Towns eye funds for Yankee plan

July 8, 2003

By SUSAN SMALLHEER Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper urged Brattleboro officials Monday to seek Homeland Security funds to help make sure area residents know what to do if an emergency occurs at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Sleeper told a gathering of regional and state officials involved in the emergency planning effort at Vermont Yankee that he would support a grant request for a portion of the state’s $14 million Homeland Security funds.

Sleeper estimated that such an education campaign would cost at least $200,000.

Brattleboro Town Manager Jerry Remillard told emergency planners that his town’s top priority was a regional public education campaign.

The town has recently rewritten its emergency evacuation plan, although it hasn’t started the public comment period on it.

Remillard said after the meeting that Brattleboro would definitely be applying for the state Homeland Security funds, with an eye toward a regional public education plan.

“It doesn’t work well down here to play the ‘big town, little town’ game. We have a pretty good track record here of helping each other out,” Remillard said.

Sleeper said the Homeland Security funds were a good fit for local needs, since the money is supposed to be used for planning in the event of nuclear, chemical and biological attacks.

“And no plan is effective unless the people have a clear understanding of what to do,” Sleeper said.

Sleeper said of the $14 million the state has received, $11 million must go to local efforts.

Instead of waiting for the Legislature to appropriate the money, Sleeper said, the Homeland Security funds could be in local hands within 60 days.

Entergy Nuclear currently pays about $800,000 to the state of Vermont for emergency planning for the reactor. But some anti-nuclear activists who attended the emergency planning budget session pointed out to Sleeper that that any Homeland Security money amounted to a subsidy by taxpayers of Entergy Nuclear.

Entergy Nuclear should be paying for the cost of the campaign, and not taxpayers, according to Clay Turnbull of Nuclear Free Vermont.

Earlier this year a proposal to increase funding to $1.1 million was shot down by legislators, who said there was a lack of documentation that the money was being used, according to both Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, and Rep. Patricia O’Donnell, R-Vernon.

Both legislators said the radiological emergency planning budget had been level funded at $800,000 this year because of a lack of documentation from state officials. But White said more funds could be asked for in January — midway through the budget year — if a case could be made that the money was needed.

White and O’Donnell both said Monday night’s budget meeting was the way the budget was supposed to be drawn up, according to state law. It was the first time such a meeting was held.

“We will approve what’s needed, but we need to know what’s needed,” O’Donnell told the gathering at the Brattleboro Retreat’s conference center.

Albert Lewis, who has been the director of the state Office of Emergency Planning since January, said he had proposed the $1.1 million in spending, with big increases in the funds that go to the five towns in the 10-mile emergency evacuation zone, as well as for the state’s new emergency planning office in Brattleboro .

Lewis outlined how the $800,000 was spent. Locally, the single biggest chunk goes to Brattleboro radio station WTSA, $21,000, for running the emergency alert system.

Brattleboro , Vernon , Guilford , Halifax and Dummerston are in the emergency planning zone, and Brattleboro , Guilford and Dummerston town officials attended.

For running the emergency evacuation center, Brattleboro receives $31,000, Dummerston, $25,000; Guilford , $5,300; Halifax , $4,400; Vernon , $3,400; and Westminster , $7,500.

Select Boards in Dummerston and Guilford have refused to approve their emergency evacuation plans in the past, but Sleeper said the towns are working with state officials to remedy their concerns.

Anne Rider, chairwoman of the Guilford Select Board, said her town asked for about $12,000 in additional equipment such as cell phones, radios and pagers, as well as funding for a part-time person to help coordinate the town’s plan.

According to Guilford ’s plan, fire trucks would be used to drive along the town’s 77 miles of road, alerting residents there was an emergency.

“No, that will not work, what we have in place,” she said.

A proposal for a town van to help transport people in an emergency was rejected by Lewis, she said.

Sleeper said his top-to-bottom review of the state’s emergency plan for Yankee was about 45 days away from completion.

O’Donnell was the only Vernon emergency planning official to attend the budget session.

“It’s not an issue in Vernon . That’s why we live there,” she said.

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