photo1 In snow, from left, at gates of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont, Frances Crowe, 88, of Northampton, Massachusetts; Julia Bonafine, 39, of Shrewsbury, Vermont; Hattie Nestel, 68, of Athol, Massachusetts; Ellen Graves, 67, of West Springfield, Massachusetts; Marcia Gagliardi, 60, of Athol, Massachusetts. The Vernon, Vermont, police chief is behind the women. Photo by Paki Wieland, 64, of Northampton, Massachusetts, also one of the Shut It Down Affinity Group.
photo2
At Entergy offices in Brattleboro, from left, Frances Crowe, Paki Wieland, Ellen Graves, Julia Bonafine, Hattie Nestel, Marcia Gagliardi. Photo by Mary-Ann DeVita Palmieri.
VERNON, Vermont-State and local police arrested six women of the Shut It Down Affinity Group Tuesday as they implored Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant officers to allow them to present safety concerns to newly-appointed safety officer Ricardo Fernandes and his counterpart Beth Sienel.
The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor is operated by the Entergy Corporation and is scheduled for decomissioning in 2012. A series of accidents has undermined public confidence in the aging reactor. The collapse of a cooling tower was documented in several photographs that caused the Vermont Public Service Board and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to call for an independent safety assessment at the reactor.
Vermont and Massachusetts public officials including United States senators and representatives in Congress, state legislators, mayors, selectboard members, attorneys general, and others called for the safety review or, in some instances, to shut down the plant.
When security guards, Vermont state troopers, and the Vernon police chief told the women to leave the gated area at the power plant or face arrest, they read their list of hazards aloud. They carried two oil-painted banners of white elephants representing the aging nuclear power plant with a pile of elephant dung labeled "nuclear waste."
The six women include Julia Bonafine, 39, of Shrewsbury, Vermont; Paki Wieland, 64, and Frances Crowe, 88, of Northampton, Massachusetts; Ellen Graves, 67, of West Springfield, Massachusetts; Hattie Nestel, 68, and Marcia Gagliardi, 60, of Athol, Massachusetts.
Originally, the women arrived at what has consistently been designated Entergy headquarters on Old Ferry Road in Brattleboro and used a telephone in the vestibule to contact Entergy officials in order to deliver their list of concerns to Fernandes and Sienel. An Entergy employee who would identify herself only as Nancy told them that executives' offices had moved from the Old Ferry Road site to the power plant.
When the women arrived at the power plant, the Vernon police chief and Entergy security guards and other officials barred them from the gate and asked them to leave. They were arrested about a half hour later, booked at the Vernon police station, charged with unlawful trespass, and ordered to appear in Windham County District Court to answer the charges on February 19, 2008.
The women asked that the safety officers stop the emission of radiation from the facility, stop the flow of hot water from the plant into the Connecticut River, stop misleading advertising about nuclear energy, stop storing nuclear waste on the power plant site, and stop the transportation of hazardous nuclear waste from the plant through Vermont and Massachusetts and on public roadways. They asked the officials to shut down the dangerous power plant.
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