Radioactive waste barrels

New rules under consideration by a Texas commission could hamper the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant in the near future, according to experts and activists who oppose the change.

They say the proposal, which would allow a Texas landfill to accept additional waste from out-of-state entities, including nuclear power companies like Entergy Corp., could give away space that is allotted for anticipated radioactive material from Vermont Yankee.

Texas formed a compact with Vermont in 1998 to establish a permanent repository for low-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants and medical and research facilities in Vermont and Texas. The compact was set up for the two states’ exclusive use. (Maine was originally a part of the agreement but dropped out). In 2009, Waste Control Specialists received a license to open a radioactive waste landfill in West Texas for the compact that is now under construction.

Two weeks ago, members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, including two Douglas administration officials representing Vermont, gave preliminary approval to procedures that would allow the commission to accept applications for permits from entities in other states to dump waste at the site.

Critics say the new rules could transform the landfill into a national repository for low-level nuclear waste and that it could fill up quickly because demand for landfill space is high. Thirty-six states are not currently part of a radioactive waste disposal compact. If the Texas Commission approves the proposed procedures after a 30-day public comment period that ends Dec. 26, the West Texas facility would be the only site of its type licensed to accept waste from anywhere in the country, according to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an anti-nuclear group based in Maryland.

Members of the Texas Commission who support the proposals, including Uldis Vanags, the state nuclear engineer for the Vermont Department of Public Service, say they are looking out for Vermont’s interests and that opening the site to “imported” waste from “noncompact” entities will help to pay for the construction of the high-tech facility, which is slated to open at the end of 2011. Otherwise, they say, waste disposal costs for the two compact members, Texas and Vermont, would be prohibitively expensive.

Vanags said the new rule won’t have an impact on decommissioning Vermont Yankee.

Vanags, the state nuclear engineer, and Steven Wark, director of consumer affairs and public information for the Vermont Department of Public Service — both voted on Nov. 13 to support the rules, which will enable other states to apply for access to the landfill. Vanags and Wark, the only two Vermont representatives on the commission, were among the five commissioners who approved the change; two Texas members dissented.

Vanags said the new rule won’t have an impact on decommissioning Vermont Yankee.

“We will not give up our capacity that we need to fulfill the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee,” Vanags said. “The only way (we) would consider importation is if there is surplus capacity.”

Several Texas Compact commissioners who cast dissenting votes on the rule have questioned whether “imports” will use up capacity at the facility before Vermont has a chance to move radioactive materials from the decommissioned Vermont Yankee plant to Texas.

The proposed rules, which were promulgated in the Texas Register on Nov. 26, are now subject to a 30-day public comment period, which ends Dec. 27.

The commission is expected to make a final decision soon after the public comment period – before the new Vermont governor, Peter Shumlin, is installed and Vermont lawmakers convene for the 2011 legislative session.

Senate president Peter Shumlin hugs a woman after the vote to block relicensure of Vermont Yankee

Shumlin, a Democrat, and leaders of his party in the Statehouse, have been critical of Entergy Corp.’s handling of maintenance problems at the nuclear power plant in Vernon, including a transformer fire, the collapse of a cooling tower and radioactive leaks, none of which affected public safety, according to the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Last year, Gov.-elect Shumlin led the charge, as president pro tem of the Vermont Senate, to nix Entergy’s relicensure effort.

Storage in Vermont, or Texas?

Vermont Yankee is licensed to operate until March 2012. Unless the license is extended, which would appear politically untenable given the Vermont Senate’s decision last year to block Entergy’s bid to relicense the 38-year-old plant for 20 years, the plant will be shut down next year, preparing the way for decommissioning.

At that point, where and how the radioactive waste is stored will become a crucial issue.

Entergy Corp. has proposed keeping the materials on the Vernon site in a system called SAFSTOR for a period of six decades.

Another alternative would be a more accelerated decommissioning process, in which the waste would be sent to the West Texas landfill overseen by the commission and operated by a Dallas-based private company, Waste Control Specialists, according to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who is a legislative consultant via Fairewinds Associates, Inc., to the Vermont Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee.

The compact legally entitles Vermont under a 15-year license to 20 percent, or 462,000 cubic feet, of the 2.3 million cubic feet at the nuclear waste dump. Under the proposal, however, space could be at a premium at the waste facility if “noncompact” entities are allowed to apply for permits to deposit radioactive materials at the site in Andrews County, Texas, according to Bob Gregory, a member of the commission from Texas.

