WVTK Local & State News August 22, 2011

About 14,000 CVPS customers lost power Sunday after two waves of strong thunderstorms rolled through the state during the afternoon and evening. The afternoon wave of storms hit Rutland, Windham and Windsor counties the hardest, with scattered outages in Orange and Bennington counties. During the evening the wave hit Franklin County, and re-hit Rutland, Windsor and Bennington counties, with scattered outages in Windham County. The towns of Brandon, Randolph, Jamaica, Brattleboro and Dummerston were hit particularly hard.

A Bristol man is facing charges for allegedly pointing a gun at a woman in campground this weekend. Donald Brown is charged with reckless endangerment. The 45-year-old allegedly aimed a muzzleloader at 31-year-old Patricia Lafayette as she was leaving the Green Mountain Campground in Bristol. Police say the two have a history of not getting along. No shots were fired.

A big landslide in northern New York continues to grow. It's nearly a mile long and covers 82 acres on Porter Mountain in Keene Valley. One home has been destroyed, and three others have been damaged. It started with super-saturated ground following our wet spring. At its peak, the ground moved as much as two feet a day. Geologists say the earth is still moving, and they predict it will continue to move. They're now briefing emergency personnel about the potential for more destruction.

Vermont State Police were recently dispatched to the Snake Mountain Parking lot area in Addison for a reported car break in. Numerous items were stolen to include a purse with approximately $200 in cash along with several credit cards and a cooler with red and white stickers on it. Anybody with possible information regarding the theft is asked to contact the New Haven State Police Barracks. (802 388 4919)

A local man was arrested after a protest at the White House. Bill McKibbins of Ripton is behind bars stemming from a protest against a U.S. and Canadian oil pipeline. According to the group sponsoring the protest, "Tar Sands Action" McKibbins will stay in jail until sometime today. McKibbins is one of dozens of demonstrators protesting the seven billion dollar oil pipeline. The line would run from Alberta, Canada to Texas refineries. The state department is set to issue a final environmental report within the month and issue a decision by the end of the year.

Statistics and patient surveys collected at Rutland Regional Medical Center show gains in some areas and improvement needed in others. For the most part, Rutland’s latest report results are in line with other medical facilities around the state. However the hospital needs to improve in infection among hip replacement patients and in patient satisfaction levels. The report can be seen in full at www.rrmc.org.

Entergy wants to bar three of Vermont's expert witnesses from taking the stand as the company continues to fight the state's efforts to close the nuclear plant. Vermont Yankee is slated to close next year. But Entergy filed a lawsuit in April, saying only the federal government has the authority to close the nuclear plant. Entergy's lawyers say three witnesses for the state lack the scientific, technical, or specialized knowledge needed. Trial is scheduled to begin September 12 in Brattleboro.

The Vermont Air National Guard says there will be increased military flight operations from its Burlington International Airport base starting Tuesday. The Air National Guard will be conducting close air support training in military training areas over New York and New Hampshire. The Guard says there also will be increased helicopter activity in the areas of the Ethan Allen Training Site in Underhill and Jericho and the Fort Drum, NY region. The exercises run through Sept. 1. All flights will be conducted during the Vermont Air National Guard's normal weekday flying hours, which are generally between 9:00AM and 5:00PM. There are no weekend flight operations.

Former Gov. Jim Douglas is continuing to speak out against large-scale wind power development on Vermont's mountain ridges. He doesn't want to criticize his successor, Gov. Peter Shumlin, but he's clearly at odds with Shumlin on the subject of utility scale wind power development like Green Mountain Power's Kingdom Community Wind project in Lowell. Douglas has long maintained that Vermont is known for its unspoiled mountain vistas. He says building 400-foot-plus wind turbines on mountaintops isn't a good trade-off because the turbines don't generate enough energy to justify themselves.

Environmental officials in Vermont say they've signed off on five environmental permits for the Kingdom Community Wind project in Lowell. The $150 million project, which will erect 21 wind turbines along the mountain ridge, is still awaiting final go-ahead from Vermont utility regulators to begin construction.

