Nuclear mattersTeams dispatched to inspect Vermont nuclear plant following Irene

Published 1 September 2011

Following the torrential rains from Hurricane Irene on Sunday, federal officials have dispatched inspection teams to examine the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to ensure that the plant has not been compromised; the plant has the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan which suffered a partial meltdown following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant // Source: safepowervt.org

Following the torrential rains from Hurricane Irene on Sunday, federal officials have dispatched inspection teams to examine the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to ensure that the plant has not been compromised.

The plant has the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan which suffered a partial meltdown following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami and residents fear that the plant could become a danger as it is thirty-nine years old and has been leaking trace amounts of radiation into the Connecticut River.Last month, the Vermont Department of Health confirmed that traces of radioactive tritium had been found in the river from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

“We have been tracking the plume of tritium-contaminated groundwater as it moves slowly toward the river, and this new finding confirms that tritium has traveled from the Yankee site to the Connecticut River,” Harry Chen, Vermont’s health commissioner.

In addition the Health Department recently reported that it had detected Strontium-90 in edible portions of fish caught nine miles upstream from the nuclear plant.

Peter Coffey, the deputy director of operations at Vermont Emergency Management, assured residents that there was no need to be concerned following the latest storm.

“The winds didn’t come up as were earlier predicted. They didn’t get any severe flooding there. Their biggest concern was the intakes of the water that comes into their cooling system from the Connecticut River with debris, and that has not happened,” Coffey said.

Vermont governor Peter Shumlin was similarly confident that the nuclear plant was not at risk from the historic floods that have hit the state following the storm.

In an interview, Governor Shumlin said, the nuclear plant was not a source of concern as it is far enough away from the Connecticut River. He added that there is no reason to shut down the facility, despite the fact that buildings across Vermont were being swept away by “raging waterways.”

 

Governor Shumlin reaffirmed his commitment to close the plant by 2012, and called it “an old, aging, leaking plant, run by a company that can’t seem to tell the truth.”

Teams from the Federal Emergency Management agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been sent to inspect the nuclear facility and confirm that all evacuation routes around the plant are clear.