Requests for waste “importation” would be vetted on a case-by-case basis, according to the published rules.

Waste Control Specialists facility in Texas for radioactive canisters, WCS image

In 2009, the Compact Commission determined that Vermont and Texas together need a total of 6 million cubic square feet of capacity for the amount of radioactive waste generated by both states.

Gregory, one of the dissenting members, said the commission doesn’t have the staff capacity or financial resources to evaluate applications. (The annual budget of $125,000 covers travel and meeting expenses.) In addition, the subjective nature of the proposed permitting process, he said, could leave the commission vulnerable to lawsuits.

He doesn’t know how the commission will defend itself from legal challenges if the commission says no to one entity and yes to another.

“Waste control specialists, Entergy, Santa Claus — anyone can sue us for not allowing radioactive waste to come in,” Gregory said. “What are we going to say if we can’t defend ourselves?”

Entergy, according to a Texas official, would have much to gain if the new landfill rules go through. The Louisiana-based corporation needs a place to put the waste from its fleet of 10 plants around the country. “Opening the Texas facility would allow them to take it from those other plants,” Gregory said.

A giveaway?

Gundersen, a consultant for the Legislature, suggested that the Douglas administration supports Entergy’s proposal to put Vermont Yankee in SAFSTOR for 60 years, while the company waits for the decommissioning fund to grow enough to cover the cost of moving the material offsite.

David Coriell, the spokesman for Douglas, wrote in an e-mail that the governor “has said, on many occasions, he believes 60 years is too long.”

SAFSTOR, in Gundersen’s view, is not necessary. He said Vermont Yankee could be decommissioned in 10 years, but that scenario is contingent on access to landfill capacity in Texas. There is just enough cubic square footage on the site to accommodate the radioactive waste from the plant.

“There’s a limited amount of land (for radioactive waste disposal) in Texas, and the state is giving away Vermont’s land to 35 other states, which will make it impossible to decommission Vermont Yankee,” Gundersen said.

“There’s a limited amount of land (for radioactive waste disposal) in Texas, and the state is giving away Vermont’s land to 35 other states, which will make it impossible to decommission Vermont Yankee,” Gundersen said.

In June 2009, Vanags testified to the Vermont Public Service Board that decommissioning Vermont Yankee would cost less than the $568 million spent on Maine Yankee, even though projections that include the SAFSTOR option have been higher. Vermont Public Radio reported in 2007 that decommissioning Vermont Yankee could cost as much as $1.7 billion. In September of this year, the decommissioning fund was at about $443 million. Entergy is responsible for making sure there is adequate money available for decommissioning.

Gundersen said Vanags’ testimony was based on the assumption that the radioactive waste would be shipped to Texas.

“If Vanags’ testimony under oath is correct, we could complete decommissioning by 2020, (but) he’s giving away the land to which you need to ship it,” Gundersen said. “If you give away the land, you force SAFSTOR to occur. With no place to send it, we’re sort of constipated.”

Vanags, who voted to publish the rules that will allow other states to apply for access to the landfill, said: “There absolutely will be enough space.”

The dry cask storage units outside of the Vermont Yankee plant. Photo by Laura Frohn, News21.org

“We will not give up our capacity that we need to fulfill the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee,” he said.

In audio testimony, Vanags and Wark voted against amendments to the proposed rules that would have given Compact members first dibs to the landfill and also that would have delayed action and allowed the Texas and Vermont legislatures an opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

“We’re actually under the closing phases of the Douglas administration,” Gundersen said. “We’re getting to the point where we, the state of Vermont’s administrative agencies, are actually assisting Entergy, as opposed to looking out for the best interests of the state.”

Gregory, a Texas commission member who opposed the adoption of the new rules, said he doesn’t understand why the rule has to be adopted by early January. He suspects the timing has something to do with a changing of the political guard in the Vermont governor’s office.

“What on Earth is the rush?” Gregory said. “It’s rushing to beat a date for when the new governor comes to town. If the commissioners change, then the vote would be 4-4; now it’s 6-2.”

