Late this afternoon Vermont Yankee's Rob Williams issued a press release that Vermont Yankee has a tritium release. Williams'press release said:

Our environmental monitoring department reports that, for the first time, a small amount of tritium has been identified in a sample taken from a monitoring well at the plant. Tritium is a form of hydrogen that occurs naturally and is also a byproduct of nuclear plant operation. It is also used in illuminated products such as exit signs. Based on the experience of other US nuclear plants, we have been specifically monitoring for tritium as part of an industry-wide monitoring program.

 

Note the photo is not from the VY site, but tritium is a serious radioactive isotope with a half-life of 12-years, meaning that half will be gone in 12 years and half in 12 more and half of that in 12 more years which means that the radiation will be around for 10-half-lives which means at least 120 years.

It has been a bad day for Entergy, but I guess that is the cost of doing business with an aging reactor.

More below…

First VY had reduced its power because Velco had a cracked insulator in its switchyard. Velco could not make its switchyard repair without reducing power. Then, while VY's power was reduced to 70%, the plant had an annunciator alarm letting VY know there was low oil in a recirculation pump, which circulates water through the reactor. The plant has kept power reduced in order to find the cause of the low oil alarm, but as WCAX noted tonight, Vermont Yankee is still trying to track down its problem with its warning light.

 

The nuclear power plant is operating at 72 percent power. It was reduced to that amount Wednesday for routine transmission line work, but then a warning light came on about the oil level in two recirculating water pump motors. Those motors vary the power level in the reactor. Yankee is trying to figure out if there is a problem with the oil level or if the indicator light itself is faulty. Opponents say this is just another example that the Vernon plant is aging and should be shut down.http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11786566

 Late in the afternoon Rob Williams announced the tritium leak, and that was followed by a DPS announcement that the Decommissioning Fund is flat and still well-below its highest mark of 28-months ago. This is not the first tritium release on-site at Vermont Yankee. Tritium has been found in the ground water and there is a wedge of tritium edging toward the Connecticut River. What does that mean? It means that tritium is in a plume moving outward away from the plant.

The following excerpts below, from the May 2009 ENVY Report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, clearly delineate radioactive releases to the Connecticut River from Vermont Yankee Nuclear power plant’s buried underground pipe which were not identified in the August 2009 Department of Health report.

 

“The presence of plant-related radionuclides in the onsite storm drain system has been identified in previous years at Vermont Yankee.”(Page 49)

 

“The highest detected concentration for all plant related radionuclides that were detected in the sediment samples was found in … Manhole 12… The sampling conducted in 2008 indicates that the presence of radionuclides in the storm drains has not changed significantly.”(Page 50)

Most disturbing to me is the quote from VY's report to NRC detailing the tritium wedge moving toward the Connecticut River, especially

“The presence of tritium in station air compressor condensate and manholes (Storm Drain System) has been identified since 1995… leakage of tritium to ground water beneath the site will be transported by natural ground water gradient to the Connecticut River.” (Page 51)

 

The problem with tritium is that it is chemically identical to water. This means that the tritium cannot be filtered out of the water like the other radioactive isotopes may be filtered from reactor water or other contaminated water. In the VY press release, Williams said, “Since 2007, Vermont Yankee and the rest of the industry have been taking a proactive approach in groundwater monitoring including communicating the results. So, while there are no regulatory requirements to report tritium at these low levels, notifications were proactively made to regulatory agencies and the public.” This is not really the case. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who was appointed by President Obama over nuclear industry objections as the new NRC chair, has demanded that the agency staff evaluate the NRC activities and oversight of buried piping at nuclear reactors.

NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko has tasked the agency’s technical staff to review the NRC’s approach for overseeing buried pipes given recent incidents of leaking buried pipes at several U.S. commercial nuclear power plants.

“Although they have not jeopardized public health and safety, leaks from buried pipes continue to occur and we need to assess the NRC’s and licensee’s efforts to prevent them,” Jaczko said. “The agency’s handling of these events has focused on each incident as it occurs, but we need to look at what we’re doing on a generic level to determine what additional actions may be necessary.”

 

According to reports, “the staff must provide the Commission an information paper in early December that explains both ongoing and planned generic activities that address leaks from buried piping.” To date no findings have been made public.

Chairman Jaczko also asked the staff to discuss actions or plans regarding:

•Evaluating the adequacy of NRC requirements for designing, inspecting and maintaining safety-related buried piping, including rules governing operating reactors, reactor license renewal and new reactor licensing;

•Evaluating the adequacy of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Code for designing, inspecting and maintaining safety-related buried piping;

•Evaluating how effective current rules and voluntary initiatives for designing, inspecting and maintaining all nuclear power plant buried piping are in ensuring public health and protecting the environment, and;

•Recommending any necessary revisions to existing regulations, requirements, practices or oversight regarding the integrity of buried piping.

www.nrc.gov ADAMS#ML092460648

 

When I wrote the white papers to the legislature back in November and December 2007, I discussed the high cost of cleaning up Connecticut Yankee due to a tritium leak uncovered after the plant was shut down. Decommissioning Connecticut Yankee cost an additional $481 million dollars due to radioactive contamination of the soil and water from tritium and Strontium 90.  As I have written previously, the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Fund is short hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, the current VY decommissioning analysis is a generic plan that is not site specific to VY and therefore very inexact in determining accurate costs. The current decommissioning fund also follows NRC guidelines which does not account for returning the site to the greenfield status contracted and expected by Vermonters. One year ago during the opening week of the legislative session, the heading Jan 8, 2009 heading and story read:

Entergy: Vermont Yankee leaked radioactive water By Susan Smallheer Rutland Herald BRATTLEBORO — A valve leaking radioactive water inside Vermont Yankee's reactor building was undergoing emergency repairs Wednesday, Entergy Nuclear said. The leak did not require the company to shut down or even reduce power, according to Entergy Nuclear spokesman Laurence Smith. Smith said the leak, which was losing about 2-1/2 gallons of “slightly radioactive” water a minute, had been discovered about two weeks ago during routine company inspection by plant operators. Smith said the radioactive water, which comes from the reactor water's cleanout system, was cleaned and filtered before being returned to the reactor building. The water is not discharged to the Connecticut River, he said. He said the leaking radioactive water went into a sump drain, was filtered and was eventually returned to the reactor water system…

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090108/NEWS01/901080363/1002/NEWS01

Such are the problems with aging nuclear reactors…