In a world where messages are sent instantaneously, it is hard to believe the time to consider (again) whether the continued operation of Vermont Yankee is good for Vermont would take more than a year.

Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owners, proposed a schedule to Vermont regulators that would have the case completed in just over eighteen months.  

CLF argued for a shorter schedule noting that Entergy’s schedule was “roughly equivalent to the gestation period for elephants.”  This is simply too long.

Most cases, including the previous Vermont Yankee proceeding at the Public Service Board and the recent federal trial for Vermont Yankee were completed in far less time. 

In its ruling on May 4, the Vermont Public Service Board accepted the longer time-frame Entergy requested. It also provides for two separate rounds of hearings – one in February and a second in June. The Board also scheduled two public hearings where anyone interested can weigh in and provide input to the Board on whether Vermont Yankee should retire.

Entergy’s foot dragging means Vermonters will wait an extra eighteen months before seeing this tired, old and polluting nuclear plant closed. That’s too bad. Especially since the plant was supposed to close on March 21, 2012.

photo credit: stuck in customs, flickr

The two sets of hearings suggest the there will be a very thorough review and the Board, which likely will take a very active role in the hearings.

The thoroughness is good. It just shouldn’t have to take this long.

photo credit: riekhavoc, flickr

Another false claim by Entergy – the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear facility in Vermont – is laid to rest. On Monday, the ISO-New England came out with an important determination that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability of the electrical grid.

This has been brewing for awhile and is quite significant since Entergy keeps claiming its tired old and polluting plant on the banks of the Connecticut River is needed for reliability. That claim is simply false.

In a filing made with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the ISO New England stated:

“[T]he ISO determined that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability for the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period. This determination is based on the expectation that certain transmission upgrades will be in place prior to the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period as well as new resources which have been procured through the Forward Capacity Market.”  [see page 8-9 of this filing]

This is a very important determination and is good news for New England’s clean energy future. It shows the transformation of our power grid to cleaner sources and away from older and polluting coal and nuclear plants.

By way of explanation, the ISO New England operates the region’s electricity grid to ensure the lights stay on. It holds auctions to determine which resources will supply capacity to meet power needs in future years. This is the forward capacity auction referred to above.

What this means is that Entergy will not collect capacity payments for Vermont Yankee during 2015 to 2016.  That means that ratepayers will not be forced to prop up this tired, old, expensive and polluting nuclear plant, or its untrustworthy owners. Ratepayers will not be paying for Vermont Yankee to be available to operate.

This determination recognizes that grid improvements and new resources will keep the lights on without Vermont Yankee. Another false claim by Entergy is laid to rest. Our region moves one step closer to a cleaner energy future.

The Three Penny Taproom. Courtesy of adamjackson1984 @ flickr. Creative Commons.

If you like beer, then you can (and should) help support Conservation Law Foundation fulfill our mission of protecting New England’s environment for the benefit of all people. You see, at CLF we use the law, science, and the market to create solutions that preserve our natural resources, build healthy communities, and sustain a vibrant economy. So what’s CLF’s work got to do with beer?

Here’s a few examples:

• You need clean water to make great beer; CLF is fighting to control water pollution and keep water clean throughout Vermont and New England
• Drinking and driving is illegal and dangerous; CLF is working to expand public transportation options and to encourage development in walkable downtowns
• Local beer should have local hops; CLF is working to help local farmers find financing in their communities

And we’ve got plenty more reasons why beer-lovers should become CLF members. That’s why you’re invited to come discuss them over a frosty pint.

What: The generous owners of Montpelier’s Three Penny Taproom are putting the fun back in fundraising by donating a portion of an evening’s bar sales to support CLF’s work in Vermont. Come raise a glass with CLF’s Vermont advocates who will be glad to answer questions about the challenges facing Vermont’s environment and the many solutions CLF’s advocacy is helping to bring about.

When: Tuesday May 15, 2012 from 5:00-7:30 p.m. (and it’s a safe bet that some of the CLF advocates might stick around even later)

Where: Three Penny Taproom, 108 Main St. Montpelier, VT (for directions: http://www.threepennytaproom.com/directions.html)

Why: Because supporting CLF’s mission to protect Vermont’s environment for the benefit of all people has never been this easy or this tasty (did we mention that Three Penny has a delicious daily menu of small plates made with high quality local ingredients?)

If you’ve never been to Three Penny Taproom — designated as one of “America’s 100 Best Beer Bars” by Draft Magazine and winner of the 2011 7 Days Daysie reader survey for “Best Bar” — CLF Night is a great reason to come see what all the buzz is about.

Does this look like fun? Vermonters are spending more time driving than ever before. We need clean, efficient alternatives. Credit: Little Miss Sunshine.

Are you tired of traffic, taxes and time pollution? I don’t know about you, but spending quality time with my family is not spending it either driving kids around from place to place or being stuck somewhere in a traffic jam.  And it is no surprise to me that others have found that long commutes are harmful to your health and happiness.

With $4 per gallon gasoline and transportation being the biggest source of global warming pollution in Vermont, we need better solutions, solutions that save our environment, our health and our pocketbooks.