The terms for the commissioners from Vermont – Vanags, Wark and their alternate Sarah Hoffman – expire Feb. 28, 2011. Gov.-elect Shumlin, in the interim, will likely appoint a new commissioner for the Department of Public Service, who could in turn name new “exempt” employees, or appointed officials, who would take the place of the three who are now on the commission.

Tom Smith, of Public Citizen, an advocacy group that opposes the landfill, said the commission wants to get the rule rammed through before the Texas and Vermont legislatures have a chance to take action to block it.

“They’re afraid the new governor of Vermont might appoint commissioners that might stand up for the state, as opposed to going along with what the nuclear industry wants,” Smith said.

John C. White, vice chair of the commission and a radiation safety officer for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, says nothing of the sort is going on.

“We’ve been talking about this for 16 months,” White said of the rule. “We can amend the rule if necessary … I don’t see your new governor as part of this.”

The rationale for taking all comers

The facility, which is designed to take radioactive materials such as contaminated clothing, glass, metal, reactor components and sludge, needs a certain amount of waste to cover the fixed costs associated with construction.

White, speaking as commission vice chair, said allowing material from other states into the landfill would lower the operating costs for the compact members tenfold.

Vanags said opening up the site to more entities will keep disposal fees at the site reasonable for Texas and Vermont. The commission hasn’t set fees for “imports,” but so far it hasn’t imposed up-front contributions from noncompact waste generators. Vermont will pay $25 million to support construction of the site this year.

“The way to reduce cost per cubic foot is to increase your capacity,” Vanags said in contending the only way the commission would consider “imports” would be if there is surplus capacity.

Vanags said before the commission would accept applications, it would conduct an updated study to determine how much capacity would be needed by the two compact states.

“We recognize as a commission we have to have a process (for dealing with requests),” Vanags said. “We’re not opposed to importation. We’re open to it, but as long as our capacity is protected. The facility in the future may be expanded, and they may amend their license. In future, there may be surplus capacity.”

White supports expanding the site to accommodate more waste. The limitations now placed on the landfill are under the terms of the current license issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, White said. The site itself, he believes, could be expanded.

In the meantime, demand is high, White said. Medical waste vendors are already coming in to the state of Texas in anticipation of the facility opening a year from now, he said. Hospitals are having a difficult time disposing of waste used in research and in the treatment of cancer, he said.

“So many people say you’re opening the door,” White said. “The door is already open. Waste is already coming in to Texas, and we don’t have control over where the waste is stored. We don’t have procedures to say you can’t bring it in.”

CLARIFICATION: The following sentence was added to the story, 11:20 a.m. Dec. 2, 2010: David Coriell, the spokesman for Douglas, wrote in an e-mail that the governor “has said, on many occasions, he believes 60 years is too long.”

VTDigger

William Irwin

As tritium levels spike, so does the furor over contamination from Vermont Yankee.

On Feb. 6, tritium concentrations hit an all-new high in groundwater monitoring wells at the Vernon nuclear power plant. And since then, federal, state and officials from Entergy, the plant’s owner, have maintained that “elevated levels” of the radioactive isotope have not been found in the Connecticut River.

On Feb. 9, Wendy Davis, the state’s health commissioner, told David Gram of the Associated Press that it’s logical to assume tritiated water is leaching into the Connecticut River based on the amount of contamination and the flow of water from the Yankee site, which is located on the river bank.

The next day, William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Vermont Department of Health, reiterated in an e-mail that tritium has not been found at elevated levels in the river.

He wrote that samples of Connecticut River water tested in his laboratory have detected the presence of tritium in concentrations no higher than 500 picocuries per liter since the leak was discovered on Jan. 7. Irwin wrote that over the course of 40 years of monitoring, tritium readings of river water have never exceed 500 picocuries per liter, the lowest level at which it can be easily measured. Tritium exists in nature at about 10 picocuries per liter.

However, Irwin also cautioned lawmakers last week, “The fact that we are able to see very low concentrations in our laboratory, we cannot rule out that there is tritium in the Connecticut River. With the volume of the river, with the flow rate of the river, my suspicion is that it is there, we just cannot measure it.”

One of the monitoring wells on the Vermont Yankee site tested for a tritium contamination level of 2.5 million picocuries per liter on Monday. The federally accepted level is 20,000 picocuries per liter. Uldis Vanags, the nuclear engineer for the Department of Public Service, said the new reading is so close to the reactor water concentration level of tritium “that it’s probably from that.” No other reactor-related chemicals, such as the more highly radioactive Cobalt 60 and Strontium 90, have been identified by gamma spectroscopy, according to Rob Williams at Yankee.

