Earlier this year, the Vermont senate voted to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2012. Yankee is a few miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire.

“When Vermont Yankee closes in 2012, it will not be the end of the story,” said Paul Burns, director of www.vpirg.org “The reactor site will be a nuclear waste dump that will cost more than $1 billion dollars to clean up.”

The subsidiary of Entergy Corporation that owns Vermont Yankee is likely to declare bankruptcy in 2012 and stick Vermont taxpayers with the clean-up costs.

The Vermont house of representatives will vote on April 13, and the senate shortly after, on a bill to hold Entergy responsible.

“The house clean-up bill is weak,” Burns said. “We have hard work ahead of us in the senate to make the bill stronger. We need all the volunteers and donations we can get.”