Former Governor Jim Douglas says he's "profoundly disappointed" by the inability of both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to come together on a meaningful debt reduction plan. The group is known as the Bipartisan Policy Center and it includes four former Senate Majority leaders. Douglas says the goal of the organization is to encourage Congressional leaders to adopt a bipartisan approach to the major issues facing the country. That's something that he says is sorely lacking in the current debate over the nation's deficit.

A free-trade agreement between the United States and other countries around the Pacific Ocean might not seem like an obvious topic of discussion inside Vermont's Statehouse. But in Vermont, Maine and other states, there's growing concern that such agreements could undermine states' authority in a host of areas, ranging from the regulation of groundwater extraction by bottled water companies, to negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs, to issuance of state approval for a takeover of an electric utility by a foreign-owned company. Those watching the interplay of state laws and the provisions of international trade agreements acknowledge that some of their worries are speculative. But they say the issues bear watching.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is asking the Air National Guard to cancel plans to expand low-level training for fighter pilots over western Maine. The Air National Guard is seeking additional airspace for training for homeland defense. Under the proposal, fighter jets from National Guard units in Massachusetts and Vermont would be allowed to fly as low as 500 feet over western Maine and a sliver of northern New Hampshire.

Vermont businesses that sell heating fuel to customers under the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program will get a bit less money per gallon this winter for their product. For the past two winters under former Gov. Jim Douglas, dealers have delivered fuel to low-income Vermonters at a 5-cent-per-gallon discount when they are being paid with LIHEAP money. The Shumlin administration is increasing the “discount off retail” under LIHEAP to 10 cents per gallon. Vermont received $25 million in LIHEAP money last winter, which helped about 36,000 Vermont households with their heating bills.

The entertainment industry is recognizing the work of Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. The Directors Guild of America says Leahy, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has led an effort to protect intellectual property by cracking down on "rogue" web sites that profit from the illegal distribution of copyrighted content. Leahy will receive his award in October in New York City. The Directors Guild was created 75-years ago and represents thousands of directors in film, TV, and commercials.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is visiting early primary states, but his campaign says the Senator has no plans to run for President. Sanders was in Nevada last week and then New Hampshire this past weekend. He has indicated he's disappointed in the performance of President Obama. Sanders has floated the idea that someone challenge the President in a primary because the president is not addressing progressive issues.

Thousands of striking Verizon workers will return to work today, but still without an agreement. About 45-thousand Verizon workers across the East Coast, including those in Northern New York, went on strike two weeks ago after their contract expired. Although the dispute over the elimination of benefits and increased health care contributions is not over, the company and the union have agreed to narrow the issues and set up a process to negotiate a new contract. The strike involved Verizon's landline operations.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer said cellphone carriers could effectively put an end to a spike in phone thefts by deactivating the phones themselves instead of their data storage or SIM cards. Schumer said cellphones have unique identity numbers assigned, and that the technology is already effectively used in Europe to deter stealing. He noted that 41 percent of all property crimes in New York City in the first half of this year were related to cellphones, with devices like the iPhone and Android phones easily resold on the black market. In letters, he asked AT&T, T-Mobile and Nextel to follow Verizon's approach in the U.S. and turn off stolen phones.

Vermont's bear hunting season is set to get underway. It kicks off on September 2nd and runs until November 16th. The state's bear population has risen to more than 6-thousand animals in recent years. The state tries to keep the bear population slightly lower than that.

You know summer is coming to a close when the circus ends its run in Vermont. Sunday was the final day for Circus Smirkus performers. The youngsters perform all over New England for seven weeks each summer. And as tradition goes, they completed their run in Greensboro, the home base of the circus.

Former Gov. James Douglas says he has no interest in being considered for the presidency of the University of Vermont. He thinks the UVM Board of Trustees will be able to find strong candidates to replace former President Dan Fogel, who left at the end of July. UVM has been headed before by a former Vermont governor, Thomas P. Salmon, who served as governor in the 1970s, was president of the university for several years during the 1990s.