“We do know,” Irwin said last week, “that tritium as a radioactive material is relatively low in its radio-toxicity, but clearly this is just a marker of other things that are there and other things that could affect the public and the environment.”

Irwin told lawmakers on Feb. 5 that Entergy hadn’t said yet that they would test the Connecticut River daily (tests have been run weekly), “but they said it was a good idea.” As of Monday, Vanags said Entergy officials had begun testing the river every day.

Irwin is concerned about nearby residents ingesting tritium from drinking water wells.”

The Health Department, meanwhile, monitors the river once a week, and it has stepped up testing of drinking water wells near the plant. Two of the wells being monitored are on farms as far as a mile away from the plant. The costs incurred by the department for additional testing will be paid for by Entergy, according to Irwin.

As the state Health Department’s radiological health chief, Irwin is concerned about nearby residents ingesting tritium from drinking water wells. “That’s actually a possibility here,” Irwin said. “The groundwater monitoring is not consumable water, but we don’t want the next sample to be in drinking water.”

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said even if high levels of tritiated groundwater from Yankee leached into the river, it would still not affect public health because the dilution of the tritium in a large, swift-moving body of water such as the Connecticut River would be so great that it would be impossible to see the presence of tritium above 300 to 500 picocuries per liter.

“This is groundwater that is contained within the site at this point,” Sheehan said. “Members of the public aren’t exposed to this. Members of the plant aren’t exposed to this because this is not water that is being used for drinking water purposes. Therefore it doesn’t pose a threat to public health and safety. That doesn’t diminish the fact that we believe they need to do everything in their power to identify the source of the leakage, halt it and then come up with a plan to address any existing contamination.”

Sheehan said tritium is a “weak beta emitter” that behaves like water and that to “see any health effects you would have to ingest large quantities of it.”

“If you drank 2 quarts of water per day at that level (the federal limit of 20,000 pCi/L) you’d have to drink that amount for a year, and at the end of that you would see a dose of about 4 millirems of radiation exposure,” Sheehan said. “The average American gets about 360 millirems of radioation exposure from natural and manmade sources. So you’re talking about very low levels.” A millirem is a unit used to measure the effect of radiation on the human body.

The assertion that tritium isn’t harmful to public health is cold comfort to Vermont and New Hampshire officials.

Vermont Gov. James Douglas has called for a time out on relicensing the 38-year-old nuclear power plant in Vernon for an additional 20 years until issues are resolved around the tritium leak, the investigation into Entergy’s misstatements about underground piping, decommissioning plans for the plant and a purchase power agreement with Entergy.

All five gubernatorial candidates for the Democratic ticket have called for the shutdown of Vermont Yankee. The House Energy and Natural Resources Committee has held extensive hearings over the last several weeks to ascertain the impact of tritium contamination at the plant on public health.

This week, New Hampshire officials have also stepped up calls for action. On Monday, Paul Hodes, a Democratic Congressman from New Hampshire running for the U.S. Senate, visited the Yankee site and insisted that his state be given more oversight of the plant. Last night, New Hampshire’s Democratic Gov. John Lynch also called for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation into the tritium leak at Vermont Yankee and a probe into Entergy’s misstatements in testimony to the Vermont Public Service Board regarding the existence of underground piping at the plant.

Entergy Nuclear maintained Yankee did not have underground pipes until January when the tritium leak was discovered.

The scope of the tritium contamination at Vermont Yankee is not yet clearly defined, but Irwin wrote in an e-mail last night that the contaminated wells “create a corridor from the turbine building to the river that is about 200 feet wide by 400 feet long (somewhat larger than a 160’x360’ football field), and may be as deep as 10 feet.

Irwin says the tritium spike of 2.5 million picocuries per liter in a new monitoring well, GZ-10, on Monday is an indication that the source must be a system that operates with a high concentration of the radioactive material – such as the condensate storage tank or the Advanced Off-Gas System. He said it’s also possible tritium has been building up in soil near the well for a long time. On Friday, GZ-7, located near the Advanced Off-Gas Building and the Reactor and Turbine Buildings, registered a concentration of 834,000 picocuries per liter. Today, it hit 937,000 ppl.

