversial project to move forward while protecting wildlife habitat and ensuring restoration of disturbed areas.  The decision addresses all the concerns that were raised and provides some innovative means to manage the impacts.

All power supplies – including wind – have environmental impacts.   While the environmental harms associated with wind are less than most sources of generation, they need to be minimized and mitigated, not ignored. The Vermont order includes specific requirements from an agreement with Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources that permanently protects significant habitat and requires re-vegetation and restoration of disturbed areas both after construction and when the project is no longer used.  These measures go a long way to reduce the environmental footprint of the project.  The decision also calls for minimizing lighting while still conforming to FAA requirements.  Overall, the decision can be a model for how projects can move forward while responsibly addressing impacts. 

The project’s benefits are significant and weighed in favor of approval.  Powering 20,000 homes from this project will help Vermont meet it renewable energy goals, create jobs and tax revenue, avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and provide long-term, stably priced power. In an interview with VPR, GMP’s President Mary Powell described the project as, “incredibly cost effective for premium renewable electricity.”

The project, consisting of 20-21 400-foot turbines along 3 miles of Lowell Mountain ridgeline, is expected to break ground in August of this year. The turbines will power an estimated 20,000 households, making it the largest wind site in the state. The project is moving forward with the approval of the Lowell community, who voted in favor of the turbines during Town Meeting Day in 2010.  CLF is excited to support wind projects that bring the community to the table, are responsibly cited, and mitigate the impacts on the environment in exchange for clean, locally produced energy.

Last Friday, I got a bad taste of life in a changed climate.

After barely sleeping through a night filled with constantly rumbling thunder, hail, whipping winds, and the most incredibly intense rain I have ever seen, my cell phone rang at 4:50 a.m.  The panicked voice on the other end was a friend who owns a downtown business with his wife.  Apologetically, he asked for help.  The Winooski River, which flows through downtown Montpelier, had broken its banks and was creeping toward their shop’s doorstep and they needed help getting merchandise up and out.  We spent a frantic hour packing inventory into cars as the water continued to advance and noisily poured into their basement.  Once they were as prepared as possible, I rushed to join my fellow citizens  helping other businesses as the air filled with the smell of sewage and fuel oil mixing into the river as buildings became inundated.  By 8:00 a.m., I finally got to CLF’s offices where the alarm was sounding to signal that flood waters in the basement were threatening the electricity.  Fortunately, forecasted rain did not fall and the river levels subsided throughout the course of a day that saw most businesses closed.

Though flood waters have receded in the neighborhoods and towns surrounding CLF’s office, reminders of last week’s terrifying deluge abound.  As you walk in the door to our building, a powerful smell of mold and mildew assaults you–a side-effect of our flooded basement.  Downtown dumpsters still overflow with discarded merchandise ruined when floodwaters rushed into low-lying businesses, some of which have yet to reopen.  Some city roads are still washed out and the City’s sewage treatment plant is assessing damage after it was completely underwater much of last Friday.  With the immediate crisis passed and the long recovery beginning, many are starting to ask whether this kind of flooding may be the new normal resulting from climate change.

Flooding at Montpelier's sewage treatment plan resulted in sewage discharges to the Winooski River. City residents await a final estimate of the cost to repair damage to the plant. (Photo credit: Louis Porter)

At this point, I am supposed to offer the obligatory caveat that we cannot measure climate change by any one single weather event.  Sadly, we don’t have to. Extreme weather is becoming the norm–just as so many climate scientists have for so long been predicting that it will.

The flash flooding that wreaked havoc across New England’s north country last week comes on top of earlier spring flooding throughout the Lake Champlain region.  In fact, Burlington, VT has recorded its wettest spring ever in 2011–as have several other parts of the country.  Before flooding came to our neck of the woods, we watched in horror as tornado after tornado flattened parts of the south and midwest.  And before that, all eyes were fixed on deluged areas along the Mississippi.  Just last spring, we were reporting on this blog about horrendous flooding caused by historic rain storms in Rhode Island and elsewhere in southern New England.  After all this, I refuse to believe the climate skeptics who argue that extreme weather has nothing to do with the rising global temperatures that made 2010 the second warmest year on record with the highest carbon output in history, pushing greenhouse gas levels to dangerous new heights.

In this last month, our region and our nation has seen climate change first hand and it sucks.  There’s just no other way to put it.

Politicians talk often about Americans as world leaders.  Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change , we are leaders in polluting the atmosphere with climate-changing greenhouse gases.  It does not have to be this way.

Americans have a choice.  It is up to us to demand that our elected officials like Senators Scott Brown and Kelly Ayotte stop doing the bidding of the mega-billionaire oil barons, coal companies, and their legions of bought-and-paid for climate change deniers while America continues to suffer devastation from climate change that they claim is not happening or is not a problem.  Climate change is happening!  It is harming Americans all across the country–from Barre, VT to Joplin, MO–and undermining the stability upon which our prosperity is based.  The time for action in Washington is long passed.

We can make the changes needed to stave off catastrophic climate change and–like Chicago–adapt to the climate change already happening.  Here in soggy Vermont, there are lots of hurting businesspeople, homeowners, and municipal officials realizing we have no time to waste…

As the battle over Vermont Yankee’s future is waged, Conservation Law Foundation and VPIRG seek to join as a friend of the court, or amicus for this first stage.  CLF will use the expertise gained in opposing Yankee’s continued operation before the PSB to bolster the argument that Yankee’s a long track record of failures preclude the Court from allowing continued operation.  Entergy would love to characterize their re-licensing as a guarantee to operate past 2012. However, CLF points out that their federal court challenge to the license over Entergy’s failure to obtain a necessary Clean Water Act certification makes the license itself uncertain.

