Radioactive tritium has been discovered in a well that monitors groundwater flow from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant near Brattleboro, and in a concrete trench at the plant. (Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen; it's the element that gives exit signs their luminescence, and is harmful if ingested.) The government has designated 20,000 picocuries per liter as the safe level of tritium in water; over 22,000 have been found in the well and 50 to 100 times that much in the trench.
That first discovery prompted three Vermont Congressmen, Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch, to write the Nuclear Regulatory Commission demanding an inquiry as to whether the plant's owners, Entergy of Louisiana, had given Vermont regulators false information about the possibility of such leaks, because plant spokesmen had said earlier that the plant had no underground pipes that could carry radioactive contamination into groundwater.
The Congressmen demanded that the NRC "undertake an immediate and thorough investigation to determine if there was an attempt by Entergy to mislead state officials regarding the plant's safety and underground piping. Please also determine," they added, "whether information provided by Entergy to the NRC has been accurate, complete, and consistent with that provided to the State of Vermont. We hope you can pinpoint exactly what Entergy knew about the extent of their underground piping and this leak, and when they knew it."
The tritium showed up as the Vermont Legislature is supposed to be preparing for a vote on whether to allow Entergy to have the plant's operating license extended from its originally planned shutdown date of 2012 for an additional 20 years, to 2032. The company said no tritium had been found in private wells or in the Connecticut River nearby. But the tritium leak is one of a number of accidents during recent years that call into question Entergy's ability to operate the plant safely. Another accident at this time could certainly be seen as setting the stage for a negative vote, but the jurisdictional situation with regard to the plant is more complicated than that.
The NRC's right to make decisions about the safety of nuclear power plants is so categorical that the Legislature must base its debate and vote on other issues. That's because there is a possibility that the NRC, which so far has looked favorably on the license extension, might pre-empt the state's vote if it were a No vote based on the safety question. It might be too much to say legislators are under a gag order when it comes to the safety issue, but the situation certainly requires discretion. As Tony Klein, chairman of the Vermont House of Representatives' Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, told the Advocate, "The Legislature never discusses safety. We only discuss reliability issues."