“Many other systems and components are still being inspected, including the AOG tunnel, the AOG pit sump and the rad waste trench,” Williams wrote in an e-mail over the weekend.

In August 2009, the Legislature’s nuclear consultant Arnie Gundersen questioned Entergy’s assertion that there were no underground pipes at Vermont Yankee. He pointed to the Advanced Off-Gas System as one of the likely systems that included underground pipes at the plant.

Vanags would not comment on whether the pipes that are suspected to be the source of the leak are part of Advanced Off-Gas System Gundersen identified last summer, citing the ongoing investigation into Entergy’s testimony on the subject.

In any case, Irwin says the area for potential tritium contamination at the plant is “a large area with a lot of piping that needs to be inspected, and this will take some time.”

Irwin told the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee that there is a remote possibility the leak might never be found.”

How much time is anyone’s guess. Vanags, testifying as the nuclear engineer for the Department of Public Service, told lawmakers last week that it could take as long as six months to find the leak. Irwin told the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee that there is a remote possibility the leak might never be found.

In an interview, Vanags said identifying the leak is crucial. “Until they identify where it’s coming from, it’s hard to say what mitigation will take place,” He said Entergy is excavating in the identified area
this week, and today Yankee officials dug four feet around the Advanced Off-Gas drain line. By Saturday, crews are expected to have excavated a total depth of 10 to 15 feet.

“If they identify the leak, then they have to come up with a plan for how to mitigate it,” Vanags said. “It has to be done very carefully because it’s an operating plant.”

The Conservation Law Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy environmental group, has asked the Public Service Board to require Entergy to show why it’s necessary to run the plant until the leak is found. Foundation attorney Sandra Levine says operating a leaking plant defies common sense.

“It’s clear that the radiation is coming from the activity at the plant, so why isn’t the plant shutting down while those leaks are repaired?” Levine asks.

Irwin said that if shutting down the plant would stop the leakage, the Health Department would make that recommendation, but he said “the system needs to be pressurized to find the leak, and operating the reactor is the best way to do that.”

“If you shut down the reactor, you may not be able to find the leak,” Irwin said.

Levine argues, however that the plant could be pressurized with something other than radioactive material, which would likely require shutting down the plant.

“It’s clear that the radiation is coming from the activity at the plant, so why isn’t the plant shutting down while those leaks are repaired?” Levine asks. “It seems pure common sense to me that you don’t continue to operate a plant that’s leaking.”

So how does the contamination at Vermont Yankee stack up to the two dozen or so tritium leaks that have been found at nuclear power plants around the country? Last week, in testimony to the Vermont House Natural Resources Committee, Irwin told lawmakers this was one of the nation’s seven worst spills.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan confirmed that assertion on Friday. Tritium levels spiked to 14.4 million picocuries per liter at the Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey last year, Sheehan said. At Indian Point Energy Center in New York, the tritium contamination level was 300,000 picocuries per liter, and the spill included other radioactive isotopes.

Sheehan said tritium contamination levels reached 5 million picocuries per liter at Oyster Creek Generating Station last year; about 8 million at Dresden Generating Plant in 2004; and about 15 million at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey in 2002.

Correction: Health Department official William Irwin confirmed on Friday that tritium occurs naturally in the environment at about 10 picocuries per liter, not 500 picocuries per liter as reported, and stated by Neil Sheehan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Irwin’s equipment cannot detect tritium easily at such low levels. The federal standard for exposure is 20,000 picocuries per liter; the limit in California is set at 500 picocuries per liter. We regret the error.

VTDigger

Vermont Yankee graffitti. Photo by Josh Larkin

Arnie Gundersen is a nuclear engineer who serves on the Vermont Yankee Public Oversight Panel. He is also the chief engineer for the paralegal services and expert witness research firm Fairewinds Associates of Burlington.

Entergy has long maintained there are no underground pipes at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. Gundersen questioned Entergy’s assertions and insisted there had to be pipes under the facility. In early January, water containing the radioactive isotope tritium was found in a test well and in groundwater near the plant. Underground piping is suspected to be the source of the leak.

Gundersen gave a powerpoint presentation to the Senate Natural Resources Committee last week. What follows is the transcript of an interview with Anne Galloway, editor of Vtdigger.org., conducted after that presentation.

