FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

                                                            Contact: Clay Turnbull - NEC Staff - 802-257-0336

Release Date: 1-25-2010                                      Raymond Shadis-Consultant - 207-882-7801

                                                                          Jared Margolis – Attorney -802-310-4054

Entergy provides buried piping data to DPS and VPSB

“Too little; too late” say intervenors, New England Coalition.

In an electronic filing Sunday, January 24^th, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) provided the VPSB, DPS, and intervenors, NEC, CLF, VPIRG, Windham Regional Commission, and Vermont Utilities with a list of about fifty buried or subsurface pipes or systems  which Entergy executives and plant staff had previously said do not exist. An accompanying affidavit  (LINKED HERE from Entergy Director of Engineering says this a “comprehensive list that completely and accurately identifies all pipes and systems that meet my understanding of the description of section 3(a)(7) of Act 189.

Entergy, DPS, and the Comprehensive Vertical Audit contractors will be meeting to reconcile differences prior to a status conference with the VPSB and the intervenors on Wednesday, January 27^th, 9:30.

New England Coalition questioned Entergy witnesses on buried piping and site contamination, pointedly and repeatedly during VPSB Technical Hearings last Spring. Entergy claimed they had none. NEC has asked the VPSB to reopen the record in the Vermont Yankee license extension proceeding so that the evidence can be examined in the light of Entergy’s false testimony and new information regarding leaks of radionuclides into the ground water.  NEC had provided testimony and grilled Entergy on the potential decommissioning cost and environmental impacts of leaking pipes and components. “Put it in perspective” says Ray Shadis, NEC Technical Consultant, “ The distance from the waste vault where highest levels of radioactive contamination were found to the test well where high levels of tritium were first found is about 300 feet.

If you take that as the nominal radius of the plume or lens of contaminated soil and water and assign a conservative value of 6 feet average depth to the plume ( Volume =300 X 300 X 6 X 3.1416), then you come up with a nominal value of 1,696,464 cubic feet, or 63,832 cubic yards of contaminated soil. That’s a big price tag for cleanup and a significant environmental impact.”

NEC is today filing a proposal for a hearing schedule that allows the parties to question and give testimony on the several state and federal investigations currently underway regarding ENVY’s false testimony, piping and tanks management program, root cause analysis, and the repaired Comprehensive Vertical Audit Report.

“Decommissioning costs can be heavily impacted by poor handling of radioactive contamination”, says Shadis, who served seven years on Maine Yankee’s Advisory Panel on Decommissioning, “Connecticut Yankee might be taken as an example. There engineering giant Bechtel Corporation quit the decommissioning midstream claiming it had been misled about the degree of site contamination.” Ultimately, Connecticut ratepayers were dunned several hundred million dollars in added decommissioning costs”

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