{"id":242582,"date":"2010-01-28T12:14:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenrightnow.com\/?p=8530"},"modified":"2010-01-28T12:14:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:14:33","slug":"vermont-nuclear-plant%e2%80%99s-future-clouded-by-radioactive-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/242582","title":{"rendered":"Vermont nuclear plant\u2019s future clouded by radioactive leak"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Vermont<\/p>\n

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. Photo: nrc.gov<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Supporters and foes of nuclear power are mobilizing for a fight in New England. As owners of the Vermont Yankee<\/a> reactor seek a 20-year extension of the plant\u2019s operating\u00a0agreement (which expires in 2012), rising levels of radioactive tritium<\/a> in the groundwater surrounding the facility have made that renewal the subject of intense debate.<\/p>\n

The plant is located in Vernon<\/a>,\u00a0along the Connecticut River, just north of the Massachusetts border.\u00a0On Jan. 7, Vermont Yankee officials notified the state health department<\/a> that samples taken from a groundwater monitoring well on site at the plant contained tritium.<\/p>\n

Increased radiation levels indicate that reactor water is leaking into the soil, but the\u00a0source of the leak has not been determined. No tritium has been found in drinking water wells or in the river, source of the reactor\u2019s cooling water.<\/p>\n

No such plant has been denied an extension since 1989, when Sacramento residents voted to close the Rancho Seco<\/a> nuclear plant, owned by their municipal utility. Privately-owned\u00a0 Entergy<\/a> purchased the Vermont Yankee facility in 2002.<\/p>\n

Under the Atomic Energy Act<\/a>, decisions regarding license renewal usually rest with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/a>. Vermont, however, struck a deal with Entergy that gives the state legislature oversight.<\/p>\n

Hence, an environmental and economic issue takes on political hues as well. Already, some Vermont lawmakers have announced new\u00a0opposition to the license renewal. Meanwhile, in\u00a0his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for\u00a0a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0state health department\u00a0is posting regular updates on the situation at Vermont Yankee.\u00a0Governor, Jim Douglas, a longtime proponent of the facility, issued a statement saying that recent revelations \u201craised dark clouds of doubt\u201d about the reactor\u2019s safety and management. At the same time, Douglas suggested that the legislature delay any decisions on the future of the plant until more is known about the problem.<\/p>\n

The facility, the state\u2019s largest generator of power, began searching for tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) under a 2007 nuclear industry initiative that came in the wake of leaks discovered at reactors in Illinois and New York.\u00a0In the\u00a0wake of the Jan. 7 revelations, the state has increased the frequency of testing at the elementary school across the street from the plant but has not detected higher levels.<\/p>\n

Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams told The New York Times<\/em> that the company was working to find a leak. \u201cIt\u2019s a necessarily slow and methodical process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. Photo: nrc.gov Supporters and foes of nuclear power are mobilizing for a fight in New England. As owners of the Vermont Yankee reactor seek a 20-year extension of the plant\u2019s operating\u00a0agreement (which expires in 2012), rising levels of radioactive tritium in the groundwater surrounding the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}