UPDATED

Entergy keeps operating Vermont Yankee while leaking tritium (though it's not clear whether there are any new releases to the groundwater), trying to limp along until the scheduled April closing for refueling. Meanwhile, in Illinois, Exelon will have to pay big bucks for tritium leaks at three of their nuclear power plants.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced yesterday that Exelon General Corporation will pay over $1 million to settle lawsuits arising from tritium leaks into groundwater from the Braidwood, Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants.

I haven't looked at the performance of the Byron and Dresden plants. About the Braidwood plant, Public Citizen says (and the Illinois EPA confirms):

The site has experienced eight leaks between 1996 and 2006, including one in 1998 and another in 2000. The 1998 leak resulted in the release of three million gallons of tritium-contaminated water. It was not until November 2005 that the leaks were revealed to state officials.

I have a call in to the Attorney General's office about whether there are any similar lawsuits filed or planned in Vermont. I haven't heard of any, but I've also been out of state for a few days. 

UPDATE 4:30 pm: Deputy Attorney General Janet Murnane has told me that while there are numerous ongoing state investigations, no civil lawsuits have been filed against Entergy or Vermont Yankee regarding the tritium leaks.

If Vermont were to secede from the United States empire and become an independent nation-state, how could it possibly survive as a separate republic? How would it function? Are there any examples of smaller, sustainable nation-states which might serve as a role model for a state like Vermont, should it decide to leave the U.S.? There is at least one such nation that might serve as a viable model for an independent Vermont: the Swiss Confederation.

Imagine...a Free Vermont!

Editor's Note: Lendman's article is particularly timely, in light of UVM researcher Gary Flomenhoft's "Message In A Bottle" COMMONS feature on the current status of Vermont's groundwater, found in the current MUD SEASON issue of the news journal. 

Vermont's Groundwater: Pure'ly Private?

With the help of Glenn Scherer at Blue Ridge Press, I turned the state Senate vote on Vermont Yankee into an op-ed on states' rights to regulate nuclear power plant. Blue Ridge Press sends out op-eds to newspapers around the country, and Glenn hoped the states' rights slant would appeal to newspapers in some conservative states.

We'll see how that strategy works. So far, it's been picked up by The Epoch Times in New York City.

Editor's Note: We profiled our favorite Vermont-based social network - Michael Wood Lewis' Front Porch Forum out of Burlington in a recent issue of Vermont Commons - looks like they just got a big plug in Yankee magazine by Ripton writer Bill McKibben. Check it out.

While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks.

We've written quite extensively about local currencies here over the past five years, and will continued to do so in the weeks ahead. As the U.S. Empire's imminent bankruptcy begins to catch up to us all, forward-thinking towns are taking financial matters into their own hands.

More below the fold.

Most interesting, perhaps, is this line:

In evaluating the resources comprising the “Commonwealth” of Vermont,
we made a disturbing discovery: Most of the valuable resources in
Vermont, including minerals, groundwater, surface water, hydro sites,
airwaves, etc., are owned by out-of state corporations.  Vermont is a
banana republic without the bananas...Gary Flomenhoft teaches energy technology and policy at the University of Vermont.

It is realistic to think that the generating capacity
of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) can be economically,
environmentally and cost-effectively replaced in the near term by a
diversified strategy of conservation, market purchases, and local
renewable resources here...John (Sucosh) Norton is the Chief Operating Officer
for NRG Systems, a global leader in the manufacture of wind-
measurement equipment, based in Hinesburg.  John serves on the Climate
Change Oversight Committee for the State of Vermont and has worked in

The question remaining is whether it will be any different if the
physicians and mental health experts are paid, instead, by a
profit-taking corporation...Anne Galloway is the editor of vtDigger.org, a nonprofit web-based news journal reporting in-depth on Vermont issues and events.