Q. Could you talk about how you came to the conclusion that there is underground piping at Vermont Yankee?

Arnie Gundersen: What (Entergy) told us (the Vermont Yankee Public Oversight Panel) was that they had no underground pipe and that the only underground pipe that they had was a drain in the chemistry lab that had been plugged years ago. It hadn’t been excavated, but they knew there was some radioactivity under the plant from this little chemistry drain. That was what we all believed even as late as June. Uldis (Vanags, the state nuclear engineer for the Vermont Department of Public Service) testified under oath that one of the reasons this plant would be easy to decommission is because there’s no contamination.

Q. Where are the master plans of the facility? Aren’t there blueprints of the plant?

AG: There are blueprints of the facility somewhere.

Q: Who has the blueprints?

AG: I’m sure now Entergy does. This week, Entergy told us when they went back, they found seven pipes in the last three weeks that they didn’t know were there, some of which have been there for 33 years.

Q: How many are there total?

AG: I don’t know exactly, but there are around 40 that are radioactive. Now that’s just what they call buried pipe. They try to split hairs here, and they try to differentiate between “buried,” which is in direct contact with either concrete or dirt, and what they call “underground,” which can be in a concrete structure where the pipe is in it, but not in direct contact with the dirt.

So there are other “underground” pipes that are not in that count of 40 “buried” pipe in direct contact with dirt or concrete.

Q: How many “underground” pipes are there?

AG: We don’t know; we’re trying to figure that out.

Q: So some of them are in concrete spaces, they’re in little rooms underneath the facility?

AG: Right, like a long, long basement, sort of, but they have a roof on them, and they are underground. There’s dirt above them and around all sides.

So anyway, until June we all thought there weren’t any. I got appointed to the role of Joint Fiscal Committee oversight. I asked for a report, and (officials at Vermont Yankee) refused to send it to me electronically, but they sent me a hard copy that was 120 pages. I started to read it, and I started hearing about these underground storm drains that have radioactivity in them. That piqued my interest, and I did a little more research, and I thought there’s got to be an off-gas system.

(Gundersen explained, noncondensable gases created in a boiling water nuclear reactor wind up in the condenser. If noncondensable gases stayed in the condenser, the plant would have to be shut down. The condenser has to be kept in a vacuum, so the off-gas system sucks the air off to maintain the vacuum. In addition to sucking the air out, the off-gas system also sucks the radioactivity out and sends it up that big stack. That’s why boiling water reactors have a big stack.)

Q: So what you’re saying is, you thought there might be an off-gas piping system underground?

AG: Originally, we had been led to believe that all those pipes were above ground. The more I studied, the more I thought, that can’t be. They have to be underground. That’s when I started asking the department (about it).

At the end of July, I wrote to the department, and I said, hey, (and I wasn’t saying we were lied to) there’s a misunderstanding here. I highlighted two things, the off-gas systems and the storm drains.

Then on Aug. 13, (David) McElwee (Vermont Yankee’s chief engineer), got back to me, and he said, no, the off-gas system does not have any water in it that could get into the ground, and the issue is closed.

Act 1 of my slide show ends in June when everybody was singing by the same sheet of music, and everybody believed, or was led to believe, there were no underground pipes. Act II (starts in) July when I discovered it, and I bugged the department through August, and I bugged the department in September, and I bugged the department in October. And they just forwarded my e-mails to Entergy, and Entergy said there is no problem, and they never became curious.

Q: Why wasn’t the Department of Public Service involved in finding out what was going on?

AG: That’s a good question. I don’t know. They have never been involved, though. If you go back to 2003, I testified that the off-site dose (radioactive emissions as a result of the “uprate,” a 20 percent increase in power production at the plant) was going to go up. Entergy said no, it’s not. The Department of Public Service blew me off. I testified the towers were weak. Entergy said they’re not, the department said they’re not; they blew me off. (One of the cooling towers collapsed in 2007.)

The decommissioning white paper Maggie Gundersen (his wife and founder of Fairewinds Associates) and I put together? We used materials that came from the department that they just didn’t analyze. (In 2008, the Gundersens estimated it would cost nearly $1 billion to decommission the plant and that Entergy’s decommissioning fund, which is supposed to cover the cost, is valued at under $400 million.)

