"Gift" is the German word for poison. That bit of trivia sprang to mind when I came across a piece in the, "oh by the way" section of today's Free Press (corner pocket, 3c) informing us that, just in time for Christmas, "a small amount" of tritium has been found in the Connecticut river.
The nuclear plant says it learned Tuesday that a small amount of tritium was found in a sample taken near the plant on Nov. 3. The amount was significantly below the federal drinking water limit, and samples taken Nov. 7 and 10 showed no signs of tritium.
Absent from this statement is whether or not those benign samples taken November 7 and 10 were the only other samples taken since that date.
As the mandated closing approaches in March, there is a sense of desperation to VY's PR efforts. Like an aging spinster she wraps her boney frame in economic illusion and insists you'll miss her when she's gone.
It was great to hear Peter Shumlin taking the Entergy issue right to Brian Dubie yesterday. As reported on VPR, Shumlin launched a powerful attack on Dubie's pro-Entergy partisanship:
Dubie weakly claimed that he doesn't work for Entergy, although it would be hard for Dubie or Douglas to prove that. Meanwhile, Yankee isn't the only Entergy plant pumping tritium into the water. Down in Massachusetts, the PatriotLedger reports that Entergy's Pilgrim plant is doing the same thing:
Shut out during the shut down, as once again Entergy tries to control media access to a select few.
When independent documentary filmmaker and public television videographer Robbie Lepzer registered to film a public tour of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (VY), he expected it to be a rather standard process. After all, Entergy regularly admits the press and TV cameras for site tours. This tour, scheduled for Thursday April 29 is for members of the Public Service Board (PSB) and the media.
-------
Update #1
Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (together, "Entergy VY"),have determined to allow credentialed media, including Tuming Tide Productions, to take photographs of or film the areas to be visited during the site visit.
[See complete Downs, Rachlin, Martin response to the Public Service Board in last attached document.] Turning Tide Productions is Robbie Leppzer's film company.
-------
Leppzer's shut out during shut down by Entergy has resulted in a PSB demand for information from Entergy as to why a journalist is not being allowed to film when other TV media is filming and has been filming. [Emphasis added.]
MEMORANDUM
To: Parties in PSB Docket No. 7600
From: Susan M. Hudson, Clerk of the Board
Re: Turning Tide Productions' Request to Film Site Visit
Date: April 27, 2010
On April 27, 2010, Robbie Leppzer sent the attached e-mail to the Public Service Board ("Board") requesting that the Board take action to allow Mr. Leppzer to bring television cameras to the site visit in Docket 7600 scheduled for Thursday, April 29. The Board requests that Entergy submit a response to Mr. Leppzer's request by noon on April 28. In particular, the Board requests Entergy to address whether Entergy is permitting news organizations to have television cameras, as Mr. Leppzer indicates. If so, Entergy should explain why Mr. Leppzer is being treated differently from those news organizations. The Board also requests that Entergy explain what, if any, restrictions on cameras are
necessary to ensure that Entergy fulfills its security and safety obligations.
Other parties may also submit comments by the same deadline.
cc: Robbie Leppzer
Leppzer has more than 30-years of documentary film making [see Leppzer's resume below the fold]. In preparation for a documentary film on the relicensing of VY, he has been filming testimony presented to the Legislature and its committees since January when discussion of both the leak and Entergy's request to relicense the nuclear plant began in earnest. Given that Vermont is the only state in the country to have the legal right to decide if VY should receive its Certificate for Public Good (CPG), it makes sense to me that someone would want to create a documentary about this subject. I also expect that Entergy would try to thwart such an effort.
At the very time Entergy is claiming a new policy of openness to Vermont State officials, boards, commissions, the legislature and the media, it has denied Leppzer permission to film the tour even though he is filming for CCTV Channnel 17 out of Burlington, VT in addition to his own documentary work. Leppzer may, as Entergy's Smith informed him, may take the tour, but without any film equipment, a predicament that is challenging for a filmmaker.
Entergy's action has once again put them in the spotlight in a negative way. After being shut out of filming, Leppzer contacted State Representative Sarah Edwards from Brattleboro, who is a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel. Edwards wrote to Entergy requesting that they reconsider their decision and give Leppzer equal access. Smith still denied Leppzer access, so at that time, Leppzer sent the entire packet of email correspondence, herein reproduced below the fold, to the PSB.
The PSB has given Entergy until noon today to explain why they are preventing Leppzer from filming.
More below the fold, including the entire email correspondence between Leppzer and Entergy's Smith.
In a press release issued today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it
will conduct additional inspections at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, operated by Entergy Nuclear and located in Vernon, Vt. Through enhanced specialized inspections, the NRC will oversee Entergy's efforts to address groundwater contamination at the site and to review and assess the company's response to an NRC Demand for Information (DFI) issued in early March.