With the cancellation of the Circ Highway – an expensive, ill-conceived, outdated and polluting new roadway around Burlington, Vermont – there are good opportunities to invest in better ways to get around:  ways that won’t cause more Moms and Dads to spend more useless hours in a car driving kids from place to place. Progress so far looks promising.

Cancelling the Circ has freed up funds for other, more worthy projects.  In place of the Circ, communities and transportation officials are now moving forward projects like the Crescent Connector in Essex Junction.  This $3,000,000 project near Five Corners will provide the same amount of traffic relief to this area as the Circ at a fraction (one-twentieth) of the cost.

• Nearer to Burlington, a transit hub is being considered that will allow motorists to park nearer the city and the switch to bikes or busses to get into and around the city.
• The Circ Alternative Task Force is considering longer term solutions as well that will likely include improving existing roadways, building new bikeways and transit centers and keeping our transportation dollars closer to our daily activities.

This is all good news for our sanity and for bolstering economic development. Real estate values increase in areas where daily activities are within walking distance.

In place of traffic jams, people have more opportunities to get around and get what they need without using their cars. Waiting for someone or something can include a visit to a restaurant or gym or picking up the groceries or dry cleaning. It’s no longer Mom or Dad sitting solo in the car waiting for the dance lesson to end. It’s reducing air pollution, time pollution, while saving money, our health and our sanity.

More small-scale farms, in more local communities, growing a greater diversity of food in sustainable and humane ways, are key ingredients in CLF’s recipe for a healthy, thriving New England for generations to come.

Let’s face it, with gas prices topping $4 per gallon and global warming causing deepening droughts across many of the world’s most productive agricultural areas, we just can’t continue to count on being able to get produce, meats, and dairy products shipped to our local supermarkets from factory farms that may be thousands of miles away.

Extended-share CSAs and other community financing tools can be a valuable way to help smaller farms--like the one where these goats live--flourish

Even in Vermont, where agriculture is a key component of our state’s economy and character, there are challenges to realizing an agricultural renaissance.  One of the biggest challenges involves connecting existing and would-be farmers with the financing they need to flourish. With recovery from the credit crunch still slow, banks and other traditional sources of capital may be reluctant to take risks on smaller-scale farming operations (and with so many stories of banks behaving badly, local farmers may also be reluctant to work with banks).

Increasingly, Vermont farmers are turning to friends and neighbors in the communities where they live to raise smaller amounts of capital in unconventional ways.  That’s why I was so excited to participate in a collaboration with farmers, attorneys, accountants, and investment professionals that is aimed at helping publicize and demystify the various community-financing tools that farmers can utilize as they seek to start up and/or grow their farms.

The effort was led by University of Vermont’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, which recently published the “Guide to Financing the Community-Supported Farm: Ways for Farms to Acquire Capital Within Communities” (you can download a free copy by clicking here). Among the many community financing tools discussed in the guide are:

• owner-financed sales and land contracts (chapter authored by yours truly)
• cohousing and cooperative land ownership
• equity financing
• extended Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares
• revenue-based financing
• vendor financing
• pre-buys

Though written by Vermonters for a primarily Vermont audience, much of the analysis and many of the case studies in the Guide will be useful to farmers and community food financiers all across New England. Check it out!

Photo courtesy of Putneypics @ flickr. Creative Commons.

A couple of weeks ago I met a young farmer near Rutland, VT who was stunned to be out plowing his fields in the month of March. At that time the fields are usually knee-deep muddy, if not still covered in snow, ice or the slow-melting crust of the long winter. He was stunned:  if he plows and plants now, what’s going to happen next? How will his crops respond? Should he wait, for something more like a “normal” planting season to return?

These are questions that thousands of us gardeners across New England have been struggling with lately, in the wake of an unseasonably warm spell, and a winter that broke records first for early snowfall, and then low overall snowfall and high temperatures. Looking out our windows when the weather warms, we are drawn to one place: the soil – we long to get our hands in the dirt, and smell the wonderful scents of spring. For the farmer I mentioned above, the decision wasn’t just recreational or therapeutic; the crops for the CSA he recently founded with his partner were at risk. He had to plan carefully, not knowing what lies ahead.

In Vermont, where my wife and I have tended our garden for years, you start your seeds on Town Meeting Day and plant on Memorial Day. But this year, that timeline is way off.

Recently, for the first time in 22 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released an updated version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The map charts average winter minimum temperatures, or cold intensity. What this map confirmed in VT is what we have observed anecdotally across New England and the United States: that our world is warming, as this map by the Arbor Day Foundation shows vividly. For the first time in VT, for instance, zone 5b has crept into the southern edges of our state. And the south coast of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts includes zone 7a, which is also found in Northern Alabama. The commentary on the new map carefully avoids concluding the shifts are the results of climate change; most gardeners will draw their own conclusions.

For me, the question of whether or not to plant returned me to a question about my greenhouse. Previous owners of our house built a small, traditional greenhouse that helped with the slow and wet transition from winter to spring, with consistency and in the same place for 15 years. It succumbed to the elements recently, and we decided to try smaller, portable hoop houses over our raised beds. They’re more suitable to highly variable temperatures. Where once a rigid structure suited our weather and our needs, that’s no longer the case. We need to be more flexible. More adaptable.

