About 350 people marched seven miles from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to downtown Brattleboro March 11. The march was organized to commemorate the one year anniversary of the nuclear crisis in Japan, and to advocate the permanent shut down of Vermont Yankee. Yankee is three miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire.

The first photo shows a sign that reads, "Ask Japan If It's Safe." In the second photo, marchers take a rest. To enlarge a photo, click on it, then scroll down and click "see full-size image." photos by Eesha Williams

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The march organizers are planning civil disobedience in Brattleboro on March 22 at the corporate office of Entergy, the Louisiana company that owns Vermont Yankee. More information is available by going to:

http://sagealliance.net/action/ag-nvcd-da-3-22-2012

or by calling Deb Katz of the Citizens Awareness Network at (413) 339-5781.

A major accident or act of sabotage at Vermont Yankee would kill thousands of people and leave an area the size of the Valley uninhabitable. Such a disaster is so likely that no insurance company will insure the facility; taxpayers would pay the costs of a meltdown. The hundreds of tons of nuclear waste at Vermont Yankee is the most toxic material on earth. The waste is so dangerous that it must be guarded 24 hours a day for the next 1 million years, according to the federal government. The electricity from Vermont Yankee is not needed, according to the state of Vermont, which in 2010 ordered Entergy to close the plant on March 21, 2012. Entergy sued Vermont in federal court and won the right to run the reactor until at least 2032. The state is appealing.

More information about Vermont Yankee, the mass movement that led the state to order Entergy to close the reactor, and the nuclear crisis in Japan, is at:

www.ValleyPost.org/2011/03/14/japan-quake-puts-valley-nuke-local-spotlight