Officials from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant met Thursday night with a citizens panel to discuss the plant's closing and decommissioning process for the first time, promising full cooperation.
Vermont Yankee in Brattleboro, Vt., is among a dwindling number of non-natural-gas sources for the new England energy grid. But its also one of several nuclear power plants nationwide set to close. Owner Entergy Corp. announced last year Vermont Yankee would close this December.
Vermont public service commissioner Chris Reccia leads the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, created to make sure the public is fully informed about things like what will happen to the spent fuel that's being stored at the reactor site. But even with the closing just a few months away, how things will work remains unclear to the public.
"There will be issues that we can't reach agreement on," Reccia said. "We will continue — and do continue and want to continue — cooperative discussions with Entergy on a variety of issues but there may be cases where we are not able to be in agreement."
Entergy officials say they're committed to being transparent, but they say the public is justifiably skeptical. Vermont Yankee opened in 1972; and Entergy says it's closing it because the reactor is no longer profitable.
