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Radiation Levels Cloud Vermont
Reactor’s Fate

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By MATTHEW
L. WALD

Published: January 27, 2010

Levels of radioactive tritium
have risen rapidly in recent weeks in the groundwater surrounding Vermont’s sole
nuclear power plant, leading both longtime supporters and foes of the reactor to
question whether it will be allowed to keep operating.

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Marchers gathered in Montpelier this month to push for the
closing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant near Brattleboro.

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Owners of the Vermont
Yankee plant, along the Connecticut River just north of the Massachusetts
border near Brattleboro, are seeking a 20-year extension of the plant’s
operating license, which expires in 2012.

But the rising radiation levels, an indication that reactor water is leaking
into the soil, have stirred deep concern about the plant’s safety and the
credibility of its operators.

So far no tritium has been found in any drinking water wells, nor have raised
concentrations of radioactive material been found in the river, the source of
the plant’s cooling water.

Vermont’s governor, Jim Douglas, a longtime supporter of the plant, said on
Wednesday in a statement that recent events had “raised dark clouds of doubt”
about the reactor’s safety and management. He suggested that the Legislature put
off any decisions on the future of the plant, located in the town of Vernon.

If the nuclear plant were to be denied an extension, it would be the first
such move by the public or its representatives since 1989, when residents in
Sacramento voted to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant, owned by their
municipal utility. No state legislature has ever voted to close one.

Vermont’s state health
department has been posting updates almost daily on the monitoring at the
plant.

“I’m not defining an immediate public health threat, but it’s very concerning
when we don’t understand the mechanism,” the state’s health commissioner, Dr.
Wendy Davis, said in an interview by telephone.

The plant began searching for tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, under
a 2007 nuclear industry initiative. The industry began the effort because leaks
had been found at reactors in Illinois and New York.

Levels found in the last few days exceed the federal standard for drinking
water, although they were found in monitoring wells, not drinking water wells.
The state has moved to weekly from monthly testing at the elementary school
across the street from the plant, but has not detected anything unusual off the
plant site.

The top elected official in the town of Vernon, Michael A. Ball, who has
worked at Vermont Yankee since 1985 and is a senior engineer there, went to the
state capitol last week with other local officials to urge the Legislature to
refrain from taking up the safety issue. They argued that a professional panel
should decide whether the reactor was safe.

Mr. Ball said that some legislators had told him that the discovery of the
radioactive contamination “gave them pause” and that they wanted more
information before voting.

“Others were adamant,” he said, telling him flatly that the recent discovery
had “pushed them off the fence and they’re voting against it.”

Other factors cloud the plant’s future. A vice president of Entergy,
the company that owns the plant, had told state officials he did not believe the
plant had underground piping that carried radioactive material, although it
does.

And Entergy is seeking permission to spin off Vermont Yankee and five of its
other reactors into a new subsidiary, a move that the plant’s opponents view as
an attempt to limit Entergy’s legal liability.

A cooling tower at Vermont Yankee collapsed in 2007. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission said the tower was not needed to assure safety, but
the incident shook public confidence.

“Their problem is that the plant is too old to be reliable or safe,” said
James W. Moore, an energy expert at the Montpelier office of the Vermont Public
Interest Research Group.

Tritium is usually incorporated into a water molecule, and such molecules
behave chemically just as ordinary water does. But it gives off a beta particle
that can cause damage inside the body. Like ordinary water molecules, those
incorporating tritium pass through the body quickly.

In November, technicians measured tritium at Vermont Yankee at 700 picocuries
per liter. But in January the plant notified the state that the level had risen
to thousands of picocuries per liter. In one monitoring well, it recently
exceeded the Environmental
Protection Agency’s standard for drinking water, which is 20,000 picocuries
per liter.

Plant workers also found that water in a concrete trench that holds pipes in
one building contained millions of picocuries of tritium per liter, as well as
traces of other radioactive materials.

It was not immediately clear if water could find its way from that trench
into the groundwater.

Under federal rules, the plant does not have to alert the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission about the presence of tritium in the groundwater unless the level
reaches 30,000 picocuries per liter. At that point it would have 30 days to tell
the commission, and specify what it planned to do.

Robert Williams, a spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the company was working
hard to find a leak. “It’s a necessarily slow and methodical process,” he said.
The plant is already in touch with federal and state regulators, he added.

Dozens of reactors around the country have
had their 40-year licenses extended by 20 years without much debate. Under
the Atomic Energy Act, such decisions are usually the sole purview of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But Vermont struck a deal with Entergy when it bought the plant in 2002 that
gave legislators a veto role. An official with the federal nuclear commission
noted that if the state blocked a license renewal, Entergy could file a court
challenge.

Vermont Yankee is the largest generator of power in Vermont. But New
England’s power grid has a surplus of electricity because of the
recession.

More Articles in
Business »A version of this article appeared in print on January
28, 2010, on page B3 of the New York edition.

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Past Coverage

White
House Is Urged to Help States With Nuclear Plants Stockpile Thyroid
Drug (December 7, 2009)

Radiation Leak
Is Called No Risk (November 23, 2009)

WORLD
BRIEFING | EUROPE; France: Nuclear Leak Announced (July 19,
2008)

WORLD
BRIEFING | EUROPE; Slovenia: Nuclear Plant Apology (June 6,
2008)

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