Thomas J. Donovan, or TJ as most of us know him announced today that he will seek reelection as Chittenden County State’s Attorney.  From his press release:  

Donovan said “It has been an honor and privilege to serve the citizens of Chittenden County in this important position.  If reelected, I will continue to work to hold offenders fully accountable, provide victims the best possible services and work with community members to ensure Chittenden County remains a safe and vibrant place to live and work.”  

At this point, I have not heard that anyone else is running against Donovan either in a primary or in the regular election.  Some sources to whom I have spoken said that they had assumed Donovan would run for reelection since he did not seek higher office in this election year.  

Donovan, 36, a Democrat, was first elected to the post in 2006.  As State’s Attorney for the busiest county in Vermont, Donovan manages a staff of 27, prosecutes a caseload of over 7,000 criminal charges and 375 Family Court cases and is responsible for administering a budget of 1.5 million dollars.

 

More from his press release below the fold.

Donovan stated he will continue to treat homicides, sexual and domestic violence, and drunk driving as his office’s priorities while exploring alternative programs to address and work towards preventing the root causes of criminal behavior.  Donovan cited as important achievements in his first term the high profile trials and convictions of Brian Rooney, Christopher Williams, Gerald Montgomery, and Michael Lewis as well as his work on addressing the issue of racial profiling, reparative boards, and promoting alternative justice programs.    

During his first term, Donovan served on the executive committee for the Department of State’s Attorneys and remained active with local community groups, such as Lund Family Center and Mercy Connections; organizations that help support people at risk and in transition.          

Donovan lives with his wife and son in South Burlington.

 

In a press release issued today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it

will conduct additional inspections at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, operated by Entergy Nuclear and located in Vernon, Vt. Through enhanced specialized inspections, the NRC will oversee Entergy’s efforts to address groundwater contamination at the site and to review and assess the company’s response to an NRC Demand for Information (DFI) issued in early March.

In January, Entergy notified the NRC that it had received positive sample results for tritium from a groundwater well at Vermont Yankee. The NRC has been closely monitoring Entergy’s actions to identify, mitigate, characterize and remediate the source of the contamination. The NRC’s Resident Inspectors and regional specialists continue to provide oversight of the company’s actions through direct observations and independent assessments.

Both NRC and Entergy continue to maintain that the “tritium contamination does not pose any health or safety concern for members of the public or plant workers”.

NRC has continued this stance in spite of the extensive release of thousands of gallons of tritiated water and research by reputable scientists who contend that NRC does not adequately address the health effects of tritium.  

California and Colorado have set significantly more stringent tritium release standards of 400 pico curies per liter in California and 500 pico curies per liter in Colorado compared with the NRC standard of 30,000 pico curies per liter before even requiring reporting of tritium, and EPA requires a limit of 20,000 pico curies per liter for drinking water.  See original document below:

NRC Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee deviation memo 4-2-2010

The bill passed Tuesday evening 11-0. The full Vermont House plans to pass the bill soon and then it moves to the Senate, where lawmakers are also pledging quick action because for legislative leaders this bill is a priority.

 See WCAX for the whole story:

http://www.wcax.com/Global/sto…

“It is 100 percent the primary issue to protect Vermonters from having to pay the cost,” said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier.

“You have a promise to green field with not one penny in an account to accomplish that point. We now know that the waste is going to be stored there for decades if not 100 years and there is not one penny set aside to manage that waste, so that’s why we need to do this bill,” Klein said.

The decommissioning bill assures Vermonters that the corporate parent, whatever firm that may be, Entergy or if sold another firm, has enough money to decommission to NRC standards and also enough money to meet Vermont’s more rigid greenfield requirements.  This requires that the parent company post a guarantee covering decommissioning to a greenfield standard of Entergy’s current estimate of $40 million.  I personally believe this estimate is too low; discussion follows.

Fairewinds Associates testified on Friday April 5 to the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee  regarding the discrepancy on decommissioning costs as projected by TLG Services, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Entergy.  See report entitled Fairewinds Cost Comparison TLG Decommissioning http://www.leg.state.vt.us/JFO…

Here we go again…

Entergy’s Rob Williams just sent out the attached press release announcing that the recently labeled NRC workshop has been changed to an Entergy hosted tritium information night.

Brattleboro, Vt. —  Entergy Vermont Yankee will host a tritium information session for the local community at the Ramada Inn on Putney Road on Monday, April 12 from, 4 p.m., to 7:30 p.m.  Vermont Yankee engineers who conducted the investigation will be available on a one-on-one basis for discussion of all aspects of how the tritium leak at the plant site occurred as well as how it was identified and stopped.

Jim Matteau, Executive Director of the Windham Regional Commission said he was invited and does intend to attend.  Matteau said,  

It’s going to be Entergy telling its side of the story, and I want to hear it.

