MONTPELIER, Vt.—For Vermont Yankee, it was not a very good year.
A series of incidents and controversies -- including the collapse of a cooling tower structure -- shook public confidence in the aging nuclear power plant, prompting a new round of scrutiny as its owners pressed their case for extension of its operating license past 2012.
The difficulties and their aftermath led Vermont news organizations to vote Vermont Yankee the year's top news story.
Also getting votes in the annual poll of newspaper editors and radio and television broadcasters were a Statehouse stalemate on climate change legislation, the launch of state-sponsored Catamount Health and a dispute over a pro-legalization prosecutor's decision in a marijuana case.
It was also a year in which FairPoint Communications mounted a hotly-contested $2.7 billion bid to buy
For Vermont Yankee, the year began inauspiciously, with a stuck safety valve prompting a six-hour shutdown of the Vernon power plant Jan. 23 and a bitter battle ensuing in the Vermont Legislature.
Lawmakers passed H-520, a climate change bill that called for expansion of the Efficiency Vermont conservation program and a new tax on the plant aimed at raising up to $35 million over five years to help pay for it.
Owner Entergy Nuclear, Gov. Jim Douglas and others said the proposed levy would have unfairly singled out the plant. They fought the bill, which was passed by the Democrat-controlled Legislature but then vetoed by the Republican governor.
In a victory for Vermont Yankee and Douglas, supporters couldn't muster the votes for a veto override.
But the plant encountered more trouble a month later.
On Aug. 21, a section of the plant's 50-foot tall cooling tower structure gave way suddenly in a shower of water, wood and metal, forcing the plant to cut power in half and bolstering criticism from Vermont Yankee opponents who say wear and tear on the 35-year-old plant make it unsuitable for re-licensing.
Photographic images of the mishap showed water gushing out of a pipe and cascading down on the wreckage of the mishap, which plant officials said was unrelated to the plant's boost in power last year, from a 540-megawatt capacity to a 610-megawatt capacity.
The same week, Vermont Yankee's union workers narrowly averted a walkout, reaching agreement on a contract hours before they were to go out on strike.
Nine days after the cooling tower collapse, Vermont Yankee's woes continued: A stuck steam valve prompted an emergency shutdown of the plant, which was closed until Sept. 14.
While the climate change bill stalled, there was no shortage of activity on the global warming front in Vermont in 2007.
In April, a group of Middlebury College students led by author-activist Bill McKibben spearheaded a national day of action. Step It Up 2007 included more than 1,000 individual events across all 50 states that pushed the need for reduction of carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
In September, the state of Vermont won a courtroom victory when a federal judge in Burlington ruled that state restrictions aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions don't conflict with federal rules.
In a 16-day trial, auto industry executives suing the state had testified that the regulations -- adopted by California and 11 other states -- would not stop global warming but would wreak economic havoc on Detroit and the industry by forcing car makers to stop selling models that didn't get enough mileage.
Catamount Health, a program designed to provide insurance to an estimated 65,000 Vermonters without it, kicked off Oct. 1, offering the uninsured the opportunity to buy insurance offered by private carriers. A month later, a $1.6 million outreach campaign designed to get word out started with a blitz of newspaper, TV and online ads.
State officials hailed it as a milestone en route to universal health care for Vermonters, about 90 percent of whom now have health insurance.
Windsor County State's Attorney Robert Sand was at the center of controversy in October, when he granted court diversion to a lawyer and part-time judge charged with felony possession and cultivation of marijuana, thereby averting prosecution.
Concerned that Sand -- who favors decriminalization of marijuana possession -- was imposing his own views, Douglas ordered state law enforcement agencies handling "significant" marijuana cases with first-time offenders in Windsor County to refer them to the state or federal government for prosecution, bypassing Sand.
But he later backed off, persuaded that Sand had no "blanket policy" opposing incarceration for such offenders.
