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The Sept. 16 headline on Vermont Yankee is wrong. The correct version should be "Vermont Yankee Radiation Not OK." There are vast amounts of verifiable information that children are highly susceptible to radiation and the truth of this issue is that it is about health. Photos of Yankee's plant failures are scary and the thought of 20 years added on to this plant's existence is not good. Waste from nuclear power plants is dangerous. Where does it go? Vermont Yankee presents many dangers now and in the future and is a risk not worth taking. Renewable energy is possible and practical.

The Sept. 16 headline on Vermont Yankee is wrong. The correct version should be "Vermont Yankee Radiation Not OK." There are vast amounts of verifiable information that children are highly susceptible to radiation and the truth of this issue is that it is about health. Photos of Yankee's plant failures are scary and the thought of 20 years added on to this plant's existence is not good. Waste from nuclear power plants is dangerous. Where does it go? Vermont Yankee presents many dangers now and in the future and is a risk not worth taking. Renewable energy is possible and practical.

"Vermont Yankee officials were put on the defensive again Wednesday, saying no one meant to mislead lawmakers about underground piping at the plant last year but "should have been more thorough" in answering a legislative panel's questions. The reactor on the Connecticut River in Vermont's southeast corner has been in the spotlight as Entergy Nuclear tries to win legislative approval for a 20-year extension on a license set to expire in 2012. Vermont is the only state that gives its Legislature a say on the license; other states leave it up to state utility regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "

Ten percent of 20 is two. Five percent is one. To make the deal go down at the Public Service Board level 1 percent of the 20 percent uprated Vermont Yankee power (in 2006 it went from a 540 Megawatt ((Mw)) to a 650 Mw. reactor) was sold to a small utility up north in Vermont at below-market rates. As a result of the uprate decision at the PSB, Entergy must pay taxes to Vermont on all power from the uprate sold out of state. Translated, this means that Entergy must pay taxes on 19 of the uprated 20 percent of the power sold. This is money to the state coffers. The PSB makes decisions based primarily on economics. The PSB will decide to continue Yankee past 2012. The PSB will play their quasijudicial role as arbiter and Entergy will sweeten the deal for the supposed ratepayer advocate Department of Public Service (read: governor's right-and team) in a Memorandum of Understanding just before the PSB decision.

Opponents of nuclear power pointed to the turmoil on Wall Street on Monday as proof the state needed more guarantees from Entergy Nuclear that money would be there in the future to dismantle and clean up the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. More than 250 people turned out Monday night to urge the Vermont Public Service Board to either deny the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant a 20-year extension on its state per

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is suffering from another problem with its cooling towers, with leaks of more than 60 gallons of water a minute attributed to faulty packing in pipe joints, officials said Wednesday. Spokesmen for Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the leaks were in sections of the Vermont Yankee's east cooling tower not considered key to plant safety.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is suffering from another problem with its cooling towers, with leaks of more than 60 gallons of water a minute attributed to faulty packing in pipe joints, officials said Wednesday. Spokesmen for Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the leaks were in sections of the Vermont Yankee's east cooling tower not considered key to plant safety.

"The zone of groundwater now contaminated at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is about the size of a football field. And the state Health Department has increased the testing of private wells in the area around the plant. VPR's John Dillon has more. (Dillon) The Department of Health stepped up its monitoring work in early January after Yankee discovered radioactive tritium in a well about 30 feet from the Connecticut River. The department now says a half-dozen wells are showing tritium. Some have registered high levels - close to what's found in water that's used in the nuclear reactor. The Health Department says that a corridor of contaminated water is flowing from the turbine building toward the Connecticut River. "

"The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has dropped its effort to bar a documentary filmmaker from bringing his camera along on a tour of the plant with the state Public Service Board. Robbie Leppzer of TurningTide Productions has been working since January on a documentary about the debate over relicensing Vermont Yankee. The plant had originally told him he could come on the tour but could not bring his camera - even though it said it would allow other television cameras on the tour."

"Tests on soil samples taken at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vernon now confirm the presence of a new - and more serious - form of radioactivity in the ground outside the reactor building. Yankee spokesman Larry Smith released a statement late Friday afternoon confirming the presence of strontium 90 -- a "hard to detect" isotope found 15 feet below ground in soils excavated during the search for a broken pipe leaking tritium last March."

"Approximately 310,000 pounds of soil and other solid waste from the groundwater contamination investigation at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant has been packed into 10 tractor-trailer like containers for shipment to a licensed radioactive waste disposal facility, according to an update posted on the Vermont Department of Health's website on Friday. But when the leak of tritiated water was discovered, the public was told by Entergy, which owns and operates Yankee, it would need to dispose of 240 cubic feet of earth from the excavation around what was determined to be the source of the leak. If a cubic foot of dirt weighs on average 40 pounds, that's only 9,600 pounds. So where did the other 300,400 pounds come from? Larry Smith, Yankee's director of communications, said he's not sure where the Department of Health came up with the 310,000-pound number. Smith said Yankee plans to dispose of only 240 cubic feet of contaminated soil as a result of the leak. That soil will fit in three 3-by-4-by-4-foot approved containers that will be shipped to a low-level waste facility in Clive, Utah, he said. "