Some people have told me that they are confused since the NRC already canceled this April 12 meeting, but an NRC spokesperson informed me that this meeting

is something separate that they were already planning. We are still reviewing our public interactions and venue going forward.

Another public figure said,

I love the irony:  Learn more about the leak of radioactive material at WWW.safecleanreliable. com

For me, I guess it is a matter of framing.  At least that is what I call it.  How many ways does one spin the fact that the underground pipes that were not buried actually began leaking at least one year before the leak was discovered.  This information according to Dr. David Ahfeld, an expert in buried pipe and tank corrosion and leakage, who wrote to the state legislature just prior to the February Senate vote that the leak had been ongoing for at least one-year.

When Fairewinds Associates, Inc brought the matter of the allegedly non-existent buried underground pipes to the Legislature’s attention last fall, our report was hotly criticized by Entergy.  I guess it is a matter of framing because Rob Williams wrote,

While on the subject, we take issue with the entire tone of the consultant’s report which leaves the impression that plant reliability is lacking at VY. Issues cited as “significant” are really routine maintenance/repair issues that are routinely handled in the normal course of business in running a steam generating plant. One fact that didn’t appear at all in the reliability report was that Vermont Yankee’s three-year rolling average of plant reliability is now in the top nine percent among all nuclear plants in the world.

According to the press release,

state and federal agencies that oversaw the tritium investigation have been invited to participate. Refreshments and handouts will be available.

 Wow, it almost sounds like a party, except that I imagine the latest tritium science data will be missing, surely they could send some of the allegedly not unhealthful tritiated water home with guests.  “Dilution is the solution to pollution,” they say.

Entergy Vermont Yankee

News Release

April 6, 2010

Contact: Larry Smith

Entergy Vermont Yankee

802-258-4118

Lsmit14@entergy.com

Entergy Vermont Yankee to Host Community Information Session on Tritium on April 12.

Brattleboro, Vt. —  Entergy Vermont Yankee will host a tritium information session for the local community at the Ramada Inn on Putney Road on Monday, April 12 from, 4 p.m., to 7:30 p.m.  Vermont Yankee engineers who conducted the investigation will be available on a one-on-one basis for discussion of all aspects of how the tritium leak at the plant site occurred as well as how it was identified and stopped.

Other technical experts that will be available to answer questions will include hydrologists who studied the flow of groundwater and directed the drilling of monitoring wells to aid in the investigation.  Chemists that were involved in the investigation will be available to describe the process of the tritium sampling and how it contributed to the identification of the leak and how sampling is being used to support groundwater and soil remediation.

The engineers will also present the various charts and maps used over the course of the investigation including groundwater monitoring locations and 3D views of the underground structures where the leak occurred.

State and federal agencies that oversaw the tritium investigation have been invited to participate. Refreshments and handouts will be available.

More information on the tritium investigation and remediation is on line at: http://www.safecleanreliable.c…

See also: http://healthvermont.gov/envir…

For more information, contact Larry Smith at Vermont Yankee at 802-258-4118.

END

Today, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reconsider its plans to hold a private meeting regarding NRC oversight of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY), ENVY’s tritium releases, and other issues questions from attendees.  The closed meeting for invitees the NRC deemed to be stakeholders is scheduled for April 14 at the Keene Country Club in Keene, NH.

March 30, 2010

The Honorable Gregory B. Jaczko

Chairman

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Dear Chairman Jaczko:

We write to follow up on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s invitation to participate in a closed-door “Government-to-Government” meeting on April 14 in Keene, New Hampshire.

We are committed to open and transparent government and to honoring both the letter and spirit of Vermont’s open meeting laws.  Avoiding Vermont’s open meeting laws by holding this meeting in New Hampshire will only add to the growing public skepticism about the handling of oversight at Vermont Yankee, and could curtail participation from Vermont officials.

While we recognize that the discussion of information relating to security considerations often requires confidential briefings, the discussion of broader issues surrounding this facility is of great interest to Vermonters and is a discussion that should be conducted in a public setting.

We urge you to reconsider, and to hold the April 14 meeting in Vermont so that Vermont’s federal, state and local officials can fully participate. We look forward to hearing from you regarding this request.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy              Bernard Sanders                     Peter Welch

U.S. Senator                U.S. Senator                            U.S. Representative

I deeply appreciate this letter from our Congressional Delegation.  Safe and reliable nuclear power are not issues to be discussed behind closed doors.  Entergy has not met its burden of proof on ENVY’s reliability to the State of Vermont or its burden of proof on safety issues to the NRC, now matter what public claims are made by NRC spokespersons.  

More on this and on Secretary of State Deb Markowitz’s comments will be added below the fold.