CLF urges the Court not to allow Entergy to usurp Vermont law and walk away from their legal obligations.  The false testimony, leaks and bad economics of continued operation are ample justification for Vermont to refuse to grant a new certificate to operate for another twenty years.  In 2009 Entergy officials gave false testimony about the existence of underground pipes that were later found to be leaking radioactive tritium.  As CLF’s brief states:  “If land surveyors, architects, plumbers and physicians assistants can lose or be denied a license for making a material misrepresentation, less cannot be expected or required of nuclear facility operators.  The false testimony that Entergy officials provided under oath calls into question the ability of the plant operator to meet its legal obligations.”

The state of Vermont swung back in its reply brief last week with a laundry list of reasons the court should dismiss Entergy’s request to continue operating during the trial, or a “preliminary injunction”.  Because Entergy agreed to seek Public Service Board (PSB) approval, and not challenge PSB authority in court, the state argues Entergy is bound by their agreement. Also, the state suggests it is inappropriate for Entergy to object to PSB oversight at such a late hour, long after they received the benefit of doing business in Vermont under this agreement since 2002.

The state railed against Entergy’s argument that federal law supersedes state regulation over the aging plant. Vermont argues that, with the exception of radiation safety, states have authority over nuclear in many areas such as, “economics, land use, policy questions regarding a state’s energy future, and whether a corporation running a nuclear power plant has established itself as a trustworthy business partner.” Thus, the state argues that regulation over nuclear was never meant to preempt state law altogether.

Both Entergy and the state of Vermont will have a chance to argue on the preliminary injunction motion before United States District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha on June 22-24.

Photo: Matthew Trump

CLF spoke out today regarding Green Mountain Power of Vermont’s newly-inked deal to purchase power from Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, even as the state faces ongoing battles over Vermont Yankee. In a statement, Christopher Kilian, vice president and director of CLF Vermont, questioned the wisdom of betting on nuclear power as a long-term energy source for Vermont. The statement is below:

“Vermonters are rightly concerned about their energy sources,” said Christopher Kilian, vice president and director of CLF Vermont. “Striking the appropriate balance between cost, safety and environmental concerns associated with energy generation is an ongoing challenge, and we appreciate the state’s efforts to make energy-related decisions that are in the best interest of its citizens. However, we remain concerned about the state’s bet on nuclear energy over such a long time horizon. While Seabrook is a newer facility than Vermont Yankee, it shares the ongoing problems that all nuclear facilities have in common, like the absence of any proven solution for long-term waste storage and disposal. Adding to that the issues of Seabrook’s location right on the coast, which is especially troubling given the rising sea levels caused by global warming and recent sobering events in Japan, and continued lax federal oversight regarding relicensing of these older plants, CLF continues to believe that nuclear power is a poor choice for Vermont and New England and doesn’t belong in our energy future.”

Kilian continued, “Experience in Vermont shows the legal risks of betting on nuclear power. The state is now facing massive legal battles because the owners of Vermont Yankee are going back on their promises.”

Vermont’s Governor Shumlin announced today a new direction for the Circ Highway.  This is good news.  CLF has long supported re-thinking the Circ Highway, and focusing instead on transportation solutions that work.  As planned, the Circ is getting in the way of progress and causing too many people to be snarled in traffic and pollution.  The EPA has noted the severe damage the Circ would cause to waterways and wetlands.

CLF welcomes and encourages the Governor’s efforts.  We look forward to working with local communities and businesses to find effective, safe and lower cost solutions.  We don’t need to bust the bank, add more sprawl and dirty our streams to get around.

Unfortunately, our state and federal highway agencies also announced the completion of the final environmental review for the outdated Circ project.  We are disappointed with all the wasted money and effort spent on this outdated project.  Officials should have stopped the review before it was completed.  CLF will evaluate the final review and consider whether an appeal should be taken to Federal Court.

CLF is a proud founding member of Renewable Energy New England (RENEW) – a group that brings together renewable energy developers and technology companies with environmental advocates.

In a major milestone in the life of RENEW (a relatively new organization) ISO New England (ISO-NE), the operator of the region’s “bulk” power system and wholesale electricity markets, has elected to perform a regional economic study requested by RENEW.

The RENEW economic study will evaluate how much of the approximately 4,000 megawatts of wind energy projects that have applied to connect to the New England system (the technical phrase is, “in the interconnection queue”) could be developed over the next five years without significant transmission upgrades (that is, building new power lines or supporting hardware) and what the economic impact of making those upgrades would be in order to develop the remaining wind power projects.

ISO-NE performs annual economic studies drawing from requests submitted by stakeholders.  In recent years ISO-NE has undertaken studies at the request of the Governors of the New England states that looked at long-term scenarios for building wind energy resources and transmission for supporting such resources. In the past two years ISO-NE has studied high penetration renewable resource scenarios for the year 2030 in the course of doing a New England Wind Integration Study (NEWIS). RENEW hopes the 2011 study will inform development and transmission upgrade decisions over the next few years as the states work to meet their renewable portfolio standard requirements, address the climate imperative to reduce emissions from the power sector and work to build a new clean economy.

More information on NEWIS and the economy study can be found at the ISO-NE section on the RENEW website.

Special mention and recognition is due to Abigail Krich, the President of Boreas Renewables, transmission consultant to RENEW who was the primary representative of RENEW in the NEWIS process and in the development of the economic study request (and whose material I have shamelessly borrowed from in crafting this blog post).