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(09) December 2011 -- Brattleboro, Vermont. As a decision looms in Vermont District Federal Court on Entergy v. Vermont, the New England Coalition (NEC) is expressing grave concern about continued operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, one of the oldest nuclear reactors in the world and a twin of Japan's catastrophically damaged Fukushima Unit 1 "Regardless of the decision, either side is likely to appeal, and absent a stay Entergy's Vermont Yankee (VY) plant may well continue to operate past the scheduled March 21, 2012 closing date for the duration of the higher court reviews, which the State Legislature has already determined not to be in our best interests," New England Coalition (NEC) Legal Counsel Jared Margolis said. "VY's continued operation past the scheduled close intensifies our job -- advocating for nuclear safety, enforcement of NRC regulation, and environmental protection through the legal, regulatory, and civil channels -- especially since each day brings more revelations about what is still going so terribly wrong at VY's twin in Fukishima," NEC President Ned Childs said. Raymond Shadis, NEC Senior Technical Advisor who has tracked safety concerns in the operation, regulation and decommissioning Northeast reactors for more than 30 years, said "Entergy Vermont Yankee is entering the most dangerous period in its operational history because of the following factors: Vermont Yankee is being run at 120% of its original licensed thermal capacity increasing both the likelihood of a major accident and the probability of a meltdown should an accident occur. Pushing an old plant to this level strains internal reactor components such as the steam dryer, high energy piping, reactor vessel nozzles, and core components and produces 20% more decay heat for already marginally performing containment systems to contain and heat removal systems to shed in order to prevent a meltdown. Critical components are reaching the end of their design life and will continue to break with increasing frequency. The nuclear industry argues that economic considerations and not plant design life determined the term of their original license. Maybe, but major plant components were then ordered specifying design life approximately equal to term of license. Vermont Yankee's reactor vessel, for example, was initially certified for 40 years and no more. Its cooling towers were designed for 50 years of service but have already begun to crumble." Entergy Vermont Yankee is being operated in non-compliance with NRC General Design Criteria, such as placing components in environments for which they are not designed. At Vermont Yankee, non-qualified, safety-related electrical cables have been allowed in underground routings where they have been and may be in the future, submerged in water. Both of these factors played heavily in the Fukushima meltdown scenarios. Future weather events and flooding can be expected to exacerbate this critical problem." An increasing rate of equipment failures suggests that a financially pressed management is skimping on quality control, corrective actions and maintenance. Entergy reports that for the last three years electricity revenues have barely met operation and maintenance expenses. A series of reactor power control and heat removal system failures over the last few years point to Entergy cutting corners. Entergy has told shareholders that NRC mandated post-Fukushima modifications may bring substantial costs as yet unaccounted for in its projected post-2012 earnings. And, if NEC and the State of Vermont prevail in a Clean Water Act complaint that New York State has just joined, Entergy may be forced to use its own cooling systems rather than the Connecticut River to cool down the plant, a move Entergy has said may cost as much as $1 million daily. Entergy's tightfisted and dangerous approach to maintenance is evidence that a tired, worn, and antiquated nuclear plant cannot be operated both profitably and safely. Entergy Vermont Yankee employees are stressed and underperforming in areas related to public safety. Faulty maintenance and repair work, poor quality control, abbreviated extent of condition review, supervision failures and poor interdepartmental coordination have led to a series of component and performance failures which seem to be increasing in frequency. In March 2011, Entergy attorneys told the NRC that delay in issuing the renewed license (regulatory uncertainty) was causing VY employees to lose morale and was negatively affecting Entergy's ability to hire or retain qualified personnel. A few years earlier, a Pilgrim Nuclear Station employees union filed a petition for leave to intervene before NRC in opposition to an Entergy move to reorganize and consolidate its nuclear fleet. Pilgrim workers said that they did not want Pilgrim to become contaminated with Vermont Yankee's "poor safety culture." The parallels between the Fukushima meltdown and potential problems at its Vermont Yankee twin have not been adequately addressed. Fukushima proves that simple flooding of below-grade systems and components are enough to pitch vital reactor systems into blackout and trigger the slide to meltdown. Accident mitigation systems similar to those at Vermont Yankee did not perform their intended function at Fukushima. Vermont Yankee, like Fukushima Unit 1, depends on a complicated and relatively fragile suppression containment system that was outmoded even before construction of VY was completed. Like Fukushima, VY stores used, irradiated fuel in elevated spent fuel pools subject to leaks, loss-of-cooling, terrorist attack, aircraft impact, and seismic failure. VY's spent fuel pool differs only in that it has been packed to more than four times its original design capacity." NEC has joined with over 30 other groups nationally to call for the immediate retiring of all 23 Fukushima-type GE Boiling Water Reactors because of inherent design flaws long recognized by the industry." NRC safety oversight, though it is needed more than ever at VY, continues to degrade. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, never a strong regulator, has come under increasing fire from advocacy groups, committees of Congress, the U.S. General Accountability Office, and the Agency's own Office of Inspector General for weaknesses and failures in enforcing its regulations; and for failure to act promptly on lessons from the Fukushima accident. NRC's Chairman admitted recently that the agency lacked sufficient qualified personnel even to review license renewal applications in a timely fashion." "New England Coalition went to bat in support of the State in the federal preemption case, both monitoring the trial and filing Amicus Curiae briefs," said Childs. "Now that the word "safety," pivotal in the preemption case, is no longer taboo, we have invited the state to join us in vigorous advocacy of nuclear public and environmental safety through a variety of channels. NRC will only fully enforce its regulations if they are made aware that the state, members of congress, the news media and knowledgeable public advocates, like NEC, are watching." - END - NEW ENGLAND COALITION organized and founded in 1971 in Brattleboro, VT, has engaged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee in a non-stop legal and civil contest since 2001 and that continues in 2011: Entergy v. VT (Federal Preemption claimed by Entergy case) , NEC and State of Vermont v. NRC (NRC should rescind their approval of Entergy's license renewal application (LRA). Vermont Yankee has not applied for or received state water impact certification - which are a prerequisite for NRC approval of the license renewal). NEC is the region's sole advocate for environmental and nuclear safety with intervenor status in the Seabrook Station federal relicensing process and is an intervenor in two open dockets before the Vermont Public Service Board Docket 7440 -- Shall Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee receive a CPG for an additional 20 years of operation and less widely reported Docket 7600 which resulted from an action brought by Conservation Law Foundation regarding the tritium leaks at VY. |