By the way, government-to-government secret meetings do not exist in any statute.  I have always found the NRC to be unique, in that it writes it own rules and regulations.  While Congress gave it the authority to promulgate its own regulations, that was done in order to support itself in meeting its primary statutory authority to protect public health and safety.

I delve into this process in my book.  Here is an excerpt:

“Congress considered the concept of protecting “public health and safety” so critical that it

stated “public health and safety” 80 times in its original 1974 enabling legislation that disbanded the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and created the NRC. Furthermore,in the second paragraph of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 entitled Declaration of Purpose it is stated,

The Congress hereby declares that the general welfare and the common defense and security require effective action to develop, and increase the efficiency and reliability of use of, all energy sources to meet the needs of present and future generations, to increase the productivity of the national economy and strengthen its position in regard to international trade, to make the Nation self-sufficient in energy, to advance the goals of restoring, protecting, and enhancing environmental quality, and to assure public health and safety.

In fact, Congress had determined that “public health and safety” were so critical and that a clear separation must be established between the  nuclear industry, its government proponents, and those who regulated the industry that it took the critical step of disbanding the AEC, which had originally been created as part of the Atoms for Peace program in 1954.

It took only 20 years for the American people and their elected Congressional representatives to realize the impossibility of the AEC charter to simultaneously promote and regulate nuclear power. Unfortunately, simply changing the name over the door did not alter the culture or nomenclature created by the NRC.

In 1976 when I was first employed in the nuclear industry, because I was a writer, part of my job grew to include writing nuclear technical information for the local American Nuclear Society (ANS) Chapter in lay terminology so that non-nuclear engineers could understand its statewide newsletter. As an engineering aide in Reload Core Design [analyzing and calculating the optimum configuration for fuel reloads] for Combustion Engineering (CE), I was good at explaining nuclear technical facts in plain English, so good in fact that I was asked to be a member of an organizing team for a nuclear advocacy grassroots training workshop, and I was encouraged by my supervisor and CE’s management team to apply for three positions as a nuclear information specialist with three nuclear utilities that were CE clients.

I was hired by NYSE&G (New York State Electric and Gas) as the public information specialist at a proposed nuclear power plant site in upstate New York. I was the friendly feminine face of the utility in contrast to the nuclear suits NYSE&G had been sending out into the community.  When I joined NYSE&G in 1977, I honestly did not realize that the games played by the industry and the NRC were part and parcel of the obfuscation we see continued by the industry today.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS, said it best in its 1985 report Safety Second: A Critical Evaluation of the NRC’s First Decade,

“In the change from the AEC to the NRC, has the agency transformed from a promoter of nuclear power to a tough regulator of the industry? … Given the unique legacy of the AEC, the NRC should have taken extraordinary measures to separate itself from the taint of industry dominance.

Regrettably, it did not do so. In the NRC’s license proceedings the agency’s staff has consistently served as an advocate for the utility. As a result of inadequate NRC review, design and construction defects have often

surfaced so late in the construction process that huge cost overruns, delays or even cancellations have become inevitable.

The NRC’s investigatory practices — which have included sharing drafts with those being investigated, arbitrarily restricting the scope of investigations, and undermining probes by the Department of Justice — sadly reflect the

agency’s lack of independence from the industry it regulates.”

Federal statute enables most government agencies the ability to promulgate their own regulations, and the NRC is no different. While Congress gave the NRC the authority to write all of its own laws and regulations, it never envisioned the NRC would invite the Nuclear Industry in to help.

Consequently, the NRC’s methodology of promoting the industry rather than protecting “public health and safety” has become the NRC’s mantra with its own cleverly disguised Playbook. The NRC, which was created by Congress in order to assure distance from the nuclear industry it is chartered to regulate, instead considers the Nuclear Industry as a stakeholder in the regulatory process. For that matter, the entire regulatory process created by the NRC systematically disenfranchises the very public it was created to protect.

In Profiles in Power, authors Jerry Brown and Rinaldo Brutoco cite members of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, who

“condemn federal regulators (first in the Atomic Energy Commission and later in the NRC) for consistently permitting the industry to compromise safety in order to cut costs.”

To me, it is incredulous that anyone might believe that the NRC is at all capable of meeting its legal federal contract to protect “public health and safety” when both the industry is not only considered a stakeholder, but given more rights than the public who are the victims of illegal radiation releases, extensive cost overruns, astronomical utility rates, and thousands of tons of carcinogenic material left to rot in the environment. I ask you, when crimes are committed, are police, the offenders, and the victims all equal stakeholders?



Couched in challenging language that the layperson and general public cannot understand

and regulatory meetings and processes unavailable to the public, the NRC uses its terminology and regulations to shroud itself in secrecy.    This portion of my as yet unpublished book was written in 2008.

