In legal brief, Coakley joins fight against Vermont Yankee

Massachusetts “has a critical interest in preserving its ability to regulate nuclear power generation within its borders as it sees fit, within constitutional limits,’’ the lawyers wrote.

Vermont Yankee’s owner, Entergy Corp., filed suit against Vermont in federal court in April, saying the state’s decision that the Vernon reactor should shut down after its initial 40-year license expires next March is preempted by federal laws governing nuclear power.

Entergy spokesman Larry Smith said yesterday that the company would have no comment on the latest legal filing.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Vermont Yankee a 20-year license extension in March, but the state has denied it the parallel state certification. Vermont is the only state with a law saying that both houses of its Legislature must issue approval before utility regulators rule on a new certificate of public good for a nuclear plant.

The Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 last year against continued operation; the House has not yet voted.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. If the plant is to continue operating past March 21, it needs to place a multimillion-dollar order this summer for a new batch of nuclear fuel that would be placed into the reactor during an outage scheduled for the fall. As part of the lawsuit it filed in April, Entergy asked for a preliminary injunction blocking the state from shutting it down. That request is pending.

In the brief filed yesterday, Coakley’s office argued that Massachusetts has a keen interest in Vermont Yankee’s future. The 39-year-old reactor is located in Vermont’s southeast corner in Vernon, less than 5 miles from the Massachusetts state line and on the west bank of the Connecticut River, which flows through Massachusetts. Massachusetts gets electricity from Vermont Yankee via the New England power grid, and several towns in Northwestern Massachusetts’ Franklin County are within Vermont Yankee’s emergency evacuation zone.

In the event of an accident, “Massachusetts communities could face contamination of soil, water, and agriculture resources that would force displacement of residents and businesses, conceivably devastating state or local economies for years into the commonwealth’s future,’’ the state’s lawyers wrote.