Ed note: Kevin J. Kelley contributed this post.
Ridicule might seem the right response to the undeterred effort to build a nuclear power plant in Massena, N.Y.
Despite the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima complex in Japan, Massena Mayor Jim Hidy says an atomic energy plant is just what his village needs. “In light of the Japan incident, I’m even more confident we should have it,” Hidy says. “The nuclear plant was about the only thing still standing there after the earthquake and tsunami.”
Besides, the mayor notes, Massena doesn’t lie on a fault line, as some have said, but rather on a “glacial retreat.” And that’s not as geologically significant, he says he’s been told.
The town does lie on the St. Lawrence River, an abundant source of coolant for a nuke and a body of water “not likely to have a tsunami,” Hidy points out.
He and Town Supervisor Joseph Gray began in January to pitch Massena, 90 air miles west of Burlington, as a perfect site for a new nuke. They say they have the support of New York’s senior U.S. senator, Charles Schumer, as well as several local lawmakers.
But such a plant is never going to be built, insists Laura Haight of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “It’s somebody’s pipe dream,” she says. “It’s not real.”
The unstaunched radiation releases in Japan are having the effect of ensuring “we’re not going to see any nuclear plants built in the United States, except maybe a couple in the South,” Haight predicts. “The finances have always been iffy.”
Hidy acknowledges there’s no firm proposal for splitting atoms in Massena. There hasn’t even been a feasibility study because “we’re holding off on doing something that would cost us money.” And even if a nuke builder were to arrive in Massena tomorrow with a bulging bank account and a phalanx of lobbyists, a plant couldn’t start operating until 2025 at the earliest, Hidy concedes.
The nuke plant is actually just the latest in a series of dreamy development schemes, notes David Sommerstein of North Country Public Radio. The Massena area has also tried to lure a major aquarium, a Nascar racetrack, a 20,000-cow ethanol plant and an underground atomic supercollider, Sommerstein recalled in a recent blog post.
There’s no doubt that most locals are permanently smitten with the prospect, no matter how improbable, of bringing hundreds of high-paying jobs to what the mayor says is “as close to a depressed area as you can get.” He figures that 95 percent of Massena residents support the possibility of having a nuke as a neighbor.
Massena has been hurting so much that its story actually is downright sad.
The latest blow came in 2009 when a bankrupt General Motors closed a local power-train plant, taking away 500 jobs and leaving behind a toxic-waste site. Massena still has an Alcoa factory, but it’s been downsized since the company’s merger with Reynolds Metals 10 years ago.
Two of the area’s biggest employers are the Mohawk Bingo Palace and the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino. Many of Massena’s downtown storefronts are empty, due in part to a nearby Walmart , Hidy says, that “put a lot of the mom-and-pop shops out of business.”
Massena might even be disappearing.
Its population dropped to about 10,500 in 2009 — a 6.6 percent decline from the previous census. About 20 percent of those who remain are living below the federal poverty line. And Hidy, a 60-year-old sales rep for a local trucking firm, estimates the town’s average age at close to his own. “The younger people have all left here for greener pastures,” he says. “We’ve got to do something to help this community.”
This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2011.
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thanks for the north country coverage.you forgot massena’s other nutty idea for development – rooftop highway to plattsburgh!
“Massena has been hurting so much that its story actually is downright sad.””About 20 percent of those who remain are living below the federal poverty line.”If 20 percent is “downright sad,” what would you call Burlington at 26 percent? Downright sadder?
Maybe we could get an article that looks at the PROS and cons of nuclear power instead of these heavily baised posts. “The unstaunched radiation releases in Japan are having the effect of ensuring “we’re not going to see any nuclear plants built in the United States, except maybe a couple in the South,” Haight predicts.”Quotes like this have no place in article. WHO cares what some special interest group spokeswoman has to say. I still remember like it was yesterday when VPIRG was sending around kids to peddle their nonsense over VY. That poor kid, he was like 17 and just had no clue. I started asking questions about the propaganda VPIRG was disseminating and he got all flustered and left when I pointed out that several of the talking points on their flyer were factually incorrect and wrong. He argued for a while until I googled it and showed him he had been given false info. The media needs to stop giving these wacko groups free advertising. It doesn’t help.
We’re not happy unless weve got something to be scared about, and someone to villify.We know that whipping up fear and hatred of somebody or something (“them!”) is a standard tactic of unscrupulous leaders. We easily recognize that foreign dictators create fear and hatred of other countries to justify and prop up their own regimes. Having an enemy that must be guarded against is always an effective way to unify the populace around you.And yet we willingly allow ourselves to be used by our own politicians when they point the finger at “evil corporations” or “the rich” or “Republicans” to whip up campaign contributions and votes and rallies and letters to the editor.”Entergy Lousiana” is to Vermont’s current political leadership as “The West” is to Middle Eastern despots. They wouldn’t know what to do without them. It’s great to have someone to hate.
You’re spot on, Pierre. Vermont Yankee protectors are totally rioting in the streets and killing infidels, and Peter Shumlin is practically Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Oops, make that protesters. And I forgot to mention all the televised beheadings!
a Jamie: Same principle. Bogeymen are bogeymen. Scapegoats are scapegoats. And Shumlin and the Vermont Dem. leadership have one here.
Yah, Vermont Yankee’s safety record is stellar, Entergy’s disclosure and knowledge of its own plant is stupendous. So instead of looking at the facts, and arguing the actual pros and cons of extending or denying the license, let’s just be total hypocrites and point fingers at the so-called finger pointers. There’s a strategy.
If we want to look at the facts then lots stop using safety in reference to an official misrepresenting pipes under the plant. The two don’t relate. ANd if we are going to go with facts lets stop acting as if the cooling tower collapse and tritium leaks were disasters. Or, we could use pedro’s strategy and continue the ingnorant fear monger. Although credit Pedro for not bringing in Japan’s disaster here. On another note, the state voted to give themselves the power to bill Entergy for legal fees associated with the court process. This is the same issue that got themseleves into this mess in the first place. When are these guys going to realize they can’t just vote to give themselves whatever powers they happen to want at the time. Who is ever going to sue the state if they are forced with paying for the other sides representation? Another step towards an oligarchy. Hopefully the courts throw it out with the power to regulate Yankee.
Unlike the British “loser pays” rule, the American system has always provided that each side pays its own legal fees, except for extremely rare occasions when the court finds that the lawsuit was patently frivolous. This case is hardly frivolous, as it involves a serious issue of federal preemption over state action. Indeed, if there is any argument for frivolousness, it is on the state’s side, considering that they abruptly changed the rules in 2006. Considering that the Legislature’s latest act of trying to charge VY for its own legal fees in a lawsuit is plainly illegal, they probably just helped VY prove its case that this state acts in an unprincipled, ad hoc manner; changes the rules whenever it wants to; pretends that this debate is not about safety, when that’s exactly what it’s about; is singling out VY for unfair treatment; and doesn’t give a hoot about federal law. This is the same Legislature that 4 or so years ago tried to slam VY with a last minute ad hoc property tax surcharge of staggering amounts for no reason other than that they just needed more money.This latest move by the Legislature was probably a free gift to VY in its lawsuit.