VERNON — Entergy representatives met with the Selectboard at its Feb. 15 meeting to clarify the impact of tritium leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
Board members of the plant's home town, whose residents overwhelmingly stood in favor of the plant at last year's Annual Town Meeting, found themselves reassured.
“Tritium is found in water everywhere in small amounts,” said John Dreyfuss, then the director of nuclear safety assurance at the plant who was removed from his duties and placed on administrative leave Feb. 24. [See related story this issue.]
Dreyfuss explained that tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of 12 years, exists as a natural part of background radiation and is found in everyday objects like illuminated exit signs. When combined with oxygen, tritium acts like water.
“It is water,” he said, though according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, this radioactive tritiated water “is chemically identical to normal water, and the tritium cannot be filtered out of the water."
Entergy continues testing wells at the plant, on the property of residents of Governor Hunt Road, and at the school. Public health is Entergy's “top mission,” and the plant would close if the tritium levels became dangerous, said Dreyfuss. “We remain far, far below any levels that would shut down the facility.”
Emergency Preparedness Manager Mike McKenney added that the plant has conducted weekly sampling of the wells in town as well as on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut.
“We are getting closer to the source,” Dreyfuss said of the elusive leak.
Alleviated concerns
After the representatives left, Selectboard members expressed their personal opinions. Board members agreed that company employees answered questions and alleviated concerns.
“It's not a doomsday issue,” said Selectboard member Lynda Starorypinski, comparing the tritium issue to the spate of publicity in the 1990s over health effects from the natural radioactive gas radon.
Chair Mike Ball, by day a senior engineer at the plant, said he received calls from three community members concerned about dropping property values as well as calls from The New York Times and news crews from two Burlington television stations, WFFF and WCAX. Another Pond Road resident told Ball he had started drinking bottled water.
Starorypinski said she had had a recent conversation with an individual involved in the January Safe and Green Campaign's Step It Up march to Montpelier. The individual told her the march was intended to convince people north of Montpelier that the plant needs to be shut down.
“All we're looking for is for people to be educated,” said Ball.
Ball and Starorypinski said people should start by getting their information from more than one source. The Selectboard has posted links to the Vermont Department of Health's investigation into tritium at VY on the Selectboard's site, www.vernonvt.org.
Individuals can also review information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in public documents about the plant kept at the Vernon Library.
Entergy's property accounts for 54 percent of the town's tax base, according to a document issued by the town during a January press conference in Montpelier, where Ball joined Emily Andrews (the daughter of Assistant Fire Chief Dave Andrews, an Entergy employee) and Mike Hebert (chair of Vernon School Board) to voice the town's official collective support.
That official support was determined by a discussion at the 2009 Annual Town Meeting, which resulted in the town contracting with lobbyists William S. Smith III and Edward A. Miller Jr. The town has paid $10,000 for the duo to advocate in the state legislature for the continued operation of the plant on behalf of the town and its citizens.