VERNON — Control room operators began removing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station from service on Saturday night to begin its 29th refueling and maintenance outage.
The refueling, which will cost $92 million, including labor, maintenance and fuel, involves replacing about one-third of the plant's fuel rods, or about 116 assemblies.
Fuel rods must be replaced every 18 months, and spent fuel rods are stored at the plant.
Workers will also perform various maintenance activities, tests, and inspections on plant equipment that runs throughout the operating cycle. Nearly 1,000 additional workers will be brought in from around the country, according to a press release from the plant's owner, Louisiana-based Entergy Corp.
Plant officials said the shutdown marks “the completion of the plant's 29th operating cycle in which the plant again demonstrated its value as a safe and reliable electricity supplier to New England consumers.”
But, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit now in U.S. District Court, it could be the last refueling cycle for the 38-year-old plant.
Attorneys for Entergy filed suit against Vermont in federal court in April. The corporation claimed the state's regulation of VY infringed on the authority of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as the sole regulator of nuclear safety.
Entergy purchased the 38-year-old nuclear plant in Vernon in 2002. The plant needs a federal-issued license and a state-issued Certificate of Public Good (CPG) to operate in Vermont.
VY's current federal operating license expires March 2012. In March, the NRC renewed the license so the plant can run until 2032.
Last year, however, under Act 160, the state Senate voted 26-4 to deny VY a CPG hearing, effectively closing the plant's docket before the PSB.
During trial testimony last month in Brattleboro for the federal lawsuit, the state's legal team claimed that a host of different concerns unrelated to nuclear safety issues - such as a deep mistrust of Entergy and misstatements by employees about the existence of underground pipes that leaked tritium into groundwater - motivated the Legislature to vote against VY's continued operation.
Entergy made the decision to go ahead with the refueling despite U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha's ruling in July to deny the corporation a preliminary injunction to keep VY open while the lawsuit wends its way through the federal court system.
In his ruling, Murtha wrote that Entergy failed to make the case that it would suffer irreparable harm if it had to delay the refueling outage while waiting for the case to be resolved.
Murtha wrote that the decision to refuel is “a business decision made very difficult by the uncertainties of litigation.”
It is not, however, harmful, he wrote, “if Entergy prevails on the merits, or it is not a cognizable injury if Vermont's statutes are upheld. This may present a dilemma, but it does not constitute irreparable harm that can be resolved by a preliminary injunction.”
Company officials sought the preliminary injunction because they said they didn't want to buy more fuel unless they could use it.
The decision to go ahead with the refueling was seen as a sign that Entergy believes it has a good chance of winning the lawsuit, either on pre-emption grounds or on the merits of the case.
If Entergy wins on a factual or pre-emption basis, and the court grants a permanent injunction, then the state can appeal the case at the Second Circuit Court in New York City.