"On Friday two more groups, the Department of Public Service and the Conservation Law Foundation each filed testimonials regarding the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. The two testimonies filed with the Vermont Public Service Board come a day after the Vermont Natural Resources Council filed its own testimony with the board claiming the nuclear plant violated the state's groundwater public trust law and should be shut down immediately. While Conservation Law Foundation echoed the suggestions made by VNRC, the Department of Public Service, by contrast, stated VY had taken an appropriate course of action in response to the discovery of a tritium leak in January. Since the leak was discovered, "Vermont Yankee assembled an effective team to locate and stop the source of the leak to the environment," according to testimony by Uldis Vanags, the state nuclear engineer with the DPS. Vanags continued, "I witnessed Vermont Yankee following all its procedures to assure there was a thorough engineering review prior to the drilling of sample wells and any excavation work." "

Panel questions methods on Yankee radiation standards MONTPELIER - The public was short-changed last year when the Department of Health changed the way it calculated the radiation coming from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and didn't hold public hearings on the issue, members of a legislative panel said Wednesday. Last year, the Department of Health started using a "conversion factor" of 0.6 on any measured radiation coming from the plant, noting that science showed that not all radiation is absorbed by the human body. The change has made it easier for Vermont Yankee to meet the state's radiation emission limits, which are the strictest in the country.

So maybe Vermont Yankee is not so important to Vermont after all. Actually, Green Mountain Power, the state's second-largest utility, plans to draw about 17 percent of its power from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, according to the utility's latest plans. But that is down from about 40 percent. By cutting back on the share of power it gets from Vermont Yankee, GMP opens the door to a range of renewable sources, including wind and biomass. Significantly, GMP expects hydropower will grow as a share of the utility's mix from 48 percent to 63 percent. That means that Hydro-Quebec would play an increased role as provider of power for the state.

Vermont's radiological health chief said Tuesday that recent changes at Vermont Yankee nuclear plant were likely to increase the radiation measured at an elementary school nearby. Nonetheless, said William Irwin of the state Health Department, levels of radiation measured at Vernon Elementary School remain below state safety limits and well below federal limits. Irwin's comments came during a hearing before the legislature's Administrative Rules Committee, which is reviewing changes to the way the state regulates radiation emissions at Vermont Yankee.

"The Conservation Law Foundation lobbed a big curve ball into the controversy over the tritium leak at the Vernon Yankee nuclear reactor Tuesday, saying the land that is contaminated appears to be "filled" land, and thus belongs to the state. The environmental group alerted Gov. James Douglas to the problem Tuesday, saying it had done a records search at the Vernon Town Hall and discovered the potential problem. According to Chris Kilian, state director for the Conservation Law Foundation, maps showing the Vermont Yankee plant, as well as maps submitted to the Public Service Board and the Vermont Legislature, show Entergy's ownership boundary "well inland" from the banks of the Connecticut River. Kilian said the land in question, which he said was about two acres and had multiple buildings on it, was labeled "Vermont Yankee Easement Area." He said that phrase on the Entergy maps had piqued his interest, resulting in the land research down in Vernon."

"A nuclear power expert who briefed state legislators on the operation of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant last week recommended they vote no Wednesday on continued operation of the plant. Paul Blanch, who has 45 years in the industry, including working or consulting at Millstone, Connecticut Yankee, Maine Yankee and Indian Point nuclear power plants and the Electric Power Research Institute and the Nuclear Energy Institute, said there are two major reasons for closing down the plant -- Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Entergy is certainly the worst of the worst," Blanch told the Reformer one day after his testimony at the Statehouse. The company is nothing but a "carpetbagger coming up here (with the) only goal to extract as much money as possible," he said. "They're milking every dime out of it that they possibly can." "

Summary On January 7, the Vermont Department of Health was notified by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station that samples taken from a ground water monitoring well on site (identified as GZ-3) contained tritium. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. It is a by-product of the nuclear fission process in a nuclear reactor, and also occurs naturally in the environment in very low concentrations. Most tritium in the environment is in the form of tritiated water, which easily moves about in the atmosphere, bodies of water, soil and rock. The finding of tritium in ground water signals that there has been an unintended underground release of radioactive material, and that other radioisotopes may have contaminated the environment. Vermont Yankee officials are conducting an investigation to identify the source of the tritium, and the magnitude of contamination, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in an oversight role."

"On Sunday, Entergy Vermont Yankee electronically filed a document with the Vermont Public Service Board detailing the extent of buried piping at the nuclear power plant in Vernon. The list was in response to a recent controversy over whether Yankee executives supplied adequate information about buried piping to the PSB and Nuclear Safety Associates, which was tasked with conducting a reliability assessment of the power plant. Entergy has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of Yankee for another 20 years, from 2012 to 2032. In addition to NRC approval, Entergy must also receive a certificate of public good from the Public Service Board and the OK from the Vermont Legislature. The list encompasses more than 40 buried or subsurface pipes and systems, which Entergy executives and plant staff had previously said did not exist. "

"The search for the source of the radioactive isotope tritium that seeped into groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant has led to the discovery of the isotope in a second monitoring well. An e-mail from Rob Williams, spokesman for Entergy Vermont Yankee, said the search team "received sampling results that showed an elevated level of 9,540 picocuries per liter in a second tritium monitoring well adjacent to the first well. A second confirmatory sample has been drawn from that well and is being analyzed." "

"A new poll shows Entergy Vermont Yankee has lost the trust of a majority of Vermonters. The poll says a radiation leak at the plant has severely eroded public support for the plant to operate after 2012. VPR's John Dillon reports: (Dillon) The poll of 802 Vermont residents was commissioned by the Civil Society Institute, a Massachusetts-based non profit that says it opposes nuclear power. The survey was taken just days before the Senate voted overwhelmingly to block Entergy Vermont Yankee's request for a 20-year license extension. "