Jan 23 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.


Health physicists from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be in Vermont next week to review the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's methods of checking for groundwater contamination.

The move comes less than three weeks after radioactive tritium was found in a groundwater monitoring well at the Vernon reactor.

Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, has been linked in high amounts to cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations.

Meanwhile, Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams says more monitoring wells will be dug at the plant beginning Saturday, with samples to be taken next week.

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