If I had thought much about it I would have assumed the ever vigilant Vermont Yankee management team might keep their corporate office’s door locked.
However in Brattleboro on Monday eleven women from an anti-nuclear group walked through an unlocked door and entered Entergy’s Vermont Yankee corporate headquarters.
The eleven protesters walked in and spread out yellow crime scene tape in the emergency operations press center conference room in order to make a citizens arrest before they themselves were arrested.
The door they gained entrance through is operated by an electronic key system and people normally enter only when accompanied by an Entergy employee.
Larry Smith, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said 11 people had been arrested Monday but declined to comment further about why the front door to the headquarters was unlocked.
Did I mention the door was unlocked and unattended?
All this follows after last September’s fire at VY headquarters. The fire at Vermont Yankee corporate offices in Brattleboro was termed brazen and suspicious. As far as anyone knows it is still under investigation.
Commenting on the fire last September spokesman Larry Smith said
"It's a little disturbing; it's unnerving. If the cause of the fire is determined to be deliberate, that's the most brazen, deliberate attempt on our property, or our employees or one of our facilities in our 39 year history."
Suggestion: Keep an eye on those unlocked doors, never know who might wander in.
Safe and reliable?
The women’s action is absolutely, hysterically brilliant! Brava!
I suspect that even if the door hadn’t been unlocked, they’d have found a way to string up the crime scene tape.
Oh, and Sue? There’s nothing in Entergy’s mantra about secure. Apparently that’s wa-a-ay too much to ask of a nuclear energy company.
NanuqFC
So we’ve got a [nuclear reactor] containment that doesn’t contain. A regulator who doesn’t have the capability to regulate. And an industry with a series of cracks or holes in containments that continues to believe that there is zero probability of a containment leak. ~ Arnie Gundersen
to give them the benefit of the doubt, we really need to wait until they tell us what they define as ‘door’, ‘locked’, ‘attended’, and ‘secure’.
just like those notburied pipes notleaking that totallysafe byproduct into the notgroundwater, these doors probably are simply hidden and an oversight.
back when this thing was built it was probably cool to just leave the house and car unlocked. hell, when i lived in putney i’d often leave the house unlocked.
but i wasn’t running a fucking nuclear power plant.
Friday is three whole days away — that’s an awful long time to stall, until he can issue one of his usual “yeah, well, so, something didn’t go as planned, but it’s all better now, trust us” denials. I hear Bruce Lisman may be looking for a campaign spox sometime soon — maybe Larry should start polishing his CV.
How’s come these folks can walk right in, but the poor sufferin’ ARSONISTS had to break in. If I was them ‘Arsonists’ I’d file a Discrimination suit against Entergy.
And, ya know what? Maybe the above 11 people might want to think about an Entrapment suit against Entergy.
What next? Oops…”Hey, somebody LOCKED the door to the Control Room and none of us had a key, so we couldn’t prevent the Meltdown. Shit happens. Now we have to drive all the fuck up to Montpelier for Happy Hour.”