Attorney General Bill Sorrell announced on Wednesday that he will not prosecute Entergy Corp. for misleading statements made by employees about underground pipes at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Sorrell said, โWe lack the smoking gun evidence to prove to our satisfactionโ that the misstatements constituted perjury.
โPerjury is a tough crime to prove,โ Sorrell said.
Sorrellโs office issued an eight-page report on the criminal investigation that outlined the dozens of interviews and email searches conducted. Over the course of the investigation, which began in January of 2010, the attorney generalโs office reviewed 2 million pages of documents from Entergy, the Department of Public Service, and several consultants. The probe, Sorrell said, cost $100,000.
At issue was the existence of underground radioactive pipes at Vermont Yankee. Entergy officials in May of 2009 told the Vermont Public Service Board there were no underground pipes at the plant. In January 2010, Entergy announced that tritium was leaking from pipes located under the subsurface of the plant compound.
The misleading statements boiled down to the definition of what an underground pipe is. Entergy and consultants that advised the state defined underground pipes as โburied pipingโ or pipe that is in direct contact with soil. Entergy claimed that the pipes at Vermont Yankee, which were in concrete chases, did not qualify as underground piping.
โFor us to try to prove what was in the mind of the speaker when the speaker said no there are none (underground pipes carrying radioactive material), again is a tall order indeed,โ Sorrell said. โAbsent smoking gun evidence, weโre not going to make a charge.โ
Sorrell couldnโt establish that there was a conspiracy to cover up the existence of underground pipes at Vermont Yankee.
โI did release a report and reached the conclusion this wasnโt just a misunderstanding,โ Sorrell said.
Sorrell characterized statements made by Entergy officials at several Vermont Public Service Board hearings in 2009 as misleading.
