This oped is by Deb Katz, the executive director of Citizens Awareness Network.
For the past few months we’ve heard endless reports that Vermont Yankee is leaking poisonous radioactive Tritium into our groundwater. We’ve learned that we’ve been lied to about the existence of underground pipes. The source(s) of the Tritium leak(s) have not been found, while the poisonous substance travels underground toward the Connecticut River. It’s now clear that what is leaking is coming from the reactor itself. We also learned through a whistleblower that Entergy had a leak in 2005–serious enough that workers had to wear protective gear to deal with it. Yet it never informed the state or supposedly the NRC.
And how did Entergy deal with it? Instead of shutting the nuke down, the company put some kind of seal in it to continue to operate.
On February 25, 2010 the Vermont Senate held a courageous and historic vote; by 26 to 4 they overwhelmingly voted to deny Entergy the ability to continue to operate after its license expires in 2012. This was a validation of democracy and that the will of the people can triumph over a multinational corporation. Hundreds and hundreds of Vermonters contacted their Senators and made it clear that it was unacceptable for this corporation and this nuke to continue to operate.
And Entergy’s response? It denies the importance of this historic vote and still wants the Vermont Legislature to ignore its years of systemic mismanagement, delayed maintenance and deception to give it another chance to operate in the state. The deal that Entergy offered on the eve of the vote was to supply Vermonters with 25 MW of power at 4 cents a KW hour for three years! As if this paltry token would somehow cover its checkered history in the state.
Then there is the decommissioning fund. Entergy arrogantly refuses to fully fund its decommissioning fund by 2012 as they agreed to do when it bought the nuke. Decommissioning and cleanup costs are skyrocketing, and with the current radioactive leaks into our groundwater, costs will rapidly increase. Although Entergy has done a pretty good job of demonstrating the colossal failure of nuclear power while operating with its tower collapse, transformer fire, and repeated and unending leaks from pipes that never existed, decommissioning demonstrates how dirty nuclear power can be.
Yankee Rowe, the smallest commercial reactor, cost $39 million to build and a whopping $750 million to decommission due to leaks and ground water contamination. Connecticut Yankee cost over $1.2 billion to clean up the spills and groundwater contamination. This does not include the costs of guarding the high level radioactive waste indefinitely. So while the leak (s) continue into the groundwater and the Connecticut River, the NRC allows Vermont Yankee to continue to operate potentially endangering the health and safety of the river not to mention the health and safety of the tri-state community. Will people want to boat on a slightly radioactive river?
Then there is Entergy’s new Limited Liability Corporation Enexus. Originally dubbed Spinco, this new LLC would house Entergy’s newly acquired aging fleet of decaying nukes including Vermont Yankee. It would start with a $3.5 billion dollar debt and only $700 million in reserve funds to deal with any equipment failures or accidents at any of these nukes, all of which have already been found to have tritium leaks. And Entergy wants to tie any future power purchase agreement with Vermont to Vermont’s acceptance of Entergy’s Enexus.
To add insult to injury, Entergy’s CEO, Wayne Leonard, recently announced that if its new LLC didn’t fly with Vermonters, Entergy could, without state approval, proceed on its own to merge into Enexus and relegate its old nukes–with the $3.5 billion in debt and limited resources–to the new shell corporation Entergy.
We are at a tipping point. We have won a monumental victory. But we are not done. We are at the beginning of the end. Now we must focus our efforts on the Vermont House. All the people from the tri-state community who have worked so hard to make replacement a reality are still needed to ensure that democracy succeeds. Entergy will not give up, neither can we.
Remember, we still must act today to change tomorrow.
