VERNON – News of groundwater problems at Vermont Yankee is further evidence that the use of the nuclear plant’s decommissioning trust fund must be closely scrutinized, House Speaker Shap Smith said Tuesday.
Smith, D-Morristown, said he is “deeply concerned” that plant owner Entergy Corp. is not prioritizing use of the trust fund to ensure that the Vernon site will be properly cleaned up. Smith cited a recent VTDigger.org report showing that Entergy is contending with large amounts of water in the plant’s turbine building, and some of that water is being temporarily stored in plastic swimming pools.
“This outrageous scenario demonstrates the importance of having adequate resources on hand to fund cleanup efforts,” Smith said in a prepared statement.
In response, Entergy Vermont Yankee spokesman Marty Cohn reiterated that the company has a “comprehensive water management plan” and that there has been “no health or safety impact to the public from this issue.”
As for the trust fund, Cohn said that “safe and efficient use of decommissioning funds allows Entergy to meet our commitment for full decommissioning of the facility at the earliest possible date.”
Since Vermont Yankee’s December 2014 shutdown, plant administrators and federal regulators say there has been a greater-than-expected amount of groundwater seeping into the bottom of the turbine building. The problem initially surfaced publicly in a January inspection report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Groundwater intrusion averages a few hundreds gallons each day, though there have been “occasional spikes,” an NRC spokesman has said. The water, which officials said is contaminated with low levels of radioactivity, totaled about 90,000 gallons as of earlier this month.
Entergy is developing plans to get rid of radioactive water. In the meantime, Cohn said, “a temporary measure until it can be shipped offsite for proper treatment and disposal was to store intrusion water in swimming pools, in tandem with industrial water bladders and temporary storage tanks used to contain water.”
The swimming pools were featured in photos from inside the plant sent last week to VTDigger, raising questions about that storage method. But NRC officials and Entergy administrators said the pools were a safe, approved way to hold the water for a short period of time.
Smith isn’t convinced, calling the pool report “shocking” and an indicator that Vermont Yankee is “experiencing groundwater seepage at an alarming rate that could require an extensive, ongoing cleanup effort.”
The House Speaker tied the groundwater issue to the contentious battle over the plant’s decommissioning trust fund. While the NRC has signed off on the plant’s latest trust fund reports, Vermont officials have taken legal and administrative actions to try and limit Entergy’s uses of the fund.
The NRC has ultimate jurisdiction over the plant’s trust fund, but Smith and other state officials worry that there won’t be enough cash to eventually clean up the plant. Decommissioning is expected to cost $1.24 billion, and the trust fund at the end of December stood at $595.4 million, with Entergy having spent $58 million from the fund during 2015.
“We cannot afford for Entergy to shortchange a fund whose sole purpose is to ensure a safe and timely decommissioning process,” Smith said. “I call on Entergy to act in good faith and focus their efforts on the critical work of cleaning up the Vernon site.”