Now in addition to the no longer secret misnamed government-to-government meeting, the NRC has created an open workshop for interested parties to sit down and speak with members of the NRC staff about any concerns they may have.  You may read the invitation to the public April 12 meeting here http://greenmountaindaily.com/…

Tritium Workshop Meeting Notice.

Lastly, yesterday in an update to my post on this secret government-to-government meeting the gubernatorial candidates were challenged to staff this meeting and bring their notes forward as formal meeting notes.

This meeting must be recorded in accordance with Vermont’s Open Meeting laws. If these four Vermont government officials send their staff, then all records. . . are public documents. . .

I want to see all four elected candidates commit to upholding open government on one of the biggest liabilities the Douglas administration is hoisting on Vermont’s taxpayers and all of us rate payers.

In response, GMD received a press release and accompanying statement from Secretary of State Deb Markowitz’s campaign in which she said,

One way of demonstrating accountability is

conducting public business in public for everyone to see. Entergy has put the safety of Vermonters at risk as well as the jobs of more than 600 in

our community.  I have always taken the position that safety comes first and that is why I have strongly opposed the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy’s

plans for an out-of-state, closed-door meeting only reaffirms Vermonter’s worries about Entergy’s intentions. As Secretary of State, I

have fought to keep Vermont government open and accountable. This move continues to erode the little faith Vermonters have in an aging nuclear plant and the company that operates it until 2012.

Almost two months ago, I led with a vision for

green energy incubators in Windham county to create a “Green Zone” to jumpstart job growth, retrain workers and help the families affected by the plant’s closing. I still await emergency plans from the administration and the legislature to address the impact throughout the state.  I have laid out steps I think should be taken but these steps cannot wait until I become governor in January 2011.

Senator Doug Racine also wrote to GMD and said,

Maggie, thanks for the post and the information. My field director, Amy Shollenberger, will attend the meeting. We sent the RSVP today.

I’m going to cross-post on the other story about this issue, too.

 

Thank you Senator.  I will be curious to see if the NRC actually allows your field director Amy Shollenberger to attend.  

The invitation list I saw seemed to be exclusively select board members, mayors, and Uldis Vanigs from DPS.  The list I saw seemed to leave out all the legislators as well as the Congressional delegation unless an additional list has surfaced belatedly like the new public workshop for April 12.

The other story to which Senator Racine refers is my  original post on GMD about the NRC’s secret government-to government-meeting, which you may read here:  http://greenmountaindaily.com/…

UPDATE #1: NRC  has basically verified all this. Listen to this phone call.

* * *

Once again the NRC is up to its old antics of creating secret meetings for the privileged few it deems as stakeholders.  NRC’s alleged Government-to-Government meeting is in direct violation of federal and state Sunshine Laws, the NRC Chair’s commitment to NRC transparency and inclusiveness, and President Obama’s promise for Change to the electorate to usher in a new era of openness in our federal democracy.

According to the private email sent by the NRC to selected public officials:

The meeting is closed to members of the public and the media and it will not be publically noticed.  The meeting is open to elected State/Town officials or a member of their staff and selected representatives from your State agencies.  The purpose of the meeting being closed is to provide you an opportunity to have an open and frank discussion, ask questions and express your concerns.  Our goal is for the invitees to feel comfortable in an environment that won’t lead to possible misquotes in the media or misunderstandings with your constituents.

The initial email sent out by NRC included a PDF document detailing the meeting.  I have pasted the entire PDF at the bottom of this post.  

SUBJECT: U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION, REGION I

VERMONT YANKEE GOVERNMENT-TO-GOVERNMENT MEETING

Dear:

You are cordially invited to attend a government-to-government meeting among the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); representatives of various Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts state agencies; and Federal and local government officials from the communities surrounding the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. At this meeting, NRC will discuss its independent inspection of Entergy’s groundwater initiative program and the NRC’s review, to date, of the activities related to the recent tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee site.

The NRC is providing this information in advance of the public release of its inspection report on

this subject to better equip government stakeholders to answer questions they may receive from their constituents. The meeting will be limited to elected officials, or their staff, to best facilitate an open and courteous discussion and will not be open to the public or the media.

UPDATE #2:

From the comments:

   At a minimum . . .

. . . I expect the Democratic candidates for Governor with the exception of Matt Dunne who is not an elected official to send staff to this meeting. Why should Dubie get a pass? He should be there with a tape recorder too.

This meeting must be recorded in accordance with Vermont’s Open Meeting laws. If these four Vermont government officials send their staff, then all records. . . are public documents. . .

I want to see all four elected candidates commit to upholding open government on one of the biggest liabilities the Douglas administration is hoisting on Vermont’s taxpayers and all of us rate payers.

