BRATTLEBORO - There appears to be some fuzzy math, or at least some fuzzy logic, at the state Health Department. Health Commissioner Sharon Moffatt has enthusiastically endorsed a third-party conclusion that Vermont Yankee has never exceeded state radiation limits - a reversal of the department's own 2004 findings - even though there has been no formal rule change to support the study. In a report released March 12, consultant Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) found "no indication (or statistically significant evidence) that the annual dose objective at the site boundary ... has been exceeded." A Health Department press release the same day trumpeted the ORAU findings as a validation of the way Vermont Yankee measures radiation emitted from the plant, and declared that the report "resolves" the discrepancy. " The report concludes that the past 35 years of site boundary exposure measurements by the Health Department overestimated the actual radiation dose," Moffatt said in the press release. " ... Using the measurement methodology supported by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the measurements of site boundary doses have been compliant with regulatory limits." It's unclear why Moffatt so quickly endorsed the ORAU method, which differs significantly from the state's. Her departments must make rule changes through the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR), a specific process that involves bipartisan legislative public scrutiny. An aide said the commissioner was out of state at a conference on Wednesday and not available to clarify her comments. The department's radiological health chief, William Irwin, told The Commons that any changes "would have to be worked out in a logical fashion" that was likely to include public hearings. Windham County Sens. Jeanette White and Peter Shumlin said earlier this week that they were wary of the ORAU report. White, a member of both the Senate Health and Welfare and Government Operations committees, said she planned to question the department more closely about it. ORAU based its findings on the way Vermont Yankee measures radiation, which is different than the way the state measures it. ORAU said state regulations oversimplify the process, "thereby causing confusion and the likelihood of misunderstanding between regulatory compliance and the means to actually achieve it." ORAU was hired by the state, and paid for by Vermont Yankee, after the Health Department's monitors registered radiation levels of 24.9 millirem during the final quarter of 2004. Vermont's annual limit is 20 millirem per year, but the state also allows an error margin of 25 percent. Vermont Yankee has maintained its emissions have always stayed below the state limit. The discrepancy stems from the different ways radiation is measured at the Vernon plant. Vermont Yankee operators use a meter on the plant's main steam line to measure radiation in roentgen. They divide the roentgen measurement by .71, to determine rem. A rem is a unit of ionizing radiation equal to the amount that produces the same damage to humans as one roentgen of high-voltage X-rays. A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem. VY spokesman Rob Williams said they employ the conversion factor "because it's accepted scientific practice." He said the ORAU report "confirms that the method we've been using is the appropriate method." The state collects data quarterly from a series of dosimeters posted at or near the fence. Other dosimeters positioned around the county are used to determine natural background radiation, which is then factored into the state's calculations. State and VY officials met behind closed doors with ORAU consultants for more than a year in an effort to resolve the discrepancy, which was critical to Vermont Yankee's plan to increase power output at the plant by 20 percent. The uprate, which was implemented in March 2006, was expected to increase radiation emissions by 26 percent. Plant operators installed a shield on the main steam line to help reduce radiation emissions. However, casks installed at the site to warehouse radioactive spent fuel are also expected to increase radiation emissions. " It all comes down to them trying to make this dirty reactor run, and it's putting out radiation that they can't control," said Ed Anthes of Dummerston, a member of the group Nuclear Free Vermont in 2012. "... They don't know how to contain the radiation, so all they can say is it won't hurt you - much." Anthes cited a 2005 report by a National Academy of Sciences panel that concluded that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. "The report says every little bit hurts. We should reduce exposure and we should eliminate the generation of radioactive wastes by Vermont Yankee," he said. Neither members of the press nor members of the public were allowed to attend the ORAU meetings out of concern that their presence would "impede the free flow of information between the parties," according to one participant. Ultimately, ORAU consultants determined that Vermont Yankee's calculation was more scientifically valid than the state's. Using VY's calculation, ORAU determined that the 2004 radiation emissions were 18.64 millirem. Vermont's 20-millirem limit is among the strictest in the country, 5 millirem lower than the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Vermont's standard was set decades ago, the result of extensive public participation, according to anti-nuclear activist Diana Sidebotham, president of the New England Coalition, an anti-nuclear group. Even ORAU acknowledged that using the department's existing method, there was an approximate exposure in 2004 of 26.25 millirem, a figure that exceeds both state and federal standards. " Using the state's 'one to one' roentgen to rem conversion, the fence line dose objective of 20 millirem would be exceeded," according to the report. But Health Department spokesman Robert Stirewalt said the state's 25 percent error margin eliminates any possibility that VY exceeded the limits "using current and past interpretations of measurement and regulation." By "current" he appeared to refer to the ORAU method. Stirewalt acknowledged that the state's "current radiological health regulations" specify that one rem is equal to one roentgen. He said the department "will change the current regulations through the administrative rule process which allows for public comment and a public hearing." Irwin said he plans to propose a comprehensive set of recommendations to the Legislature by the end of 2007 that will, for the most part, follow many of those set forth by ORAU. " But there would also be clear consideration of the original legislative intent of the regulations, the current interest of public health and any kind of representation of the comments of legislators and comments of the public," he said. "It's a process that's going to take some time."