Gubernatorial candidates assail Gov. Douglas' Vermont Yankee policies

Gov. Jim Douglas' gubernatorial challengers attacked his policies, and those of his administration, in regard to the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant today. 

This morning, the Brattleboro Reformer ran an Op-Ed story by Democratic gubernatorial candidate and House Speaker Gaye Symington in which she criticized the Douglas administration for what she calls their "false claims and obstructionist tactics" coupled with "a very public effort to denigrate the Public Oversight Panel." 

Symington said that the incumbent governor "doesn't think a public oversight panel is really necessary" and took actions to keep the Public Oversight Panel from accompanying the Department of Public Safety and Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a recent inspection of Vermont Yankee. 

"Plain and simple, the Douglas administration not only opposes the role of the Public Oversight Panel but it is working constantly to undermine its effectiveness" wrote Symington, who worked with the state Legislature to form the Public Oversight Panel which would act as an independent evaluator of the nuclear power plant. "Shutting out the Public Oversight Panel is tantamount to shutting Vermonters out of the process to ensure the reliability of a nuclear power plant that is operating well past its original life expectancy." 

Later today, independent gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina reacted to a Vermont Health Department report released Friday revealing that in 2007, Vermont Yankee had emitted the highest amount of gamma radiation ever in the plant's history, almost 18 millirem-just shy of the state's maximum legal limit of 20 millirem. 

The report also noted that since March 2006, the state's Health Department had changed the way it calculated the amount of radiation that could be exposed to a person.   

"Governor Jim Douglas should come clean with Vermonters about why he let Vermont Yankee spew more radiation into our environment and how the Health Department standards were changed with no public knowledge," Pollina said in a statement today. "Then he should tell the Health Department to reverse its decision and hold health and safety hearings on this critical decision. Douglas was absolutely wrong to allow the state to change the way it measures radiation leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant since it increased its power output in 2008."

The Governor's office did not return calls by publication time.