This is a really good idea!

Do you want to know what is happening? Time to get on the phone to Susan Bartlett, Deb Markowitz, Doug Racine & Peter Shumlin.  There is no excuse for them, or someone representing them, not to be at that meeting protecting Vermont’s interests.  

These entities have proven that they can never be trusted behind closed doors. Can we trust our elected representatives to attend and give a full accounting? Let’s find out.

* * *

UPDATE #3:

The Times Argus has now picked up this story:  

No wonder Entergy feels it is legitimate business to hold private press conferences  as detailed by Ed in his Green Mountain Daily blog or allege that they have conducted an-independent-legal-review as detailed by Shay Totten in his March 3, 2010 Seven Days column entitled Old Habits Die Hard.

Ironically, my sources have informed me that the NRC meeting arranged to be held at the Keene Country Club in Keene, NH on the evening of April 14, allegedly includes a select list of attendees from the towns within the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ).  To quote from the email:

The attendees will include State, Federal, Congressional and local (town selectmen) representatives from the districts within the 10 mile EPZ of the power plant.

Yet, to date, towns like  Brattleboro, Hinsdale, Guilford, Marlboro, and Halifax are not on the email address list.  Is there another list?  

Could it be that the other towns have received a separate email?  

Or is the NRC selecting those towns it deems stakeholders?  

With a uniquely crafted NRC presentation leaving out the details about Entergy’s knowledge of the tritium leak for more than one-year prior to the spreading plume and leaving out the latest validated science on tritium whose to complain about the hundreds of gallons of tritiated water floating around Entergy Nuclear’s Vermont Yankee (ENVY) site or for that matter the Connecticut River.  See the report on the JFO website detailing ENVY knowledge of its buried pipes entitled A Chronicle of Issues Regarding Buried Tanks and Underground Piping at VT Yankee.  Read the accurate science on Tritium in which Dr. Bertell says that “dilution has never been, and will never be the solution for pollution.” The health effects of tritium by Dr. Bertell.

While the NRC has been notorious in calling for closed meetings under all types of circumstances, this circumstance does not seem to fit the intent of the Sunshine Act 5 U.S.C. 552.b.  If by some peculiar twist of NRC legal interpretation or promulgation of a new regulation as the NRC is wont to do, NRC has the right to call for a closed meeting like this one, such a meeting flies directly in the face of NRC Chairman Jaczko’s proclaimed commitment to President Obama’s January 21, 2010 memorandum on transparency and open government.

Speaking at the 22nd Annual Regulatory Information Conference in Rockville, Md, March 18, 2010, Chairman Jaczko said,

I believe that all of this scrutiny and attention makes it even more important that we conduct the public’s work in an open and transparent manner.

Furthermore, let me quote from the NRC’s-own-website which states:

Throughout his tenure on the Commission, Dr. Jaczko has focused on the NRC being a decisive safety regulator with the confidence of the public.  He has worked to have the agency clearly communicate with the public and its licensees.

Dr. Jaczko firmly believes that the NRC should be as open with information as possible to best accomplish its mission of protecting public health and safety and the environment.  Because he believes public involvement strengthens the formulation of public policy, Dr. Jaczko has encouraged all stakeholders – including licensees, vendors, state and local governments, interest groups, and the general public – to participate in NRC policy-making efforts.

Whether or not this secret meeting shows that the NRC commissioners are simply giving lip service to President Obama, in spite of Chairman Jaczko’s word to the contrary, the meeting is in direct opposition to Dr. Jaczko’s public commitment to open and transparent process made at the NRC’s March 18, 2010 Regulatory Information Conference.

Dr. Jaczko’s complete speech may be found at here.  In an excerpt he said,

I believe that all of this scrutiny and attention makes it even more important that we conduct the public’s work in an open and transparent manner.

Over the past few months, we have moved forward with implementing the President’s Open Government Directive. As an independent agency, we were not required to comply with this Directive, but we have done so because it’s in line with our historic organizational commitment to openness and transparency. This is an area that will always require our continuing focus. We can’t simply check a few boxes on a form, and then declare ourselves open and transparent. We have to continually explain to the public what we are doing, how we are doing it, and why we are doing it.

Our staff has done much good work in this area by reaching out to the public and to our stakeholders in developing new regulations and explaining our implementation. Consistent with that approach, I hope that over the next few months the Commission will begin to meet more frequently in public to deliberate and vote on matters under consideration. I believe that this kind of openness and transparency will build public confidence in the agency by highlighting our strengths: the hard work and dedication of the staff, and the diligence of the Commission.

Finally, I believe that this secret meeting meeting is also a violation of New Hampshire’s open meeting regulations that states,

Openness in the conduct of public business is essential to a democratic society.

