A cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon has been demolished as part of the plant's decommissioning process.
When workers from NorthStar — a demolition company that bought Vermont Yankee earlier this year — took down the first cooling tower, Vernon Selectboard Chair Josh Unruh looked on with former plant employees.
“It is definitely an end of an era, so to speak,” Unruh said. “But again, it does provide us with the hope of redeveloping that land, at the same time.”
The demolition last week is the most visual sign to date of the accelerated decommissioning process.
The plant's former owner, Entergy, had planned to delay cleanup until the year 2053. But when NorthStar bought the plant, it promised to speed that up by decades.
Unruh said town officials are still discussing what could ultimately be developed on the site.