Tagged: Vermont Yankee

A trial began Tuesday in Vermont for six elderly Massachusetts women accused of trespassing at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant last year to protest the continued operation of the reactor.

Police say the women, all members of the Shut It Down Affinity Group, traveled to the nuclear plant's gate in Vernon on Aug. 30, 2011, used a chain and padlock to lock the entrance gate and chained themselves to the fence, while officials were busy with the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.

The Vermont Public Service Board earlier this week held the last of two public hearings on whether a Certificate of Public Good should be issued allowing continued operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has finished testing a former drinking water well to make sure it hasn't been contaminated with radioactive tritium.

The well supplied the plant until it was closed in 2010. It was the closest drinking water supply to where tritium had been found.

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that plant officials said no tritium or gamma-emitting radioactive materials were detected in a sample taken last month.

A top official in the southern Vermont town of Dummerston says he's less worried now that he's learned more about preparations for an emergency at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that Select Board member Tom Bodett had told a panel of state officials earlier this month that the emergency evacuation plan for the area around Vermont Yankee was something "no one really believes in."