The purpose of this chapter is to ensure both the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies, and their accountability to the people.

Which government meetings are open to the public?

The law states that all gatherings of a quorum of members of a public body for the purpose of deliberating and deciding public policy.

Notable exemptions to this definition include:

• collective bargaining strategy and negotiation

• consultation that would fall under the attorney-client privilege

• single party caucuses

• circulation of draft documents that merely finalize decisions made in open meetings.

What government bodies are subject to the laws?

The act defines government body as any agency of the state or any of its political subdivisions. This definition explicitly includes the legislature, the executive council and all boards of other state agencies and political subdivisions. The act also includes non-profits corporations whose sole member is a public agencies.

For the record, I want to state three items:

• First, in addition to founding Fairewinds Associates in 2003, I began my career as a newspaper journalist since 1991 and have continued to free-lance since 1996.

• I am married to nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, who is a member of the Vermont Yankee Public Oversight Panel, and chief engineer with Fairewinds Associates.  Our firm has a contract with the Joint Fiscal Office.  

• The material provided herein was provided to me in my role as a journalist, and was not provided to Arnie in his role as a panel member or to us in our contractual role with JFO.

Due to my paralegal work in nuclear safety, engineering and reliability as well as my ongoing work as a journalist and blogger with Green Mountain Daily, I recently asked again to be on a press call and to receive press releases from NRC Region 1.  I had several recent emails with Region 1 spokesperson Neil Sheehan, who said, “This was an informational briefing for media outlets. As such, only reporters were on the call.”  And, “I’ll have to take a look at that web site. I’ve been doing this for 13 1/2 years and have never heard from a reporter for the Green Mountain Daily.”

Ironically even the media has been left out of this little NRC New Hampshire junket.  

You may remember that Sheehan is the same spokesperson who claimed that the leaking and crashing cooling towers were simply “more sagging, deformation in some of the wood.”

And that was the official line until actual images were posted by Phil Baruth on Vermont Daily Briefing.

 

If I knew how to post a PDF in full I would, but here is the whole letter cut and pasted.  Unfortunately the Agenda does not format correctly:

UNITED STATES

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

REGION I

475 ALLENDALE ROAD

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA 19406-1415

SUBJECT: U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION, REGION I

VERMONT YANKEE GOVERNMENT-TO-GOVERNMENT MEETING

Dear:

You are cordially invited to attend a government-to-government meeting among the U. S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); representatives of various Vermont, New Hampshire

and Massachusetts state agencies; and Federal and local government officials from the

communities surrounding the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. At this meeting, NRC will

discuss its independent inspection of Entergy’s groundwater initiative program and the NRC’s

review, to date, of the activities related to the recent tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee site.

The NRC is providing this information in advance of the public release of its inspection report on

this subject to better equip government stakeholders to answer questions they may receive from their constituents. The meeting will be limited to elected officials, or their staff, to best facilitate an open and courteous discussion and will not be open to the public or the media.

The meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, at the

Keene Country Club, located at 755 West Hill Road in Keene, NH. Prior to the meeting, the

NRC will host an informational poster board session from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Registration

will begin at 5:30 p.m. Staff from the NRC’s Region I office will present information on the

NRC’s independent inspection activities and assessment of Entergy’s groundwater investigation. The NRC has also invited our federal partners from the Environmental Protection

Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be present to answer questions

pertinent to their agencys’ mission. A preliminary agenda is enclosed.

Please RSVP, by April 5, 2010, by sending the enclosed form via e-mail to Nancy McNamara at

Nancy.McNamara@nrc.gov or by faxing the completed form to (610) 337-5349. This form may

also be used to provide preliminary questions in advance of the meeting. Please indicate on

your registration form if you will attend in person or send a member of your staff selected in your place. Based on the number of invitees and limited space, we respectfully request that you limit participation to two individuals.

2

We look forward to meeting with you on April 14. If you have any questions about our planned

meeting, please contact Nancy McNamara at (610) 337-5337.

Enclosures: As Stated

Sincerely,.

Darrell J. Robe ,Director

Division of Reactor Safety

US NRC GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNMENT MEETING

April 14, 2010, 6:00 p.rn. – 9:00 p.m.

AGENDA

5:30 – 6:30     Registration

6:00 – 6:30     Poster Board Information Session

6:30 – 6:40     Welcome

               Meeting Structure

6:40 – 6:50     Nuclear Engineering Institute

               Ground Water Initiative

6:50-7:10       Vermont Yankee Groundwater Program

7:10 -7:30      Q&A

7:30 -7:45      Break

7:45 – 8:20     Vermont Yankee Groundwater      

                  Contamination

8:20-8:30       NRC Ongoing Activities

8;30-9:00       Closing Remarks

9:00 – 9:30     Staff Available for Questions

Staff available for Questions:

John White

James Noggle

Darrell Roberts

For the sake of the children, let’s not balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.  If we are looking at this as strictly a money issue, the purported $200,000 savings that will deny children and families vital social services will end up costing society and taxpayers much more in the long run.  

