Sep. 16--NEWFANE -- The Vermont Supreme Court was in Newfane, Tuesday, to hear arguments on whether the Vermont Environmental Court made the correct decision in allowing Vermont Yankee to increase the temperature of the water it discharges into the Connecticut River by 1 degree.

The five members of the Supreme Court grilled attorneys for the Connecticut River Watershed Council, Entergy and the state in its attempt to get to the heart of the matter.

Both the state and Entergy, which owns and operates the nuclear power plant in Vernon, and the CWRC appealed the decision rendered by Judge Merideth Wright, which allowed the increase in temperature but restricted it to July through October.

Entergy asked for the increase to be allowed from May through October.

The CWRC didn't want the increase at all.

CWRC would also like to see the Agency of Natural Resources reconsider the permit that was issued in 1992 and that allows Yankee to raise the overall water temperature of the river by 5 degrees. In July 2007, the Environmental Court heard arguments on whether the permit should be amended to allow the 1 degree increase.

The original permit was issued when the plant was owned by the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. Entergy bought the plant in 2002 and is pursuing a license renewal to allow Yankee to operate for 20 years past its current license expiration date of 2012.

"Let's get to the issue of the underlying permit," said David Deen,

river steward for the CWRC and the chairman of the State's House of Representative's Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources. "As the river steward, I would like to see it struck down entirely. We'd like to look at it in the new light of climate change and as the value this river has for cold-water species."

The actual temperature of the discharge water is around 100 degrees. The plant can discharge up to 540 million gallons a day and raise the overall temperature of the river to 85 degrees.

As temperatures of rivers farther south along the eastern seaboard increase due to climate change, said Deen, the Connecticut River will become "an important refuge river" and will need to return as close as possible to its historical temperatures before dams and power plants were installed on the river.

A main point of contention for Entergy's attorney, Gwyn Williams, was whether the Environmental Court had the right to give deference to witness statements from the Agency of Natural Resources, which concluded an increase in temperature wouldn't significantly affect the indigenous fish population.