RALLY TO SUPPORT VERMONT

Please join us for a rally to support the democratic will of the people and elected officials of Vermont to shut down Vermont Yankee rather than permit it to operate beyond its original 40-year license.

 Saturday, April 14, 2012, Noon to 2:00 pm

Brattleboro Common, Brattleboro, Vermont 05301

[rain location: Brattleboro Union High School]

Unite to defend democracy!

VT Governor Peter Shumlin and Attorney General William Sorrell

will join US Senator Bernie Sanders at the April 14th rally in Brattleboro. Show your support of the State of Vermont’s resolve to stand up to the Entergy Corporation’s arrogance and intimidation! Join us at noon on the Brattleboro Common.

Read more about the rally here.

 

Keynote speaker:

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Special Musical Guest:

Fenibo, a 12-piece Afro-beat ensemble

The rally will…

• Acknowledge the state’s tireless work to replace Vermont Yankee with sustainable energy solutions and prevent further radioactive contamination of the soil, air, and water surrounding the reactor.

• Support Vermont’s resolve to stand up to the Entergy Corporation’s arrogance and intimidation.

• Recognize the Vermont Yankee’s impact on neighboring states and their people and elected officials’ help in closing Vermont Yankee.

• Demand that Entergy immediately shutter Vermont Yankee and begin a thorough, responsible decommissioning of the reactor and clean-up of the site.

Rally sponsors include: Citizens Awareness Network (CAN), Safe & Green Campaign, Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), Nuclear Free Vermont, Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution (NEC), Beyond Nuclear, Greenpeace, The Enviro Show, SAGE Alliance, Vermont Toxics Action Center, the Sierra Club and Vermont Citizen Action Network.

Updates at: www.safeandgreencampaign.org www.Facebook/shutdownvermontyankee

 

Demonstration at VY HQ 03/23/12 successful!

[good-old-gallery id=”1097″]
Above are some of the images from this great event.

While other news outlets are reporting “dozens of people arrested” and the Brattleboro Refraimer shows no news at all, the real numbers are: over 1000 people met on the Brattleboro commons, and marched to Vermont Yankee HQ on Old Ferry Road where there was music, and presentations from a diverse group including Bread and Puppet. Well over 2000 people were at the event, over 136 people were arrested and detained on the VY grounds.

The Brattleboro Police and the Windham County Sheriffs department were on hand to make arrests and are to be commended on a professional, calm and in many cases good humored approach to the demonstrators. Hats off to them all for such a good job! While processing did take longer (up to 7 hrs for some) due to the details of mass arrest and the intake a cataloging of personal possessions (Hint: next time bring only ID and Cell – not back packs) all in all the event went very smoothly.

Several people were released on-site due to age or other disabilities. Most were processed and transported to the Brattleboro Police HQ, and released. The court dates are in Aug 2013!

Other news links:

VT Digger

News 5

You tube

WWLP

Remember Fukushima – Walk 3/16 – 3/22 to VY

AS I WENT DOWN BY THE RIVER TO PRAY….”

 FOLLOWING THE RIVER from SPRINGFIELD, MASS to VERMONT YANKEE, VERNON, VERMONT

2012 WALK FOR A NEW SPRING: REMEMBER FUKUSHIMA  March 16 – March 22, 2012

 The Connecticut River has been an historic route for many peoples over many centuries. And now it becomes the route of 2012 Walk For a New Spring: Remember Fukushima. We walk to Remember Fukushima, in the knowledge that nuclear energy is neither safe nor clean. Already the Connecticut River, the earth, and the people have suffered contamination from Vermont Yankee. The threat of any sort of accident at the aging nuclear reactor in Vernon, VT is all too real and the consequences would be unimaginably catastrophic.

 

On Friday, March 16th, 2012 Walk for New Spring: Remember Fukushima will meet up with Grafton Peace Pagoda Walk that has come up from New Jersey and New York. They will meet at AGAPE, in Hardwick, MA and then will journey to Springfield, walking as one body to gather in fellowship at Arise for Social Justice, Springfield.

 

The next morning on March 17th, please join us at The River Front Park (W Columbus Ave and Memorial Bridge) for the initial ceremony of a week-long series of ceremonies along the Connecticut River.   After the Ceremony, we will walk to Chicopee for lunch, followed by a walk to Holyoke . There will be a second ceremony along the Connecticut River at the farm land of NUESTRAS RAICES (24 Jones Ferry Road, off  Route 5 near lower Westfield Road. At this point, from Springfield, Mass to Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vernon, Vermont, the Walk will “FOLLOW THE RIVER,” journeying along the route of the Connecticut River through Western Massachusetts to Vermont.

