[V]ERNON – Not surprisingly, most scrutiny of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant revolves around radiological concerns.
But, as indicated by a recent, months-long process of violation notices and responses, Vermont officials also are deeply interested in what plant owner Entergy is doing with its non-radiological waste – so much so that the state has threatened a civil complaint and associated, unspecified penalties in connection with an inspection earlier this year.
Some of the issues are seemingly trivial – a half-can of Sherwin Williams primer, for instance, or an extended debate over the wording on signs at the Vernon plant. Others are more substantive, including Entergy’s admission that a contractor hadn’t been properly disposing of a chemical used as antifreeze.
In its latest statements on the matter, the company is asking state officials to impose no penalties based on its handling of non-radiological hazardous waste, contending that it has complied with state regulations and has “reasonably explained” any alleged violations.
“Finally, and importantly to Vermont Yankee, none has resulted in any risk to the environment or human health,” an attorney representing Entergy wrote in a Sept. 9 letter to the state. “In light of Vermont Yankee’s continued commitment to managing the small quantity of hazardous waste it generates consistent with applicable law and best practices, we respectfully submit that no further administrative or judicial process is warranted.”
The debate stems from an inspection conducted May 18 at the plant, which ceased producing power in late December. Representatives of the state Agency of Natural Resources Waste Management and Prevention Division visited the plant to determine whether Entergy was in compliance with Vermont’s hazardous waste management regulations.
State officials are careful to note that “the inspection was not intended to include and did not include any examination of radiological contamination or radiological activities at the facility.”
But they did find several alleged violations. At the top of the state’s list was a determination that, in two drums containing waste ethylene glycol, “a material regulated in Vermont as hazardous waste.” The company failed, state officials said, to identify the ethylene glycol as hazardous waste.
A plant spokesman said ethylene glycol functions as an antifreeze at Vermont Yankee. And Entergy says it has instructed Clean Harbors – a Massachusetts-based company hired to transport and dispose of hazardous waste from the plant site – to recycle the chemical. Recycling the ethylene glycol apparently would allow for exemption from the state’s hazardous-waste classification.
But Entergy officials say Clean Harbors incinerated the ethylene glycol that was found by state inspectors instead of recycling the chemical.
“Clean Harbors has since acknowledged that its mistaken disposition of ethylene glycol was inconsistent with Vermont Yankee’s express direction and Clean Harbor’s representations regarding the handling of that material to Vermont Yankee,” Entergy attorney Elise Zoli wrote in her Sept. 9 letter to the state. “We believe that Clean Harbors is now sensitized to this sort of error.”
The company says there may have been previous shipments of ethylene glycol that were also incinerated, according to Vermont Yankee Site Vice President Chris Wamser. Vermont Yankee is investigating Clean Harbors improper handling of the chemical, Wamser wrote in a memo to state officials.
What all of that adds up to isn’t clear: The incineration didn’t occur on VY property, Entergy spokesman Martin Cohn said, and he confirmed that the company still is contracting with Clean Harbors.
Phil Retallick, Clean Harbors’ senior vice president for compliance and regulatory affairs, acknowledged the company’s mistake in an interview with VTDigger. At issue, he said, was 47 gallons of ethylene glycol collected from Yankee.
“From this point moving forward, we’ve instituted enough corrective measures that it shouldn’t happen again,” Retallick said. He also noted that it is not uncommon to incinerate small quantities of ethylene glycol, and such a disposition shouldn’t be technically construed as a “mishandling” of the waste.
In the end, the relevant issue for Entergy is whether the state will see fit to penalize the company for the ethylene glycol labeling snafu. In her letter to the state, Zoli wrote that “we respectfully submit that an alleged violation against Vermont Yankee is not appropriate under the circumstances.”
Frequency of hazardous-waste inspections was another concern for state inspectors, who found that, for short-term storage areas, “inspections were not being conducted on a daily basis and, according to the (Vermont Yankee) representative, no inspections were being conducted at the ‘absorbent storage shed.’”
Entergy countered that no inspections were required for the shed, and the company says it is in “material compliance” with general inspection mandates. Yankee staffers over past 12 months have performed 174 inspections of short-term waste-storage areas, “more than three times as many as the minimum one inspection per week that the regulation authorizes some generators to perform,” Zoli wrote.
“The instances in which no inspection was logged are generally few, eliminating any realistic possibility that a spill or leak would have gone undetected,” Zoli wrote. Given that the plant site is secure, there is no risk of unauthorized removal of hazardous material, she said.
Other disputes from the May 18 inspection included:
• The state claimed that, though Entergy was maintaining an electronic inventory of all non-radiological materials at the plant, the inventory didn’t say which of those materials was hazardous. Entergy maintains that there were no violations of state law, but “nonetheless, Vermont Yankee voluntarily revised its inventory lists after the site inspection, incorporating suggestions from ANR staff.”
• A state inspector claimed to observe “numerous” containers holding hazardous waste that were not marked as such. Entergy’s attorney says this part of the state’s complaint is not clear and asks for an explanation of the labeling rules.
• There’s a significant amount of time spent on a half-full can of primer found on a shelf marked for non-hazardous waste. The state contends that, because the primer contains 45 percent ethanol, it should have been considered hazardous.
Entergy counters that, at the time of the May inspection, staff members still were evaluating materials in storage. Citing sections of Vermont’s hazardous waste regulations, Entergy’s attorney wrote that “designated Vermont Yankee staff had not yet determined whether (the primer) had, in fact, ‘served (the) original intended use’ that Vermont Yankee had for it, or whether it might be put to further use in connection with a different project. Consequently, the can of primer is not properly classified as a ‘waste,’ let alone a ‘hazardous waste.’”
For anyone still in suspense about the primer, Vermont Yankee’s letter goes on to acknowledge that staff members later determined that they had no further use for it, and it was shipped away in June via Clean Harbors.
• There’s also a question about missing signs at Yankee’s hazardous-waste storage areas. Entergy claims the company had used proper warnings, and it was “impossible to enter the storage area without first encountering the sign up close.” However, the company says it prepared new signs after the state inspection and sent along pictures to prove it.
