Background on Montague Nuclear Power Station
When Northeast Utilities (NU) proposed siting a nuclear power station in rural Montague, Mass., in 1973, they inadvertently ignited the modern antinuclear movement. Planned at point of rapid expansion in the nuclear energy industry, the plant would have featured two 1150 MWe General Electric boiling reactors and the company's investment of over one and a half billion dollars dwarfed the local economy. In accordance with federal regulations, NU began an environmental impact survey of the region late in the year, erecting up a 500-foot tall weather monitoring tower on Montague Plains to capture data on wind speeds and directions.
As NU moved forward with their plans, local opposition to the plant grew, led by a group calling themselves Nuclear Objectors for a Pure Environment (NOPE). Comprised of a diverse set of local veterans of radical causes, many based on the Montague Farm commune, NOPE called for an unqualified prohibition on nuclear energy and worked to educate the public to raise awareness and support for their cause. On Washington's Birthday, 1974, a member of NOPE, Sam Lovejoy, committed himself to an act of civil disobedience, using a set of simple tools to topple the weather monitoring tower and turning himself in to the police immediately thereafter. Charged with malicious destruction, he was tried in September 1974, by acquitted on a technicality. His act, however, galvanized opponents of nuclear power and helped to catalyze the formation of formidable groups like the Clamshell Alliance. In the wake of Montague and the formation of dozens of grassroots organizations, plans for the construction of 63 new nuclear power plants were scrapped between 1975 and 1980.
