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.

Date: Saturday, 10 April 2010
Time: 5:00 – 9:00 PM
Location: Ripton Community House
Route 125, Ripton, Vermont
Bayley-Hazen Boys

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!

Dear John Ryan,

I read with interest your letter in Seven Days last week in response to my letter about their so-called media issue. (I printed your letter out below in its entirety.)

Even though you and I have never actually met, we do seem to share much in common.

We're both good-looking fellas.

Rob Williams.

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.

Why doesn't Vermont just annex itself to Canada and get it over with?

by David Budbill.

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.

March 4, 1791 - the day that citizens of an independent Vermont republic (1777 - 1791) voted to join the new United States. Time to re-think that decision, fellow Vermont citizens. Free Vermont! Long live the UNtied States.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I wonder if Ralph Nader is ready for nonviolent secession? As he asks at article's end: Where are “We the People”?

 The twin swelling heads of Empire and Oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.

Once again the New York Times offers its readers the evidence. In its February 25, 2010 issue, two page-one stories confirm this relentless deterioration at the expense of so many innocent people.