The nurses at the Greenfield hospital reached a tentative union contract on September 28. “This is an enormous victory for patients, nurses and the Franklin county community,” said Suzanne Love, an emergency nurse at the Greenfield hospital. “We stayed united and persisted over several months of a coordinated community campaign because our patients need safe staffing. In the end, Baystate (the corporation that owns the hospital) moved toward us and we reached an agreement because nurses and our community supporters refused to give up.”
The nurses won:
--More nurses in the emergency department and mental health unit;
--Nurses will spend less on their health insurance;
--Higher pay for surgical nurses who are required to remain available for emergencies;
--Higher wages. In the first year of the contract, nurses will get an average of a 6 percent raise and 13 percent over the life of the agreement, which expires on the last day of 2028.
The tentative agreement follows months of internal and community organizing by BFMC nurses. In April, nurses voted 98 percent yes to authorize a potential strike. In June, they voted 98 percent to reject Baystate’s “best and final” offer.
More than 700 community members signed a petition supporting the nurses, and the Greenfield city council unanimously approved a resolution backing their fight for a fair contract and safe patient care. Additionally, hundreds of community and union members filled out and sent postcards to the Baystate board of trustees.
Marissa Potter is a nurse at the Greenfield hospital. She said the Greenfield “nurses came together to make this agreement possible through our solidarity and the support of our community. We are incredibly proud to have stood up and fought when safe patient care was on the line. Baystate made the right move by agreeing to a fair contract, avoiding a strike, and making an important investment in nurses and patients.”
A spokesperosn for the union said on September 29, “The nurses will vote to ratify the tentative agreement in the coming days.”
The nurses have a web site at www.MassNurses.org.
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In 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor closed permanently because thousands of people marched in Brattleboro, and because
hundreds of people were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience in Brattleboro and outside the reactor three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire. Deb Katz was one of the main organizers of these protests. She lives in the Pioneer Valley and runs a group that has a web site at:
On September 28, 2026, Katz put the Valley Post in contact with Pioneer Valley resident Ann Darling, who told the Valley Post:
Something is happening at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant site that leaves me no choice but to speak out. First, a little background. The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor stopped operating at the end of 2014, and it is now almost completely decommissioned.
The most significant things remaining are 60 concrete-and-steel casks of extremely radioactive waste, along with electric transmission and railroad infrastructure that can be used for other purposes. Its owner, NorthStar, a decommissioning company, has leased the site to a Texas-based energy development company called PowerTransitions, which is apparently considering options including a small modular nuclear reactor, battery storage or a data center.
Vermont Yankee has an associated Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) chartered by the legislature whose job is to advise the governor and the legislature on decommissioning, and to serve as a “conduit for public information and education” and to encourage “open communication and community involvement in matters related to the decommissioning process.” In my opinion, they have failed to fulfill this latter part of their charter.
They hold meetings, fewer and fewer over the years, but they do no outreach to attract people to those meetings. I’ve raised this issue repeatedly and gotten nods of agreement to my suggestions — and absolutely no action. Even though they have money donated by Vermont Yankee’s owner, they don’t use it for public education events or media outreach. As a result, they regularly hear from a handful of anti-nukers like me, but they do not hear a peep out of the many people whose lives are impacted by how the site is cleaned up and used.
Here’s why I’m writing now. There are supposed to be three meetings a year of the NDCAP, and there has been only one so far, with none scheduled. The May 2026 meeting was postponed, ostensibly because they wanted a report on the chemical contamination at the site from the state’s contractor. We know there are PFAS. We don’t know exactly where or how much.
And then there’s the whole piece about leasing the Vernon site, which has chemical and radiological contamination, along with 60 concrete-and-steel casks of radioactive waste, to an out-of-state power development company. Although we have asked about the lease contents, waste ownership and how plans are being made and with whom, we have received no answers.
This is all happening in a broader context. Gov. Phil Scott is promoting legislation that would define nuclear power as clean energy so that it can count toward meeting the state’s climate goals. Nuclear power emits ionizing radiation and makes people sick. Its entire fuel chain, from mining to waste management, is a net carbon emitter. It is not clean. The governor is also trying to repeal the statutory requirement that the legislature vote on whether nuclear power could be used again in Vermont, and he has vetoed legislation placing guardrails on data centers.
If the governor, Public Service Department and NDCAP are interested in transparency and building trust with the public, they’ve got me fooled. To me, this looks like they’re hiding something. Is it a really bad report about the PFAS and NorthStar balking at the cost? Is it their attempt to hide plans for a new nuclear reactor or data center in Vernon until it’s too late for the public to stop it? What is going on, really? We all deserve an answer. We deserved it a long time ago.
Soon after my op-ed was published in VTdigger..., PowerTransitions held a public meeting for residents of Vernon, Vermont, where VY is located. Folks from outside Vernon, including me and four members of the NDCAP, learned of the meeting and attended on 9/23/2026. Brattleboro Community Television recorded the meeting (https://www.brattleborotv.org/)
Major takeaways from that meeting are:
PowerTransitions has been in conversation with people from Vernon; it’s unclear to me who that has been. They talk a good talk about not doing anything Vernon doesn't want. Since what happens in Vernon affects the whole region, I suggested they expand their outreach to others, for instance, the regional planning agencies.
The company has a lease for 140 of 240 acres at the site. This does not include the area where casks of high level radioactive waste are.
They are working out plans for a 110-440 MW battery storage facility, which would take up about 15 acres of the 140. Their plans are still very much in development. The people in the room had many good questions, some of which could be answered and some not.
PowerTransitions will develop the battery storage as a standalone project and will also explore options for building a power generating facility of some kind on the rest of the leased area. They did not rule out a nuclear reactor and said that Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations do not prohibit battery storage near radioactive waste storage, apparently because they are silent on the topic. I have not confirmed this. I pointed out to them that, just because the NRC doesn’t forbid it, it doesn’t mean it’s safe.
They brought a fire protection person with them. He admitted that there is a risk of fire and talked about the newer battery technologies and enhanced fire suppression capabilities in newer systems. A fire or explosion that reached the waste casks could be catastrophic.
There are many unanswered questions of course, since this is in a developmental stage. It’s great that PowerTransitoins had this meeting. I wish it had been sooner. I hope there will be more public communication, and that more people and organizations from outside Vernon will be included.
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