 

And therefore, each day,  the Walk will go “down  by the riverside” to offer prayers to the  spirit of the river – prayers for the healing of the waters, prayers  for healing Mother Earth, prayers for the awakening of  all of us for our human duty to shut down Vermont Yankee.

 

WE URGE EVERYONE,(AND PARTICULARLY WE URGE  WESTERN MASS FOLKS), TO JOIN US – March  16th – March 21.

 

JOIN FOR AN EVENING GATHERING IN YOUR COMMUNITY

                        March 16th:  Worcester to Springfield

                        March 17th: Springfield to Chicopee to Holyoke

                        March 18th: Holyoke to Northampton

                        March 19th: Northampton to Montague

                        March 20TH: Montague to Northfield

                        March 21st: Northfield to Vernon

                       

JOIN FOR AN HOUR !      JOIN  FOR A DAY!      JOIN  FOR THE FULL ROUTE ALONG THE RIVER!

 

Join us as we walk together  in love and solidarity for a nuclear free future.

Join us so that together we can search and open the path  to help us realize the possibility

of a more just, sustainable and compassionate world,  built on respect for living beings and for the earth that sustains us.

                                                        

Let’s become a  ground-swell of concerned residents. Let our walking together speak for itself.

By gathering together and walking as a community , we become “the walking prayer:”

“(the)   prayer for the suffering of the Japanese people and a plea to the people of New England

to recognize the grave dangers that nuclear energy poses to our lives, where we live, and all life on Mother Earth.”

               

The children of today and the children of the future call to us to take action.  We answer their call by walking with Walk for a New Spring, following the River, and offering prayers for healing at the River’s edge .

 

details to join the walk or support the walk when it comes to your community,

contact: Tim Bullock:413-485-8469; email:walk4newspring@gmail.com

 

WFNSP sponsored by New England Peace Pagoda, co-sponsors: AFSC Northampton, Arise for Social Change, Sprngfld;

Nuclear Free Future; House of Peace, Ipswich, MA; MassPeaceAction.

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE

Latest News

  • 10 days 17 hours 45 minutes
    Until the Closure of Vermont Yankee
March 5, 2012

Evacuation March & Forum 3.11

“Evacuating” on the 11th? In an Affinity Group? Coming 3.22 to Occupy HQ? However you are acting to shut down VT Yankee, join the 250 citizens who have taken the VY Pledge! Click here for the VY PLEDGE

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE:
EVACUATION MARCH AND PUBLIC FORUM ON THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
OF THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER

FLYER: Evacuation Anniversary 2012       FLYER: Fukushima Forum March 11 2012
On March 11, one year after the disastrous earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan, the SAGE Alliance will be conducting a mock evacuation from Vermont Yankee in solidarity with the people of Japan. Said organizer Nancy Braus, “We will be thinking especially of those 100,000 people exiled from their homes, maybe forever, within the 12-mile radius around the Fukushima reactors.”

Those who wish to take part in the evacuation will meet at 12:45 pm at the Transportation Center on Flat Street in Brattleboro with their “evacuation gear.” School buses will transport participants to the Vermont Yankee gates. From there, “evacuees” will assemble with their strollers, roller bags, backpacks, and other evacuation items, as well as signs and banners, and then walk the six miles from Vermont Yankee to downtown Brattleboro.  Those who cannot walk the entire route may join us in the Marlboro Graduate Center parking lot; we hope to arrive there around 3:30pm and walk downtown.  Once in Brattleboro, food and drinks will be served to walkers at the River Garden, at 153 Main Street.

At 5:00 pm, a public forum on Fukushima and Vermont Yankee will be held at the River Garden. Arnie and Margaret Gundersen, nationally respected consultants on nuclear issues, will present an update and analysis on conditions at Fukushima and discuss the response to the meltdowns of the Japanese government and nuclear industry one year later, the implications of Fukushima for U.S. reactors, including Vermont Yankee, and the impact of radiation from Fukushima on public health in the U.S.  The forum will also include a talk by Ms. Chiho Kaneko of Hartland, Vermont, who will give an eyewitness report about life in the aftermath of Fukushima in the area around the reactor and in Japan as a whole.

Click here for The Commons April 2011 coverage of Fukushima and local reactions, including essays by members of Safe & Green.

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