A recent report to the State of Vermont on Entergy’s Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund shows the value continues to fall short, failing to meet projected requirements. The trust fund six month ago, at the end of April was $498,546,853. It was up slightly in May and then declined steadily. The fund as of the end of September 2011 was $472,346,906. This is a six month loss in value of almost $27 million.

The Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund was at $304 million in 2002 when Entergy of Louisiana purchased the plant. Entergy has not contributed to the fund which is intended to cover clean-up, fuel management and site restoration when Yankee closes.  According to past projections the decommissioning fund was supposed to have been $464 million by 2008 but has languished in recent years. It continues to be way below Entergy’s 2007 estimated plant decommissioning costs of $656 million to $991 million.

In 2010 a long delayed Vermont Auditor’s report

concluded that the current requirement for the State to review the adequacy of the trust fund to meet all cleanup obligations every five years is not frequent enough.

The new policy apparently is for the State to watch Entergy’s decommissioning trust fund’s value fall in real time, rather than slow motion.