Follow the money all the way to Safestor --- or mothballing Vermont Yankee

by: Maggie Gundersen

Thu Oct 09, 2008 at 17:19:07 PM EDT

Entergy?  The NRC?  Concerned citizens like me?

I work as a paralegal specializing in nuclear safety litigation.  What does that mean?  I work with lawyers and nuclear safety experts all over the country and in Canada to hold the nuclear industry to federal and Canadian statutes and to make sure that the NRC and Canadian government are meeting their primary mission to protect public health and safety.  I am also a former nuclear industry employee.

When my firm Fairewinds Associates, Inc wrote the two white papers last year that alerted the Vermont Legislature to the shortage in the decommissioning fund, my work was criticized quite heavily in the press and in public by the Douglas Administration, Commissioner O'Brien and Entergy spokespeople who vehemently denied my firm's concerns.

I worked all legislative session to help legislators understand the magnitude of the lack of money within the decommissioning fund, and while the Bill did pass the legislature, it was not veto proof.  Check out the legislative record.  See how your legislator voted and if they voted against the bill, ask him or her why he or she voted against protecting Vermonters from financial usury by an out of state corporation.  

Did you know that Entergy makes at least $150 million in profit per year from Vermont Yankee.  Quite a tidy sum to send to headquarters in Louisana, where CEO, J. Wayne Leonard earned a hefty $40,000,000 during the past five years, making him the 11th most highly paid utility executive in the country according to the May 2007 Forbes Magazine.

My concern has always been that without adequate money in the decommissioning fund, Vermonters will get stuck footing the bill.  

The NRC claims,

"that if there is a shortfall in the VY decommissioning fund, Entergy is on the hook,"

"If we determine that the growth of the funds would be insufficient to properly decommission the plant when the time comes, we can require the company to address that," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

May I remind you that NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan is the same NRC spokesperson who initially told Vermonters that the cooling tower collapse, was only a slight deformity in the wood, that is until a nuclear whistleblower slipped out the infamous pictures that told Vermonters the whole story.

And ratepayers in other states like Connecticut and Massachusetts have been forced to pay the bill left behind when Connecticut Yankee and Massachusetts Yankee Rowe were decommissioned and dismantled.  The NRC did not make the utilities clean up their own mess.  In Connecticut, for example, the ratepayers fought a court suit to try to force payment by the utility, and they still got stuck for the $500 Million shortage.

What does it mean to decommission Vermont Yankee?

When Vermont Yankee was first built, Vermonters were led to believe that it shut down in 2012, the plant would be completely dismantled and Vermont would be left with what is called a green field area -- totally clean and ready for other public use.

Two critical issues have changed.  First there is no federal repository for the nuclear fuel.  So it will continue to sit there as it remains in Maine - from Maine Yankee, Massachusetts -- from Yankee Rowe, and Connecticut --- from Connecticut Yankee.  Second, while those sites were completely dismantled, that may not be possible with Vermont Yankee because unless the plant is shut down relatively quickly, there will be no place to ship the rest of the highly radioactive waste, like the reactor head and other contaminated materials.

Thus even if Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) is shut down in 2012, and even if there were enough money in the fund to entirely dismantle the plant and ship it elsewhere, there may be no place available to ship the carcass (as Senate President Pro-Tem Peter Shumlin rightfully calls it).  

More disturbingly, even if there is a place to ship ENVY's dismantled carcass, the NRC which has the federal authority to trump any Vermont Law, has decided on its own that nuclear power plants can be mothballed for as long as 60 years after shutdown.  NRC calls this process SAFESTOR.  

More about SAFESTOR and other decommissioning issues in the next installment.