The man newly hired to advise the Douglas administration and lawmakers on issues at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant previously held a similar job in Maine.
Fifty-three-year-old Uldis Vanags was nuclear adviser to the state of Maine when the Maine Yankee nuclear plant went through an independent safety assessment and then ended up being shut down a decade ago.
Vanags — who works in the Department of Public Service — says from what he’s seen so far, Vermont Yankee does not share the problems that cropped up suddenly at the Maine plant in the mid-1990s.
Vanags has had a busy first few weeks on his new job. He started on August 20, the day before a cooling tower at Vermont Yankee collapsed in a pile of rubble.