Entergy said Wednesday it will lay off 165 employees on Jan. 19, shortly after the company plans to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.
The Louisiana-based company filed the notice with the Vermont Department of Labor and the Town of Vernon. There were 554 active employees working at the plant as of Nov. 1, the company said.
Entergy announced in August that it would shut down the reactor at the end of 2014 and plans to reduce staffing as the plant cools. The company will then begin decommissioning the plant, which it estimates will take at least two decades.
The company will keep 316 employees working through early 2016. Entergy will then reduce this number to 127 employees through 2020, at which point the company plans to have all the spent nuclear fuel removed from the cooling pool and placed into dry casks. After that, about 25 to 50 employees will remain working at the plant.
Since the closure announcement, 40 employees have retired and 79 have transferred or will transfer to another Energy facility, a company news release said. Of the 165 layoffs, 69 are workers who live in Vermont, 48 live in New Hampshire and 39 live in Massachusetts, it said.
Federal law requires the company to provide employees with a 60-day notice.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Entergy to lay off 165 Vermont Yankee workers in January.