In an article in yesterday’s Brattleboro Reformer, Howard Weiss-Tisman detailed the impact to child and youth care services if the state’s projected budget cuts go through.

Windham Childcare Association Executive Director Sadie Fischesser traveled to Montpelier last week to try to save 12 financial assistance counseling positions across the state.

At the same time social services agencies across the state are crying out for support, Governor Douglas touted a new plan involving technologies that take the human factor out of human services.

I have been a Vermont foster parent, and I continue to work on legal cases involving children.  The families with whom I work need the one-on-one connection with a counselor.  They need support and direction.  

The change is expected to save about $200,000 and Fischesser said the change would set back early child care.

“To make the system work families have to know how to access funding,” Fischesser said.

The state has already eliminated some positions and opened up a phone bank for other services, but Fischesser said there have been problems.

I know there are problems.  One of my cases this year involves a grandmother and her 3-year-old granddaughter.  Getting any social services aid has been challenging.  Getting legal help was impossible since Have Justice Will Travel lost its grant in the southern part of the state.  If some of my clients have a cell phone, they certainly do not have the money to stay on hold indefinitely and with their hourly-wage jobs actually have no time to call let alone understand the maze of systems one must negotiate to get counseling, assistance, and necessary court representation.  People need real one-on-one assistance and direction, not an automated system that takes that help one step further away.

While families are crying in need, the Governor Promotes Dept for Children and Families’ New Benefits Center.

According to the Douglas administration press release

Waterbury, VT- Governor Jim Douglas is encouraging Vermonters to use the Department for Children and Families’ (DCF) new Benefits Service Center and interactive website to access benefits such as 3SquaresVT (formerly food stamps), fuel assistance, health insurance, and phone assistance.

“You can call 1-800-479-6151 or go to myBenefits.vt.gov to find out about available benefits, track your application, and access information about your case,” said Governor Douglas. “And you can do all this when it’s most convenient for you – during the day, at night, or on weekends. Starting in June of this year, you will also be able to apply for benefits online.”

The counselors meet with parents who are trying to access different state programs, and the Douglas administration has suggested replacing the counselors with a phone bank.

The clients I see and talk to need more not less.  More service now means that a child is well cared for, has adequate food and housing and is therefore able to focus and learn in school.  I spent almost 10 years teaching teenagers who seemed unable to succeed academically.  In every case, something happened to them in elementary school so that these children did not learn to read.  As they got older they acted out and many had significant disciplinary issues.  Teaching them to read changed their lives, even those who had some trouble with the law.  

If we don’t look at the morality of taking away vital services from innocent children, then let’s look at the tax burden of fighting crime.  Incarceration costs $75,000 for every woman and $45,000 for every man.  My five years as a newspaper journalist and police reporter showed the revolving door.  Investing our tax dollars now in vital family services to our most vulnerable will save significant money later.  The Governor likes to be seen as tough on crime.  How tough is it to cut vital services and set up a pattern that will most likely drive people further into a hand to mouth existence.  Cutting one-on-one support, changing it to internet and phone banking makes these services out of reach to those who need them most.

I debated writing this post separately or including it in the open thread which already has some IRV comments here http://greenmountaindaily.com/…

I find IRV to be a confusing and debatable issue with adamant people on both sides of the issue. No matter what questions I’ve asked no one has clearly articulated exactly how it works, that is until I read Sunday’s Burlington Free Press My Turn by Burlington High School math teacher Andrew Mack.

I am not a candidate nor an office holder. I am simply your neighbor. One of the subjects I teach covers various nonweighted (each votes counts the same) voting methods: plurality, plurality with elimination (aka instant runoff, or IRV), Borda Count (used for the Heisman Trophy, among other applications), Condorcet (aka pairwise) and variations on these. The overall conclusion of this examination is represented by Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, which states that no voting system satisfies all fairness criteria. For fun and by way of demonstration, our textbook has a sample election with preferential ballots formulated so that each of these methods produces a different winner.

Andrew has a well-written explanation that walks the reader through the election process step-by-step.  Read it here.  After a lengthy description, which one should read, Andrew says

…detailed study finds IRV to be the more fair method. The candidate with a majority of voter approval wins. More civil and intelligent debate informs the campaign. The “instant” feature ensures that the highest number of voters will decide the election. So why do some hold IRV in disfavor? Because IRV favors that ideological position which is in the majority. Those who object generally hold the less favorable view.

