LGBTQ left out of singles story
After reading about all the female/male couples or females who wanted to meet males and vice versa, it seemed to me that the article “All Single and Nowhere to Mingle” (Feb. 5-11, 2015) should have been titled “All Straight and Single and Nowhere to Mingle.”
Fast track Vermont Yankee shutdown
Everybody missed it. All those stories about how strontium 90 turned up in four test wells of the Vermont Yankee site. Twenty-nine-year half-life means that in about 300 years that property may be okay for a playground.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is coming to Brattleboro’s Quality Inn Feb. 19 to discuss Vermont Yankee nuclear plant owner Entergy’s hastily submitted (two years in advance) Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report. I could think of no draw. Nothing to bring folks out to this meeting — until the leaking strontium 90.
Entergy and stakeholders will decide whether the shut-down reactor will go into immediate decontamination or Safstor — a longer dismantlement of the reactor. Entergy has been planning to use Safstor when the decommissioning trust fund has enough money to cover the costs of decontamination.
But now that the site is already contaminated with strontium 90, Entergy should do the right thing: Change the plan to immediate decontamination and pony up.
Here’s what I saw most journalists missed: The public trust groundwater does not belong to Entergy — it belongs to you and me. For Entergy to be releasing unknown quantities of a horribly toxic substance into our groundwater for who knows how long, unmonitored, at unknown concentrations is just so wrong.
Either Entergy will be allowed to waltz willy-nilly to Safstor while the solution to pollution is the radioactive dilution into the Connecticut river, or the NRC and company will step up to protect the river and honor its word to be a good neighbor in its dealings with Vermont now, after the earlier years’ rough start.
Don’t wait. Safstor is no longer appropriate. Immediate decontamination is the only honorable thing to do.
If speaking up for our river and working to get Entergy out of Vermont sooner rather than later is not enough of a pull to bring folks out to a meeting, I’m not sure what would be.
Pleasant Street’s future
Editor’s Note: These comments were plucked from an on going discussion at www.valleyadvocate.com under the article “Pleasant Street’s Future” about redevelopment plans for downtown Northampton’s gateway.
The property owners on Pleasant St. are worried about the “face of Pleasant Street?” It’s hideous as it is, all the way up to the Union Station/Yes Computers plaza. A new building with store fronts can only improve that street, which needs some serious rehabilitation. It’s what a good portion of tourists coming into the city see first and it’s kind of embarrassing. Putting those horrible wires underground would be a good start for beautification.
Buildings can’t be aggressive. Sheesh! The number one cause of homelessness in this country is lack of affordable housing. This will help to alleviate that problem, at least on a local level. Times change folks. Ya gotta keep up.
