Entergy seeks to redraw safety borders
By SUSAN SMALLHEER Rutland Herald Staff
BRATTLEBORO - Entergy Nuclear has asked state regulators to approve a plan that would change the regulatory boundary surrounding Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which would move the spot where radiation doses are measured further away from the reactor.
Entergy, which has been buying properties bordering the Vernon reactor for the past couple of years, demolishing the homes and in some cases, donating them or the materials to the local Habitat for Humanity, said it wants the "fence-line boundary" and the "site boundary" to be the same for regulatory clarity.
The nuclear company has asked the Vermont Public Service Board for permission to make the change, which would affect the location of the air monitors the Department of Health has installed surrounding the plant for public protection.
Sen. Peter Shumlin, a Windham Democrat and president pro tempore of the Senate, criticized Entergy's request of state regulators to move the fence-line boundary around the plant.
"The obvious question, is, 'Why are they moving the fence line?' I fear to find out the answer. There's only one reason to move a goal post, and that's if the goals that were defined weren't big enough to play the game. I would guess they would have compliance issues if they didn't move the goal posts," he said.
Sarah Hofmann, director of public advocacy for the Department of Public Service, said the state was studying the proposal and hadn't reached a point of making a recommendation yet.
Radiation coming from the plant is monitored by the Department of Health, and in 2004 the state said Entergy had violated state radiation standards. Entergy contested the finding, and hired a group of experts, which came up with a new way of measuring the radiation, which the department adopted. A legislative panel challenged the validity of the new standard last year and the new standard is now going through formal review process.
Entergy is releasing about 26 percent more radiation, largely because of its boost in power production in 2006, but it says it is still within state standards, which were the strictest in the country.
Meanwhile, Entergy is loudly objecting to a plan by Shumlin to hire a member of the Vermont Yankee Oversight Panel, Arnold Gundersen, to oversee Entergy Nuclear's compliance with the panel's recommendations to the 2009 Legislature.
Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said that Gundersen's hiring amounted to "another layer of bureaucracy" that was "unwarranted."
As for the fence-line issue, Williams said Vermont Yankee was a relatively small site, and "purchasing abutting property represents a business decision with considerations of security, site access, parking expansion, and the potential to reduce rad(iation) dose."
"So, yes, buying property to further limit boundary dose by expanding VY owner-controlled area is one option we consider in a business," Williams wrote in an e-mail Friday.
"We are not looking to increase radiation standards," he said.
Entergy has spent an additional $3 million complying with the Legislature's requests and the oversight panel's audit, he said.
The oversight panel made several recommendations it wants adopted before the Legislature approves any continued operation of Vermont Yankee beyond its original shutdown date of March 2012.
Hofmann said that the Department of Public Service had already hired a set of experts to review Entergy Nuclear's compliance, and that it was already sending additional documents to Gundersen, who was one of five members of the oversight panel.
Hofmann said that Entergy did not agree with the state's plan to hire experts. "They also did not envision an extensive compliance process like we have laid out for the (Public Service) Board," she wrote in an e-mail.
Shumlin appointed Gundersen to the panel last summer, and at that time, the Douglas administration criticized the selection, questioning whether Gundersen could be impartial when it came to Yankee's future, since he had publicly testified against it.
But Shumlin said that Gundersen had proved his bona fides in his accurate predictions about the issues that would face Vermont Yankee, starting several years ago.
Gundersen, who is a nuclear engineer, predicted that the plant's cooling towers might collapse after it boosted power by 20 percent back in 2006. A large portion of one of the towers collapsed in August 2007.
Gundersen and other members of the oversight panel raised questions about the condition of the plant's condenser, which two weeks ago sprung leaks that will force the plant to cut power in half later this month.
"Arnie is the only person in America that has been consistently been right about Vermont Yankee. What are they afraid of?" said Shumlin.
"Every time that the governor vetoes another bill that protects Entergy shareholders at the expense of Vermonters, it raises the question whether they have lost their objectivity on this issue. I just don't think they're credible," he said.
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