Storm of criticism hits Entergy over Vt. Yankee
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: January 16, 2010
MONTPELIER – The relicensing of Vermont Yankee appeared in doubt Friday as lawmakers and members of the Douglas administration expressed outrage that officials from the nuclear power plant may have misled regulators.
Meanwhile, the nuclear power plant in southern Vermont indicated Friday that the level of radioactive tritium found in a monitoring well at Vermont Yankee is rising, and is now just below reportable drinking water standards.
House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, told reporters at the Statehouse Friday that this week's revelation that the facility does indeed have underground pipes containing radioactive tritium – a fact Yankee officials earlier denied – "threatens the level of trust that Vermonters have in Entergy to provide accurate information about anything."
"The representations made by Entergy were clearly wrong," Smith said. "They told us that there was no radioactive material flowing through those pipes … that was untrue."
Officials from Entergy Nuclear Vermont, the company that owns Vermont Yankee, told state and legislative officials on a number of occasions that those pipes did not carry irradiated water. That includes statements made by Entergy officials under oath to the Vermont Public Service Board.
The level of tritium in the well was measured Thursday at 19,800 picocuries per liter, up from the 17,000 picocuries per liter last week, according to Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear.
Williams said the new reading was still below reportable limits by 200 picocuries per liter. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has set a standard of 20,000 picocuries per liter.
The level of tritium in the well has steadily risen since mid-November, when a test first showed the radioactive fluid. The November level was 700 parts per liter, and then jumped to 17,000 and 14,500 parts per liter in two tests last week.
Williams stressed that the water in the monitoring well was not drinking water, and he said Entergy has continued to test the Connecticut River, but no tritium was detected in the river.
The source of the tritium remains a mystery, and the company said it would drill seven new monitoring wells at different locations at the Vernon reactor in an attempt to locate the source of the radioactive leak.
Meanwhile, Vermont's three-man congressional delegation said late Friday it wanted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to undertake an investigation of Entergy's lack of disclosure and misleading information about the potential for radioactive contamination from buried underground pipes.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., issued a joint statement Friday afternoon saying they wanted the NRC to do a "thorough investigation into whether there was any attempt by Vermont Yankee officials to mislead state officials regarding the plant's safety and underground piping."
Welch also will join three other House members, including Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and two New York congressmen, in asking for the General Accounting Office to investigate the NRC's handling of the underground piping problem at nuclear plants around the country, according to Welch's spokesman Paul Heintz.
Currently there are about a dozen reactors with underground radioactive leaks.
Smith and Senate President Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, a gubernatorial candidate, announced that they were reconvening the Vermont Yankee Public Oversight Panel, a group appointed by the Legislature and Gov. James Douglas last year to oversee a safety audit of the 38-year-old nuclear power plant.
Shumlin, who lives in the same county as Vermont Yankee, said the inaccurate statements made by Entergy to the Oversight Panel, which had ruled that the plant could operate for 20 more years with some technical changes, called into question the validity of the whole process.
He said the Oversight Panel would reopen the investigation, examine the new evidence and determine if Entergy misled state officials about any other parts of the audit. The panel is scheduled to report back to lawmakers by Feb. 16.
"This leak has not yet been found," Shumlin said. "And it's either in piping that we were told did not exist or it's in a leaking tank that we were told did not exist."
Entergy is denying that it deliberately misled state officials and lawmakers, categorizing the controversy as a "miscommunication." But the dispute comes when the company is doing its best to appear as a solid corporate citizen as lawmakers consider voting this year on allowing the facility to operate for another 20 years after 2012.
Jay Thayer, the vice-president of operations at Vermont Yankee, took blame for the confusion Friday, apologizing to the governor, lawmakers and state regulators for supplying them with information that turned out to be wrong.
He noted that Entergy gave correct information on the underground piping to the team of consultants hired by the state to conduct the on-site review of Vermont Yankee. But he admitted that he gave the wrong information to the Public Service Board and didn't follow up like he said he would.
"I was at fault," Thayer said in a phone interview Friday afternoon. "I told them that I would look into and get back to them and I didn't do that. It was never my intention to mislead anyone and I apologize for the confusion that this has created."
Fallout from the revelation may have cost the company the support of Douglas, the Republican governor who has argued in support of extending Vermont Yankee's license to operate. On Friday, Steve Wark, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service, called the company's incorrect statements "disturbing."
He said Douglas agrees with the Democratic leaders of the Legislature that last year's audit should be revisited.
"I think we need to go back and gather the facts where appropriate and determine what happened," Wark said.
Even Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, a Republican running for governor this year who has expressed strong support for Vermont Yankee, was critical of the company Friday, saying the "issue here is trust."
"There is a cloud," Dubie said. "We need to remove the cloud."
When the controversy first erupted late this week, Entergy officials first said they only made the mistaken comments to lawmakers. But soon it was revealed that officials such as Thayer, the vice-president of operations at Vermont Yankee, had made similar statements under oath to the Public Service Board, the regulatory body that oversees state utilities.
In testimony before the Board on May 20, 2009, Thayer was asked, "Does Vermont Yankee have any underground piping that carries radio nuclides?"
"But I don't … I can do some research on that and get back to you, but I don't believe there are active piping systems underground containing contaminated fluids today," Thayer responded, according to a transcript.
James Moore, the clean energy advocate for the organization Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said this week's revelation shows that the "lipstick is off the pig."
"Either the company has lied under oath or they have no idea what is going on in their plant," said Bob Stannard, a lobbyist for the anti-nuclear group Citizens Action Network. "Neither of those options are comfortable for Vermonters."
The brewing scandal leaves a possible legislative vote on Vermont Yankee's continued operation further in doubt. Democratic lawmakers were already hesitant to vote this year without information on how much Vermonters would pay for Yankee electricity after 2012.
Smith said accurate information is vital to the difficult decision before lawmakers on 20 more years of nuclear power. At the Statehouse "your word is your bond," he said, and Entergy has violated that by supplying incorrect information.
"We are not in a place today where we can have a vote," Smith said.
Vermont Press Bureau Chief Louis Porter contributed to this report.
Daniel.Barlow@timesargus.com
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