The release raises questions about statements by Entergy Corp. that strontium-90 found in a fish sample taken from the adjacent Connecticut River did not come from the Vernon reactor.
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant as seen from the Hinsdale, N.H., side of the Connecticut River.By DAVE GRAM
MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant reported releases of a radioactive substance into the environment several times in the years immediately after the plant's current owner bought it in 2002, an Associated Press review of Nuclear Regulatory Commission records has found.
That raises questions about statements by Entergy Corp. this week that strontium-90 found in a fish sample taken from the adjacent Connecticut River did not come from the Vernon reactor.
The state Health Department says the levels found in the fish are consistent with background levels caused by nuclear bomb testing decades ago and the Chernobyl accident in 1986, and that there's no way to trace the radioactivity found in smallmouth bass caught in the river to Vermont Yankee.
But in at least one of the quarters in each year from 2002 to 2005, Vermont Yankee told the NRC in its annual report on radioactive leaks that it had released some strontium-90, a radioactive substance linked to cancer and leukemia.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said Thursday that the samples from fish caught in June 2010 and announced this week by the state were taken 9 miles north of Vermont Yankee, while fish taken from the river nearer the plant did not show strontium-90.
"Entergy remains firm in its conclusion that Vermont Yankee operations cannot be linked to the recent identification of (strontium-90) in fish tissue from a fish sample obtained" by the state, Smith said.
The reports to the NRC of releases nearly a decade ago are giving ammunition to nuclear critics who suspect that Vermont Yankee is the source for at least some of the strontium-90 in fish. The Vermont Health Department announced this week that the substance had been found in nine of 13 "non-edible" fish samples — meaning bone, head, scales and guts —and also had turned up in one edible sample from the river.
The news quickly took on political overtones. Gov. Peter Shumlin issued a statement Tuesday saying Entergy was "putting their shareholders' profits above the welfare of Vermonters." He followed that Wednesday with comments at a news conference in which he said he would not eat fish caught in the Connecticut River near the plant.
Republicans replied that the Democratic governor's comments would hurt the state and harm tourism by discouraging fishing in the river.
Smith said there was "absolutely no evidence to suggest that Vermont Yankee is the source for the strontium-90."
Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight for the Maryland-based anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said Thursday that, "The evidence is in the fact that they reported the strontium-90 releases" in each of the first four years Entergy owned the plant. He accused the company of "hiding behind" fallout from the bomb testing in the 1950s and '60s as the source of the positive reading in the fish samples.
Smith noted that strontium had not shown up in groundwater testing wells installed at Vermont Yankee after another radioactive substance, tritium, was discovered leaking from the reactor in late 2009.
Gunter replied that radioactive substances tend to build up in living tissue over time, so amounts too small to register on testing equipment could migrate to the river and end up collecting in fish. Larger fish eat smaller ones and pick up strontium-90 they absorbed by eating yet smaller organisms, he said.
Richard Conatser, a health physicist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an interview Thursday that the sorts of strontium-90 releases reported by Vermont Yankee in the early 2000s were "kind of rare. We don't see this all the time. We see this every once in a while at generally very low values."
William Irwin, radiological health chief with the Vermont Health Department, said it was possible strontium-90 from Vermont Yankee could have turned up in the river, but unlikely the plant was the main source of the substance. He said the releases in 2002-2005 may have stemmed from faulty nuclear fuel that was shipped to some power plants.