Editor’s note: This story was first published on the commonsnews.org.
BRATTLEBORO — Entergy issued a statement last week saying state officials had “absolutely no evidence” that Strontium-90 found in nine fish in the Connecticut River came from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
While scientists agree that the origin of the radiation cannot be pinpointed, David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project, called the absolute denial “galling,” in light of Entergy’s own reported emissions of the radionuclide to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“By its [Entergy’s] own admission, it [Vermont Yankee] is releasing strontium-90 into the environment” and therefore cannot rule itself out of the fish equation, Lochbaum said.
According to the company’s 2010 Radioactive Effluent Release Report for Vermont Yankee filed annually with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the plant released 31,800 picocuries of Sr-90 (at ground level not through the exhaust stack) in the first quarter.
The NRC requires all plant owners to file annual effluent release reports, said Lochbaum. The releases can go into the water, into the air, and shipped offsite as solid materials.
Lochbaum said that the Sr-90 released by Vermont Yankee in 2010 fell within federal limits.
But, he said, “For Entergy to omit this known release path and to only mention the monitoring wells is deceitful.”
“They are only telling part of the truth, and by doing so are telling a lie,” Lochbaum said. “Their statement on this matter is a shameless distortion of the facts. It would be unacceptable as an isolated case. Since it’s part of a long pattern of shameless distortions, it’s pathological — the company seems incapable of telling the truth.”
Strontium, in addition to the radioactive forms, occurs naturally in the environment as a non-radioactive element, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency’s fact sheet calls Strontium-90 a “bone seeker” because the isotope mimics calcium and can lodge in the bones and marrow.
Side effects of Strontium-90 exposure include leukemia.
Entergy spokesperson Larry Smith said in a written statement that “there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Vermont Yankee is the source for the Strontium-90.”
“We have 31 monitoring wells on site that are tested regularly. No groundwater sample from any well at Vermont Yankee has ever indicated the presence of Strontium-90, or any other isotope other than tritium,” Smith said in a statement.
Smith told The Commons last year that plant tests revealed Strontium-90 as well as Cobalt-60, and Cesium-137 in soils surrounding the January 2010 tritium leak. Smith added that Strontium-90, unlike tritium, does not move easily through the soil.
In an interview with Dave Gram of The Associated Press, Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight for the Maryland-based anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said that Entergy itself reported Strontium-90 releases “in each of the first four years” it owned Vermont Yankee.
Gunter also accused Entergy of “hiding behind” the theory that the Strontium-90 in the fish originated in 1950s and 1960s bomb testing fallout.
The Health Department has said that recent fish samples do not conclusively reveal the source of Strontium-90.
“The human-made radionuclides [like Sr-90 or cobalt-60] come from the fairly constant release of very low quantities from medical and industrial users of radioactive materials, and from infrequent releases such as above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s, and the nuclear reactor accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011,” said the health department.
Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project, agreed that the traces of radionuclide found in the fish may not originate with the nuclear plant.
“It’s nearly impossible to differentiate between strontium released from atomic bomb testing and that released from Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants,” said Lochbaum.
Lochbaum added that one way to distinguish “old” and “new” releases is to study “other radioactive byproducts that have different half-lives.”
Strontium-90 has a half-life of 30 years, he said. But looking at radioactive byproducts doesn’t work with fish that, like people, collect some radioisotopes while discharging others.
Lochbaum said a possible way to determine the source of the Sr-90 is to move away from a “snapshot” of one data collection and look at samples collected over many years.
“If the source is largely atomic bomb testing, the strontium levels would decline as the legacy material decayed. If the source were from nuclear power plants, the continuing releases of strontium might tend to [level], or even increase, the strontium levels in fish,” he said.
According to the Health Department, to date, it has “not measured other nuclear-power-plant-related radionuclides in fish or groundwater samples.”
In Lochbaum’s opinion, the health department’s results might not pinpoint Vermont Yankee as the Strontium-90’s source, but the results may not exonerate the plant, either.
“I find Entergy’s statement to be patently false, as has so often been found in the past,” Lochbaum said. “Entergy generates electricity, not truth. That’s sad and unacceptable.”
He described Entergy’s statement that there’s “no evidence” that Vermont Yankee leaked the radioactive isotope and cited its Strontium-90-free monitoring wells as proof.
Calls to the Vermont Department of Health, Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Environmental Protection Agency to obtain long-term environmental data on Strontium-90 were not returned by press time.