In January, Entergy notified the NRC that it had received positive sample results for tritium from a groundwater well at Vermont Yankee. The NRC has been closely monitoring Entergy's actions to identify, mitigate, characterize and remediate the source of the contamination. The NRC's Resident Inspectors and regional specialists continue to provide oversight of the company's actions through direct observations and independent assessments.
Both NRC and Entergy continue to maintain that the "tritium contamination does not pose any health or safety concern for members of the public or plant workers".
NRC has continued this stance in spite of the extensive release of thousands of gallons of tritiated water and research by reputable scientists who contend that NRC does not adequately address the health effects of tritium.
California and Colorado have set significantly more stringent tritium release standards of 400 pico curies per liter in California and 500 pico curies per liter in Colorado compared with the NRC standard of 30,000 pico curies per liter before even requiring reporting of tritium, and EPA requires a limit of 20,000 pico curies per liter for drinking water. See original document below:
It's barely a month ago, but the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United could have a bearing on tomorrow's vote on letting Vermont Yankee's operating license expire on time.
Or maybe I should say that considerations of Citizens Unitedshould have a tremendous bearing on the vote, and here's why. You probably know what the Supreme Court did in Citizens United, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they opened the floodgates to unlimited spending by corporations in political campaigns.
Corporations like Enexus, or Entergy, or whatever they're calling themselves to stay ahead of state scrutiny these days.
You probably get campaign solicitations from political parties every week. In fact, I just got one while I was writing this. If you're like me, whenever you get these calls you think about how important the cause is, what your budget happens to look like that week, and you decide how much you can afford to spend.
If you're Entergy, what's potentially at stake in November's election is whether they get to keep running their plant, so let's take a look at the numbers. On average, Vermont Yankee sells the electricity it generates at about a nickel a kwh, or $50 per Megawatt hour, so every hour their sales are about $31,500, and every day they're running it's about $756,000. In a year that puts their sales at about $276,000,000. Kind of a lot of money, huh?
Now, we have a state Senate (maybe) and five Democratic candidates for governor who are saying they should be required to shut down in 2012, which means shutting off the $276 million spigot. One might think it's worth a lot of money to them to stop that from happening. That's why they're buying all the full-page ads in the paper, running all the TV spots, flying their PR flack up from New Orleansto glad-hand the locals, and offering a sweetheart deal (what? Did you say bribe? I'm shocked!) if we let them keep running.
And their message? The same as Douglas's message: do nothing. They know that Douglas won't be around to carry their heavy water next year, but they can hope that Brian Dubie will follow in Douglas's footsteps, if only they can sit on the ball until November. That's why they are doing what they can to stall a legislative vote this year.
But remember Citizens United? That's the game changer in this fight. Say the Democratic candidate is Peter Shumlin, who has come out strong against relicensing. Or, for that matter, any other D, all of whom favor closing VY. And just say, just for the hell of it, that Dubie has come out in favor of relicensing. (He can't hide forever, right?)
Thanks to Citizens United, if the election in November is between a Democrat who favors shutting down VY and a Republican who favors keeping it open, how much is it worth it to Entergy to keep the plant running? Obviously not three quarters of a million a day, because that's their total sales, but definitely in the millions, right? Tens of millions? What does it cost to pay for a governor and sixteen senators?
If it's still an open question in November, we can expect to see possibly the most expensive election in Vermont history.
The vote's tomorrow, and the Senate should vote No and let VY close.
The tritium plume emanating from the allegedly nonexistent underground leaking pipes has now reached the Connecticut River according to the State of Vermont Department of Health (DOH) website. DOH http://healthvermont.gov/envir...
Lawrence Auclair, webmaster of evacuationplans.org has a number of links on his website to all the recent news regarding Vermont Yankee's aging managment issues: http://www.evacuationplans.org/
On Feb. 4, 2010, well number GZ-14, which is only 30 feet from the Connecticut River, was measured at 70,000 pCi/L of tritium. Yesterday that well registered 119,000 pCi/L tritium, which is six times the maximum level the EPA regulations allow for drinking water. Other states like California and Colorado limit the levels they allow to 400 pCi/L in California and 500 pCi/L in Colorado.
Late this afternoon Vermont Yankee's Rob Williams issued a press release that Vermont Yankee has a tritium release. Williams'press release said:
Our environmental monitoring department reports that, for the first time, a small amount of tritium has been identified in a sample taken from a monitoring well at the plant. Tritium is a form of hydrogen that occurs naturally and is also a byproduct of nuclear plant operation. It is also used in illuminated products such as exit signs. Based on the experience of other US nuclear plants, we have been specifically monitoring for tritium as part of an industry-wide monitoring program.
Note the photo is not from the VY site, but tritium is a serious radioactive isotope with a half-life of 12-years, meaning that half will be gone in 12 years and half in 12 more and half of that in 12 more years which means that the radiation will be around for 10-half-lives which means at least 120 years.
It has been a bad day for Entergy, but I guess that is the cost of doing business with an aging reactor.
250-1
55-1
