Yankee evacuation plans questioned

June 23, 2003

By SUSAN SMALLHEER Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — Members of the Brattleboro Select Board voiced concerns Monday about the adequacy of the town’s plan for dealing with an emergency at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

In the first public discussion of the plan since the board received the 2003 draft 10 days ago, several board members said they had technical questions about the plan, as well as questions about the adequacy of the town’s emergency staffing.

Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the state was looking to establish another emergency reception center for evacuees in the western part of the state. The current plan asks all the people living around the plant to head for the Bellows Falls Union High School in Westminster , or a facility at Keene (N.H.) State College , or a site in Greenfield , Mass.

“The plan anticipates that everybody won’t go to Bellows Falls Union High School ,” Remillard said.

The Marlboro Select Board has rejected its evacuation plan because of that very point, Remillard noted.

Remillard said that that there would probably be a limited “real-life” evacuation at Brattleboro Union High School to test various aspects of the drill. He said he and Brattleboro school officials were interested in doing a limited evacuation of students. One board member, Stephen Steidle, questioned whether the town had adequate staffing to deal with an emergency, and whether there was a plan if both Remillard and Fire Chief David Emery were out of town at the same time.

And board member Joerg Mayer questioned the official notification process, saying that valuable time would be lost contacting state officials, rather than local officials, in the opening minutes of an emergency.

“I hate the thought that we have to wait,” Mayer said. “We five are responsible for this plan.”

Mayer also called for more public information about nuclear emergencies so that people could understand about the potential for problems at Yankee, “so that people feel informed, and not just scared; not just warn, but inform,” Mayer said. He was critical that the burden for the plan fell on the town, rather than the state or the nuclear plant itself.

Board member Patricia DeAngelo, who has been the most critical of Vermont Yankee — her former employer —questioned whether the town’s emergency workers had been adequately trained about the plan and whether the town had adequate hand-held radiation screeners, dedicated telephone lines and cell phones.

DeAngelo said that the plan was lacking in specifics about evacuation.

Cell phones are often worthless in an emergency, Remillard said, because everyone gets on the phone and jams the lines.

Chairman Greg Worden said he wanted the town “three deep” on the plan, that three different shifts knew the specifics of the plan. He called for a “table-top test” of all three shifts.

Remillard outlined the plan, which detailed hundreds of school buses and public transportation buses which would come to the towns surrounding Vernon and remove school children. Vernon alone needs seven buses, Remillard said, while Brattleboro needs 80.

The board agreed to seek more technical expertise as a way of educating themselves about the potential for problems at the Vernon reactor, which is less than 5 miles from downtown Brattleboro .

Remillard said he had seen “much more interest and much more intensity” on the part of the state in helping the communities plan for a disaster. “There’s a whole lot more going on,” he said.

All of Brattleboro falls within the 10-mile emergency evacuation zone, and Brattleboro is by far the largest community in the 10-mile zone surrounding the Vernon reactor.

According to the 41-page plan, the town of Brattleboro could be evacuated in between 1 hour, 50 minutes to upwards of 3 hours, depending on the direction of the wind during any accident.

Emery said that many of the large institutions in town, such as Brattleboro Memorial Hospital , had their own emergency response plans. Last December, when there was a fire at the hospital, 22 ambulances from the region responded, he noted.

And Emery said their plans dealt not just with evacuating people, but the medical equipment those people will need.

Remillard said that there were “minor changes” to the plan, which has to be reviewed annually, according to federal and state requirements.

The Select Board will try to meet with a state official in early July in another public work session and then hold public meetings about the plan, Worden said.

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.