At Yankee's side, Vernon is also on Yankee's side
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PHOTO BY SUSAN SMALLHEER |
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By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer - Published: February 7, 2010
VERNON — The discovery of millions of picocuries of radioactive tritium leaking underneath the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor has not shaken the faith of people in Vernon in their nuclear neighbor – not by a single picocurie.
"I think the plant should be open. I think it eventually will come through," said Dick Nesbitt, 68, who lives in West Brattleboro but spends most of his day at his family's two Vernon businesses, Nesbitt's Portside Tavern and the Schoolhouse Grocery.
Nesbitt's wife, Chris, is the secretary at Vernon Elementary School, located across Governor Hunt Road from the pale-green reactor building. And his son Cameron, 34, runs the busy restaurant and bar a quarter-mile south of the reactor.
"I think they are trying very hard to find the leak," Cameron Nesbitt said Friday in a lull between the day's regular lunch business and the after-work crowd.
Unlike his parents, Cameron Nesbitt lives in Vernon, a short distance north of the plant on Route 142. "We support Vermont Yankee and the license extension," he said.
Vermont Yankee's operation for 20 years beyond its scheduled shutdown in 2012 used to appear to be assured, despite a string of problems at the plant — the most dramatic being the partial collapse of one of its cooling towers in 2007, which revealed a lack of maintenance on a low-tech wooden structure.
The reactor supplies about one-third of the electricity used in Vermont, amounting to about half its output. Under a proposed new contract, only about 15 percent of its power would be sold to Vermont utilities, but at a price that has Vermont utilities balking.
But that is all in doubt after the disclosure last month that tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, was showing up in a monitoring well on the banks of the Connecticut River.
The tritium leak revealed more than just leaky pipes. It revealed that Vermont Yankee executives had misled state regulators by saying such pipes didn't exist. Gov. James Douglas and his administration, who once were accused of being Entergy Nuclear cheerleaders, have heaped criticism on the plant's operation and management.
The Department of Health late last week called it a serious concern, even though no one's drinking water is currently affected.
The Nesbitts haven't wavered. They bought the tavern, then called Wayne's Place, about four years ago, when it had been vacant for about 13 years. It's a regular working-class bar, with a couple of pool tables, televisions constantly tuned to sports, and writing on the wood-plank ceiling. The menu includes "great burgers," hand-cut French fries and "a lot of steak and cheese sandwiches," said Cameron Nesbitt.
Dick Nesbitt said he's afraid the debate over Vermont Yankee's future is dominated by activists and that working class people's thoughts and support are being ignored.
"A majority of the local community definitely supports Vermont Yankee," said Cameron Nesbitt. Yankee "definitely makes our community feasible. We would crumble without Vermont Yankee."
"I think the state of Vermont would crumble," said his father, noting the millions of dollars the plant's owner pays in taxes, both to Vernon and the state, as well as contributions to local nonprofit agencies, particularly food shelves.
The tavern delivers food to people at the nuclear plant, he said, and does catering there.
The fact that tritium has been measured at sharply elevated levels in groundwater monitoring wells doesn't concern the Nesbitts, who depend on their own well for the tavern, just as practically every home and business in Vernon does – including Vermont Yankee.
"Tritium in the water? No, not really," Cameron Nesbitt replied when asked whether he's concerned about the week's news of a monitoring well that showed levels close to 775,000 picocuries per liter. (A new monitoring well showed the highest level yet Saturday, 2.45 million picocuries per liter.) The safe drinking water standard is 20,000 picocuries.
Vernon Elementary School has something no other elementary school in Vermont has: its own radiological dosimeter on the front counter.
Next to the kindergarten class's display of gourd penguins, next to the fax machine and police scanner, is a boxy black dosimeter with a red emergency warning light on top.
Principal Mark Speno is in his first year as head of the elementary school, which for years has been the envy of area schools because of its generous budget.
"There is also a siren," said Speno, who grew up in Brattleboro, familiar with the divisions in the larger area over the operation and future of the reactor. Speno received special training from the Department of Health on what to do as principal in the event of a radiological emergency.
"I love Vernon," said Speno, finishing up the day's bus duty, getting his students home for the weekend. The recent daily news about the growing leaks at the reactor across the road has been a little difficult. "Every morning there's a different article," he said. Testing by the Department of Health on the school's deep well has increased from monthly to weekly, to make sure the groundwater contamination hasn't spread, he said.
Speno, 32, said the radiation monitor's needle remains largely stationary, ticking back and forth by only a point or so.
"That needle hasn't really moved since it's been in place," he said.
Despite the news, he said that the students, their parents and the staff don't talk about the unfolding drama across the street.
"When you grow up in Vernon, it's a little different," he said, saying there is a "community education" about nuclear power because so many in the town work at the plant.
"It hasn't come up in any way with a parent or a child," he said.
Down Route 142, the Schoolhouse Grocery is one of the few places selling gasoline in town, and people come to the store and restaurant for everything. Snowmobile trails run right by the store, but the snow cover is pretty thin this February. Over at the café, waitress Jess Raymond of Vernon said she isn't worried about the problem and hasn't heard people talking about it.
Leeanne Southwick of Brattleboro was busy behind the counter with the store's spreadsheets, doing accounting between waiting on customers. She said people who come into the store, including workers on lunch break from Vermont Yankee, don't talk about it.
"They don't say a word," she said.
Southwick said that from what she's been able to learn about the leak, she finds the fact that Entergy Nuclear executives didn't tell the state about underground pipes the most upsetting.
"Vermont Yankee needs to be more honest," she said, the rare voice of any type of criticism of the plant. "I would be concerned if I lived in Vernon."
Her boss, Dick Nesbitt, said the issue goes beyond Vernon. Yankee's problems are the state's problems.
Without Yankee, he said, "everybody's going to lose in the long run."
susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com