Leak at Vermont nuclear plant
Yet more troubles for the already-troubled Vermont Yankee nuclear plant: an 18-inch crack is found a fiberglass cooling tower pipe — the second crack in the same pipe; since the beginning of the year, the plant has experienced several accidents, among them a tritium leak and a leak of Strontium-90 into the neighboring soil and ground water; the leaks were found in an examination which was part of the plant’s request for a 20-year extension of its operating license
The 2007 collapse of a Vermont Yankee cooling tower // Source: sfbayview.com
Officials have found an 18-inch crack in a fiberglass cooling tower pipe at the troubled Vermont’s Yankee nuclear reactor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) confirms. A spokesman for the NRC says a second crack has developed at another location along the same pipe and water is leaking, UPI reports.
The disclosure of the two cracks in the large distribution pipe at the facility’s east cooling tower follows the rebuilding of two towers over the past three years by Entergy, the company which operates the plant. Entergy spokesman Larry Smith says the two leaks are spilling about ten gallons a minute into the Connecticut River.
The NRC and Entergy held a public meeting at Brattleboro Union High School to discuss the leak Tuesday evening.
Legislative leaders and the Vermont Department of Health are urging Entergy to replace all underground pipes with above-ground systems that are easier to monitor.
Boston.com John Curran reports that the plant has been troubles by a myriad of accidents in the past few months. Thus, after pumping out 130,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater, removing 240 cubic feet of tainted soil, and spending about $10 million responding to a leak of radioactive tritium, Vermont Yankee officials said yesterday it will be at least three months before the cleanup is complete.
They say, though, that there is no evidence the isotope made it into drinking water supplies and that samples of water from the neighboring Connecticut River continue to show no detectable tritium levels.
Representatives of the troubled nuclear power plant and corporate parent Entergy Corp. released the results of an in-house analysis performed after the 7 January revelation of the leak of tritium — a carcinogen that has been found at dozens of the nation’s nuclear reactors.
It blamed the leak on a design flaw in the 38-year-old plant, leftover insulation from a construction job that prevented contaminated water from being collected properly, and a separate pipe added to the plant in 1978 that created a pathway allowing the water to seep into soil.
The report by Vermont Yankee, which was to be delivered to state regulators yesterday, also pointed the finger at the plant’s own management for not fully implementing groundwater protection measures recommended by the nuclear industry, which it said might have prevented or identified the tritium leak quicker.
The tritium leak at Vermont Yankee came as plant owners sought permission for a 20-year extension that would allow the 650-megawatt plant to continue operating past 2012, when it is scheduled to close.
Following the revelation, Vermont lawmakers — in a vote of no confidence — passed a resolution to block the plant from operating past 2012.
Curran writes that last month, plant officials revealed that while cleaning up tritium, they found evidence of a more potent radioactive isotope, strontium-90, in soil near where the leak occurred. Strontium-90 has been linked to cancer.
On 29 May they revealed another leak after finding and fixing it. That one, which was vapor and water containing 13 different radioactive substances, was found coming from a pipe in a hole workers dug to find the source of an earlier leak.
