May 25 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bob Audette Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.



In a letter dated May 20, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Petition Review Board denied a request by Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., that it order Entergy to keep its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant off-line until a number of actions have been completed regarding a recent leak of contaminants into the groundwater under the site.

Hodes had asked the NRC to prevent Yankee from restarting after its current refueling outage until the removal of tritiated water from the ground is completed.

He also asked that Entergy finish removing soil that was contaminated with radioactive cesium, manganese, cobalt, zinc and strontium before the plant is restarted.

In addition, Hodes requested that the root cause analysis, the final report on why tritium leaked from the plant, and the NRC's review of documents submitted to it are both completed prior to restart.

 But, wrote R.W. Borchardt, the NRC's executive director of operations, while the PRB ruled it would accept Hodes' petition for review, it was denying his immediate request to prohibit restart of the plant "based upon our determination that the licensee has identified the source of the leak, stopped the leak, and taken actions to prevent recurrence of contamination from this source. We have determined that the licensee has the equipment, facilities, people and procedures in place to continue to safely operate the plant."

A spokesman for Hodes

said while he was pleased that the NRC was taking his concerns seriously, he's still not convinced that the reactor should be allowed to restart.

"In the last week, the NRC has warned that tritium has likely made its way to the Connecticut River and that new radioactive substances have been detected in the soil surrounding the plant," said Aaron Rottentstein. "With these developments, Paul continues to believe that Vermont Yankee's safety will remain in serious doubt until it can be shown that they have found, fixed, and cleaned all radioactive leaks."

The leak of tritiated water, which the NRC termed "abnormal plant leakage," was detected in a monitoring well on. By Feb. 27 Yankee engineers and technicians had identified the source and stopped the leak.

The contamination originated in the plant's advanced off-gas system pipe tunnel where a pair of defective steam trap drain lines were leaking.

Water pooled in the bottom of the pipe tunnel due to a clogged drain. Eventually, the water level in the tunnel rose to reach a gap where pipes entered the tunnel and leaked into the environment.

The drain was unclogged, the steam traps were isolated, new pipes were routed above ground and the gap in the tunnel is being repaired. While tritium levels reached exceeded 2 million picocuries per liter in some samples, none was detected in the Connecticut River.

"There is a plume of tritiated groundwater extending from the source of the leak to the Connecticut River," wrote Borchardt. "The NRC inspections indicate that no NRC regulatory limits have been or are likely to be exceeded, and there are no health or safety concerns for members of the public or plant workers."

Since Entergy installed a pair of extraction wells in late March and early April, it has drawn out about 55,000 gallons of the approximately 300,000 gallons of contaminated water.

That water is being held in onsite tanks until it can be cleaned up and recirculated back into the plant's systems.

"This pumping operation has resulted in significant decreases in the tritium measured in monitoring wells located near the source of the leak," wrote Borchardt. "In addition, the network of over 20 monitoring wells installed at Vermont Yankee are capable of detecting any additional leakage."

About 128 cubic feet of contaminated dirt was also removed from the area of the leak to be packaged and shipped to a licensed disposal facility, he wrote.

Some minor amounts of contaminated soil may remain, wrote Borchardt. "Areas of minor contamination are typically remediated during plant decommissioning," he wrote. "The NRC experience with decommissioning nuclear plants such as Maine Yankee, Haddam Neck, and Yankee Rowe indicate that these areas can be successfully remediated during plant decommissioning."

According to the NRC, there are no health or safety concerns for members of the public or Yankee workers because of the contaminated soil.

Once the root cause analysis is complete, wrote Borchardt, the NRC will assess its comprehensiveness and will present its own review. The NRC is still in the process of reviewing responses to its demand for information, which it received on March 31.

The demand followed the news that some employees at Vermont Yankee had been removed from their site positions and placed on administrative leave as a result of Entergy's independent internal investigation into alleged contradictory or misleading information provided to the State of Vermont that was not corrected.

"After reviewing the information from the extensive NRC actions to date, (we have) concluded that there are no issues that would lead the NRC to prohibit Entergy from restarting Vermont Yankee from its current outage," wrote Borchardt. "The NRC has reasonable assurance that the health and safety of the public, as well as the environment, are being protected and there are no immediate safety concerns."

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