This winter ranks as the 4th warmest nationally since the late 1880s, when climatologists began keeping records. People still consider Memorial Day as a safe time to plant, but the average last frost day is 10 days prior, as Vern Grubinger, University of Vermont Extension vegetable and berry specialist, said in this Brattelboro Reformer article.

What happens when you plan according to tradition, but the seasonal calendar is out of kilter? What happens when convention no longer suits our contemporary reality? These are questions of adaptation, and they apply to backyard gardens – and also flood zone mapping, transportation, and almost everything we do in the natural world. We have to start building differently, for a different world.

And so I wanted to ask you – CLF members, and members of the public alike – how are you adapting? What have you done with your garden this spring?  Are you anticipating odd weather in the months ahead? How will you respond? Please share your comments here and share your photos with us on our Facebook page.

I look forward to hearing from you. And happy planting.

Courtesy of garcycles8@flickr

Entergy owns a tired old nuclear plant on the banks of the Connecticut River in Vermont – a plant it wants to keep running despite escalating costs, threats to the environment and public health, and a history of false promises. 

With old approvals in hand, Entergy continues to operate Vermont Yankee past its scheduled retirement date of March 21, 2012. Entergy’s view of Vermont’s authority seems to be Vermont only has authority to give it a green light.  By Entergy’s warped playbook, any condition of operation or approval would be off limits.

Entergy went to Court last year to challenge Vermont’s authority to regulate that plant. The Court partly agreed with Entergy, but clearly recognized and reaffirmed that Entergy still needs approval from the Vermont Public Service Board to continue to operate Vermont Yankee for another 20 years.  The only limitation is that Vermont cannot regulate radiological health and safety.

In early April the latest claims came about from a response from Entergy and a reply from the State of Vermont.  The State claims that Entergy’s old approvals also require payment by Entergy into Vermont’s renewable development fund and reporting requirements.  These are conditions that are part of Entergy’s old permits.  Though less than clear, Entergy’s position seems to be that only some of those conditions continue to apply.  A later reply on April 9, seems to try and blackmail the state.  Entergy will make these payments but only if Vermont does what Entergy wants – either grant approval or not raise its taxes.  That’s an odd way to do business.

Once again, Entergy is proving to be a lousy partner for Vermont.  Entergy needs to comply or shut down.  If Entergy stays open based on its old approvals, it must meet its obligations to make the payments required by those old approvals.  Continuing its lousy track record of broken promises and thumbing its nose at Vermont is getting as old and tired as the plant itself.

In a sharply worded decision, the Vermont Public Service Board made clear yesterday that it intends to holds Entergy to its commitments.

The Board stated that the provision of Vermont law that allows licenses to continue while a new proceeding is underway “does not provide authority for Vermont Yankee to continue operating, and storing spent nuclear fuel derived from such operation, while Entergy VY’s petition for a new or amended CPG remains pending.” (p.25).

The decision makes it clear that Entergy’s current license includes obligations that preclude storing fuel generated after March 21, 2012. (p.19) It also recognized that the Board order approving the sale to Entergy back in 2002 relied on Entergy’s promise not to operate after 2012 unless it had approval from the Board. (p.18)

The Board further chastised Entergy and its multi-million dollar legal team noting it expected them “to provide better organized and more cogent briefing.” (p.9 fn. 19).

The Board’s decision was made “in full recognition of the federal District Court’s decision” and does not cross purposes with it. It clarifies Entergy’s commitments and obligations. Entergy should be held to their promises. Entergy cannot simply pick and choose which obligations it will follow.

It is not clear what’s next. The ball is in Entergy’s court. It can and should comply with its obligations and keep its promises.

As the scheduled retirement date for Vermont Yankee approaches, it becomes clearer than ever that this costly, tired, leaky and polluting plant’s days are numbered.

The disappointing Federal Court decision that limited action by the Vermont Legislature to close Vermont Yankee kept intact review by Vermont utility regulators.

That review began and Entergy is being pressed hard to justify its continued bullying and defiance. 

Conservation Law Foundation’s recent recommendations note:

• The Vermont law that was not struck down by the federal court precludes storing waste generated after March 21, 2012.
• Entergy’s current authorization precludes operation after March 21, 2012 except for decommissioning.
• The sale of Vermont Yankee to Entergy in 2002 was approved based on a promise not to operate past March 21, 2012.

The broken promises from Entergy continue.  A new book, aptly titled “Public Meltdown” that highlights some of CLF’s work, provides great insight into how the public lost trust in Entergy and Vermont Yankee over the past few years.  Entergy’s recent actions continue this sad trend.

*UPDATE* 3/20/12  – Late Monday the federal district court issued a disappointing new order that precludes the State from taking some actions, while an appeal is pending, regarding storage of spent fuel.  This is a step backwards for clean energy.  Vermont may be forced to store additional nuclear waste for years while this appeal winds its way through the courts.  Five minutes later, Vermont regulators issued a stunning rebuke to Entergy that makes it clear they intend to hold Entergy to its promises and commitments.  Stay tuned.