Feb 2 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bob Audette Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.


The New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which is opposed to the relicensing of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to shut the plant down until the source of a leak of tritiated water can be found.

"Because the rate of contamination appears to be increasing, they need to cease operations until they determine the source," said Ray Shadis, NEC's technical consultant.

Entergy has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of Yankee for another 20 years, from 2012 to 2032. In addition to NRC approval, Entergy must also receive a certificate of public good from the Public Service Board and the OK from the Vermont Legislature.

The Legislature and the PSB were on track to decide whether Yankee should be allowed to continue to operate when a tritium leak discovered on Jan. 7 derailed the process.

 When the state was notified about the leak, regulators learned that Entergy didn't reveal the extent of buried piping at the power plant during public hearings before the Public Service Board last year.

During a status conference last week with the PSB, Entergy was ordered to go back and review every single page of testimony presented to it to identify any other areas where Entergy might have left out important information.

"It's a start," said Shadis.

Entergy is scheduled to return to the PSB next week to let it know how long the

review could take.

"It may or may not be that they intended to mislead, but what they did shows great disrespect for the process by trying to blow past these questions," said Shadis.

In the five or six proceedings in which NEC has been a part, "In every instance their answers were coy and evasive," he said.

While it may be OK to not offer information that has not been asked for in a criminal trial, said Shadis, it's not OK "when an applicant is asking for the state's goodwill for a permit. They act like defendants instead of applicants."

Information that Entergy has turned over so far "is not helpful," he said.

A list of buried pipes submitted by Entergy was nearly illegible, said Shadis, and had no description of the piping systems except for engineering codes with no legend to explain what those codes were.

"If this is the way it's going to be, we will be bumping heads soon," he said.

The state also needs to investigate how the tritium leak could affect decommissioning costs, said Shadis.

Rough calculations indicate cleaning up the tritium leak could add as much as $113 million to the costs of decommissioning the power plant when it closes, said Shadis.

"They have to go back to the drawing board," said Shadis. "We need them to do a thorough site survey."

Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com, or at 802-254-2311, ext. 273.

(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services