Or, specifically, “*more* than 40,” which is as nice a way of putting it as “there is no immediate danger.” Per Susan Smallheer in today’s Rutland Herald:
There are more than 40 buried pipes containing radionuclides at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, according to a document Entergy Nuclear submitted Monday to the Vermont Public Service Board.
A year ago, the company’s vice president of operations and the site vice president in charge of the Vernon reactor said there were none.
Now, you would think, that pretty much says it all, but it gets better. VY apparently can’t decide whether it wants to be seen as fraudulent or incompetent:
One of the executives, Jay Thayer, has since publicly corrected his statement.
The company… said there was a difference between underground piping and underground vaults, which often contain multiple pipes, according to company spokesman Robert Williams.
“No one is saying the company didn’t know” there were buried pipes containing radionuclides, Williams said, attributing the problem to lack of communication within the company and “conflicting assumptions.”
Arnie Gundersen, however, brilliantly puts this in proper perspective:
“ENVY is saying that if you die and you are put directly in the ground with dirt on top of you, you are buried. But if you die and are put in a casket, you are not buried, but you are ‘underground,'” Gundersen said.
So let’s see if we can simplify this:
The company either lied about the pipes or didn’t understand the nature of the legal requirements for disclosure of them.
Then, when it got caught glowing-green handed, it now wants to clarify matters.
It then used a fairly complicated set of verbal parsings to justify its previous “lack of communication” in the prior case.
And, of course, we’re supposed to just ignore all this because it’s more expensive to get our fuel elsewhere.
Did you ever go to a mechanic who, you find out after the fact, didn’t understand how your car worked? Ever go to a mechanic who, you find out after the fact, lied to you about how your car worked?
Did you ever go back?
Fraudulent and incompetent
They have hired a Washington based law firm for their internal investigation into the underground piping “miscommunication” so even better, and perhaps more complicated sets of verbal parsing is ahead.
Front page of the Times Argus: Democrats call for ‘transparency’ … Shumlin discloses the state withheld public notification of these leaks for six full days, and Shumlin also discloses a whistle blower passed a document to him showing that Entergy Yankee inspected these very same non-existent pipes in 2007.
Maybe Entergy needs a tax cut and a bailout?