The department under O’Brien has always sided with Entergy and has never, ever taken the technical recommendations I did. And like, here’s Maggie’s white paper. I mean, what could be more definitive than their own numbers (Entergy and DPS)? And yet unless pushed, (the department) will believe Entergy. And of course when Peter Bradford (a former NRC Commissioner) and I got appointed back in July of 2008, the governor and O’Brien went after us as lunatic anti-nukes.

It’s been the department’s reaction to always support Entergy, and they would have continued to support Entergy were it not for this leak. Had the leak not occurred, they might have gotten away with it.

I gave a courtesy copy of the report on the existence of underground piping “you’re not telling us about” to Entergy and to the department at the same time I sent it to the Joint Fiscal Office (in October). Two days later, Rob Williams (spokesman for Vermont Yankee) attacks the report, as opposed to doing some serious searching to find out whether it was right or wrong.

He sent a press release out on Oct. 22 saying he’d read the consultant’s report and he didn’t like the tone of it. We were too negative, he said, and the issues cited as serious are really just routine.

Well, I’m sorry, lying and not telling us about underground pipe is not routine, it’s serious. I talked to Peter Shumlin (president pro-tem of the Vermont Senat), and he agreed he was going to put it on the agenda for January when the Legislature came back. And of course they came back and within three days there was a leak.

Q: Where do you think the leak is?

AG: I’m pretty sure it’s in the off-gas system. We should know in the next day or two, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the system that I said was underground and radioactive and that the department blew me off on.

Q: What leads you to that conclusion?

AG: The department is saying that I wasn’t specific enough. I said off-gas, and I guess I didn’t point to the specific line. The ground-penetrating radar picked up a problem in the off-gas line, and that’s what they’re digging at in the last couple of days. There may be others, but certainly it looks like ground-penetrating radar is leading them to the off-gas system.

Q: So not only was your report ignored, but Entergy attacked the report. Why do you think the corporation continues to refuse to work with the administration and the legislative leadership on figuring out what was going on and admitting that they screwed up?

AG: I don’t think they can admit they screwed up because of the potential criminal probe going on. It’s not as if they can just throw money at this problem. They did throw money at problems in the past. In 2003, when I was a witness on the stand, they tried to impeach me with information I hadn’t seen. And I caught them. That led to the $50,000 fine against Entergy, and the funds were given to the New England Coalition (a Brattleboro-based non-profit group opposing Vermont Yankee’s relicensing).

I was working for the coalition all summer to do a document search. Well, they only gave us a little bit of documents. Then on the stand, I was testifying and they tried to impeach me. It turns out they had 200,000 documents they hadn’t given the coalition. So what happened then was, the coalition asked for another for six months so I could review it. I was a schoolteacher, and at this point it was October, and I couldn’t provide 100 percent reading of this stuff, and the department said naw, they can do it in six weeks. I had six weeks to read 200,000 pages.

The department sided with Entergy again. The $50,000 fine was nothing compared to what I might have found in the 200,000 pages.

Right after that, they tried to build a temporary building they didn’t tell anybody about. They were pretending it popped up like a mushroom. The coalition discovered it, and I did all the research on it, and they provided us the material two days before the hearing. I testified on it.

This didn’t just pop up; they were planning to do this for a year, and they never told the department.

They got fined another $82,000 for that. But again, the coalition said we have limited resources, we just discovered you guys have been lied to and it resulted in this $82,000 fine, but we need more time so our expert can look into the lies about the building. Well, the department’s position was like Entergy’s. This was O’Brien; he said they had a choice – they didn’t have to look at this building. And the Public Service Board said you alerted us to this building — but we’re not going to extend the proceedings.

The department has always gone out of its way to give Entergy everything it needs to move the ball down the field. Maggie and I, from a technical standpoint, have been the only two forcing the department to represent the people. It is the Department of Public Service. There’s a “P” in the middle of it, you know. And it hasn’t happened. I don’t blame the worker bees, this starts up at Douglas and O’Brien, and their agenda is clear — they want to get this relicensed.

Q: Even now?

AG: They think all of these issues are just speed bumps on the road to relicensing.

Q. What do you think of Douglas’ call for a time out on the Legislature’s decision on whether to relicense Vermont Yankee?

AG: I don’t think it was coincidence that I’m testifying about how the department is in cahoots with Entergy, and Douglas steals the limelight. (Douglas’ press conference occurred in the middle of Gundersen’s presentation to lawmakers last Wednesday.)

VTDigger