Vermont Yankee

[Carolina Jethro]

There is no such thing as a good cheap place to stay at Vermont Yankee...I stayed at West Village Motel. They have small cabins and efficiencies for around $200+ per week. Not a real nice place but clean and private. The leaf peepers may have all the weekends already tied up for the fall.

[littlebittime]

VY local area newspapers

Brattleboro Reformer = www.reformer.com  

Keene Sentinel = www.keenesentinel.com

Greenfield Recorder = http://www.recorder.com

[Rennhack]

Don't forget to vote.  Keep your comments civil.

[Rennhack]

Talk About: Vermont Yankee

[TamiTrueheart]

My most favorite place to work.

[Phurst]

I was there for 6 weeks in '79 and I stopped in Brattleboro for a few days in 2001. My how the town hasn't changed. I met a girl there in '79 that told me we could shut down the plant. When I asked her what we could use for power she told me we could burn wood. I like the place and working there was fun, a nice family type place. I think it is a crime they are trying to shut it down.

[Brigrat]

My guess is, that Ben & Jerry probably are sponsoring the anti-nuke movement.  They are notorious for supporting things that are detrimental to our country and our way of life.  Just for the record, I have been boycotting B&J for 3 years now.  There are lots of other good ice creams in the world.  : )

[HydroDave63]

http://www.benjerry.com/foundation/grl.html

gives you a listing of all of the neat causes that BendOverJerry's Ice Cream is funding now, and in years past.

[Rennhack]

http://www.benjerry.com/foundation/grl.html

gives you a listing of all of the neat causes that BendOverJerry's Ice Cream is funding now, and in years past.

Yep, right there...

Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment $1000
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA 94550
Tri-Valley CAREs is conducting a campaign to urge students and currently-employed scientists and engineers working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the nation's principal nuclear weapons design lab, to renounce work on nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Also, by educating science and engineering students at the University of California on the nature and extent of current nuclear weapons work at Livermore, they hope to counter LLNL's aggressive recruitment efforts and stem the flow of new talent into weapons work.

[Brigrat]

Thanks for the good infor on B&J, like I said, now we have even more reasons to eat our favorite treat elsewhere.  These people really make me sick.  Not getting any of my money!!!

[Chelios]

I thought we were talking about Vermoont Yankee, no Ben & Jerry's

[bigstew]

Here's a link to much of the trouble at VY. It's called the School for International Training and it's in Brattleboro.

http://www.sit.edu/index.html  

Here's some of the course work:
International Education
 Language and Culture
 NGOs and Civil Society
 Peace and Conflict Transformation
 Social Justice
 Socially Responsible Management
 Sustainable Development
 Teacher Preparation

This place will use VY as a proving ground for protests; die-ins; love-ins;etc. If Raytheon or Mcdonnell Douglas were in town then they'd be the target for being corporate greed and injustice.
Instead it's VY just trying to churn out megawattts for the farmers and granola crunchers. Not that I don't like granola.
This 'school' used to run monthly demonstrations at VY as regular as clockwork when Seabrook was being targeted, too.
 

[Carolina Jethro]

Super nice  people at VY... most of the people in area were pretty nice too. If I ever go on the road again this will be one of my first stops. If they just didn't talk so funny and if they would learn how to cook!  [smiley=wave.gif]

[jdstanford]

I worked the re-rack project at VY in the 80's.  I liked the plant.  I lived in Burlington from 1997 to 2001 and loved Lake Champlain.  If you work VY take a trip up to Burlington, great town.  On another note, Ben and Jerry no longer own Ben and Jerry's.  They sold out a couple of years ago to some conglomerate (the name was kept).  Ben and Jerry aren't even affiliated with the ice cream anymore because they didn't like some of the things the conglomerate wanted to do.  

[High_Rad_Drifter]

Well, I'm still boycotting B&J's 'cause it got me spited.  I promise that I'll never eat it again!  By the way, I think that the folks at VY are really nice when this 'ol southern boy falls on the ice up there.  They hardly laugh at all.

[HydroDave63]

I am curious how the change in ownership has affected working conditions and hiring practices...does anyone have any specific knowledge?

[Pet_Cow]

Ben and Jerry's is not owned by B&J. They were bought out  by Unilever in August of 2000. By agreement Unilever must give money to the B&J foundation. The irony of this was at Seattle- Unilever was represented at the WTO meeting. Money from the B&J foundation was used to finance protesters of Unilever.

I give to the general B&J foundation via my long distance company-Working Assets which donates part of my bill to "chic liberal" causes. I also get a discount on leftist books such as Michael Moore's best seller "Stupid White Men" and they will send out a prewritten mailing to my Senators and Rep. on important legislation for a token fee.

[retired nuke]

;DJust thought I'd put in a plug while folks have the fall planned, and are looking at the spring outages. VY will be replacing several feedwater heaters, and the HP turbine this outage, in preparation for power upgrade. Tentatively scheduled for April, expected to last 30-35 days.

The ski season should be about over , so housing should be available. Last outage was "foliage season" and some folks had a hard time with the hotels.

For those that have been to VY before, the "GO Cards" are no longer. That program has ended, and there is not a replacement for contractors.

RP contract is still Numco as far as I know, but the home office handles everything. The local office is closing, and the lady there was hired by Security.

I think VY will be looking for 55+ techs , with a lot of low dose work in the turbine bldg . Hope that enough folks come, it sure is better on everyone when there are enough people to go around.

[rad_rider]

Was there in '97, was a great place to work, the crew I was on was there for hydrolazing.Worked with some great guys, the plant people treat you well. the area is tight on places to stay, when the outage falls in the off season( non -snow,no leaf peepers) you can get good deals at the resorts. I ended up in Keene N.H., but the drive wasn't bad. it is a good place to visit.

[justme]

Just heard from Numanco that the pay has dropped for VY between 2.50 and 5.00 dollars.  This is also at all entergy plants.  You think pay would go up, not down.  But they will probably staff at the lower rate anyway, which will hurt us all.  Any comments?

[Carolina Jethro]

The pay and incentives that VY use to have was one of the reasons I always went back. The people there were real nice but  the cost of living would keep me away if they dropped the pay rate. I hate to see Entergy ruin a great plant to work at. If that is the route they want to go... "Just say NO!" 

[justme]

Any news on Entergy lowering its pay rate for all its plants.  I know VY is shutting down soon and it was told to techs that the pay was cut , and bonuses cut.  True?  Any info welcome.

[Carolina Jethro]

Numanco recently called checking on my availability for going back to VY... and even though I am doing DOE now she did tell me that the pay and bonuses had been cut to the "standard" Entergy pay scale. She said they were having a hard time staffing and with the cost of living in that area I would imagine it won't get staffed unless Entergy wakes up and smells the coffee.I use to turn down work at my hometown plant to go there because I made more money there. Great plant, super people, but if you can't make the money it is just not worth it! Another case of " Just say NO!"

[wondertech]

I inquired about three Entergy sites( ANO, GG & VY) and got three different pay rates. The only thing they have in common is no bonus. It seems that Entergy South and Entergy North are not yet on the same page.

[Camella Black]

If anyone has a favorite hang out, place to shop, or local information for this area please post it here.