In a 24-page brief to the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) April 30, 2010, Entergy and Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) claim that their information belongs to them and to the NRC. Vermont and its intervenors do not have the right to look at information requested by intervenors, the PSB and the Department of Public Service, according to ENVY & Entergy attorneys.
"Entergy VY takes the position that the investigation itself is preempted by the NRC's federal jurisdiction,"
wrote Downs Rachlin Martin Attorney John Marshall in his MOTION TO MODIFY THE PREHEARING CONFERENCE MEMORANDUM AND TO ENLARGE THE TIME FOR ENTERGY VY TO RESPOND TO PENDING DISCOVERY REQUESTS. See the entire document below the fold.
"Discovery is needed to address the issue of preemption," wrote Sandy Levine, CLF's senior counsel, who also rejected Marshall's claim that Yankee's employees were too busy with the outage to respond to the requests.
"A company as large and well-funded as Entergy should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time," she wrote. "To the extent it is not able to do both, it should not be allowed to operate a nuclear facility in the state of Vermont."
Nowhere does federal preemption exclude Entergy and ENVY's obligation to meet NRC General Design Criteria 60 that states:
Criterion 60--Control of releases of radioactive materials to the environment. The nuclear power unit design shall include means to control suitably the release of radioactive materials in gaseous and liquid effluents and to handle radioactive solid wastes produced during normal reactor operation, including anticipated operational occurrences. Sufficient holdup capacity shall be provided for retention of gaseous and liquid effluents containing radioactive materials, particularly where unfavorable site environmental conditions can be expected to impose unusual operational limitations upon the release of such effluents to the environment.
Non-existent buried underground pipes that have leaked tritium into the Connecticut River, are none of our business according to Entergy's attorneys.
Writing for CLF, Levine stated that Entergy's request "perpetuates the continuing efforts ... to hide important information ... They are refusing to provide factual information that is necessary for the board to determine the scope of its authority."
Personally, I find it curious that Entergy and ENVY, which have taken such efforts to separate themselves as entities in order to obfuscate Entergy's responsibility to fully fund ENVY's decommissioning fund, have the same attorney pushing their authority over any state intervention. You will note that Attorney John Marshall of the Burlington law firm DOWNS RACHLIN MARTIN PLLC is the attorney representing both Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee,LLC, and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. of Louisiana. How convenient.
See Attorney John Marshall's argument against Vermont's right to intervene on Page 18. Certainly it is the preliminary volley in a long anticipated wider attack on Vermont's authority over anything Entergy wishes or chooses to do.
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