Today WDEV radio host Mark Johnson and Seven Days Columnist Shay Totten had an interesting discussion regarding IRV on Mark’s morning show.  You may want to listen to the podcast as a follow-up to insight regarding Burlington politics.  It will be interesting to see how today’s votes split.

More from Andrew – read his whole My Turn here.

So it is left to decide which system works best for the election being held. For elections to office, the two main contenders are plurality (most votes wins) and plurality with elimination (IRV). Our text states, “In spite of its frequent usage, the plurality method has several flaws and is generally considered a very poor method of choosing the winner of an election among several candidates.”

According to Terri Hallenbeck of the Burlington Free Press, House Speaker Shap Smith said Friday that the House may vote about the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant following the town meeting break. See BFP

“We may vote on continued operation,” said Smith, D-Morristown. “If there is a vote from both bodies that they believe Vermont Yankee should not continue to operate, that's a pretty clear indication there will not be continued operation.”

 

While some Republicans and Governor Douglas have attempted to paint the legislative push against relicensing Yankee as some type of partisan bickering on the part of the Democratically controlled legislature or the proclivity of gubernatorial candidates, it is clear that such statements are simply last ditch efforts on the part of the lame-duck Douglas administration.

This lame-duck administration is clearly out of touch with the interests of the general public and most of its legislators, as well as Vermont's own statutorily mandated guidelines established in 2008 regarding the public trust water resource statute.

According to Jon Groveman legal counsel for VNRC, “In 2008, the Vermont Legislature passed, and Governor Douglas signed, a bill declaring groundwater to be a public trust resource.” see public trust

House Natural Resources Chairman Tony Klein, a Democrat and Vice Chair Republican Joe Krawczyk are showing real statesmanship by working together to craft bi-partisan legislation that protects Vermont's environmental resources as well as protecting Vermont against the economic repercussions of Entergy's poor operation of Vermont Yankee.

Meanwhile, House Natural Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, said he and Krawczyk are crafting a bipartisan decommissioning bill that would force Vermont Yankee to set up two trusts: one to restore the site to greenfield status by 2022; and the other to cover the cost of waste management at the site. Krawczyk said he's pushing the legislation to prevent Vermont taxpayers from having to pay for cleaning up the plant when it shuts down. “I don't want to see one Vermont penny go into that thing. It's up to Entergy to get the money into the decommissioning fund,” he said,

according to Neal Goswami, Bennington Banner: istockanalyst. 

The House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy has been rigorous in taking critical environmental testimony.  Much of this testimony may be viewed on Anne Galloway's recently created Vermont Digger.

• Kamps on video: NRC, nuclear industry have leak-first-fix-later philosophy – http://vtdigger.org/2010/02/02/kamps-on-video-nrc-nuclear-industry-have-leak-first-fix-later-philosophy/ Clean energy at what cost?
• Algonquin leader questions nuclear industry’s uranium mining practices – http://vtdigger.org/2010/01/29/clean-energy-at-what-cost-algonquin-leader-questions-nuclear-industrys-uranium-mining-practices/
• Irwin on video: We cannot rule out that there is tritium in the Connecticut River; we just cannot measure it – http://vtdigger.org/2010/02/10/irwin-on-video-we-cannot-rule-out-that-there-is-tritium-in-the-connecticut-river-we-just-cannot-measure-it/

According to an Atlanta Journal Constitution article by Dave Gram,

Vermont utility regulators will consider revoking the operating license of the state’s lone nuclear plant, as well as the less drastic step of a temporary shutdown while a leak of radioactive material at the plant is found and stopped.

See whole story here:  http://www.ajc.com/business/st…

In other news the source of the leak may have been found according to the Rutland Herald.  

By the way, this is the system Arnie wrote to DPS and Entergy about on Aug 13, and what now fired Entergy employee and legislative liaison Dave McElwee said did not exist.  The same Dave McElwee seen on the iamvy promotional website now removed.

See A Chronicle of Issues Regarding Buried Tanks and Underground Piping at VT Yankee on the JFO website:  http://www.leg.state.vt.us/JFO…  

The Department of Health announced this morning that a “substantial crack” had been uncovered in underground pipes during excavations this morning at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor that might to be a source of the tritium leak at the plant.

According to a brief posting on the Rutland Herald.

“This finding is good visual evidence of a possible pathway from the AOG (advanced off-gas) pipe tunnel into the earth and groundwater,” the Department of Health morning update stated.

Finally, both the Rutland Herald and VT Digger are reporting the presence of Cesium 137, Maganese and Zinc according to the Department of Health, although there is no update of this fact on their website.  On January 21, 2010, Arnie notified DPS to expect other isotopes other than tritium.  He has also requested that they search for Strontium 90.