The River and the Rhetoric--Who Speaks for the River

Protests On the Water

Connecticut River.  View from near my house.
My river runs through it.  It's not just their river.

The Sage Alliance is planning an anti-Vermont Yankee flotilla tomorrow on the Connecticut River.  The title of their rally is Our River Runs Through It: Flotilla and Rally to Stop VT Yankee Pollution   The opponents continue to assert, in word and action, that Vermont Yankee thermal pollution is killing the fish in the Connecticut River.

As a matter of fact, Arnie Gundersen has stated that there are only sixteen shad left in the Connecticut River.  My blog post about this statement: Hot Climate and Cold Fish: Gundersen's Debate Misstatements received over thirty comments.  Most of the comments told me that Gundersen was right and who was I to say that he was wrong?

Let's start with "Who am I to say Gundersen is wrong?" Well, I live a hop and skip from the river, which is more than Gundersen can say. More particularly, let's look at the people who claim to care about the Connecticut River.

Graphic from Watershed Council website

The Connecticut River Watershed Council

David Deen, a Vermont Legislator and river guide, is River Steward for the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.  Deen will be one of the key speakers at the anti-Vermont Yankee flotilla.  The Connecticut River Watershed Council paid for reports that claim that Vermont Yankee is "baking" the wildlife.  A report issued in August received much media attention. This article in the Brattleboro Reformer describes Deen going to Entergy offices with cookies, and trying to hand them the report.

Interestingly, only one media outlet, WCAX, included this quote from Deen about the report: "We are not saying that Entergy is in violation of their permit. But what we are saying is that the formula that the permit is based on, ANR is not collecting a critical piece of data," said David Deen of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.

I thank Adam Sullivan and WCAX for putting the Watershed Council's cookie-baking in context.  Entergy is not in violation of their permit.  The Watershed people just don't like the permit.

Who is the Connecticut River Watershed Council?

When I first heard of the Watershed Council, I thought it was a consortium of government entities that are affected by Connecticut River watershed issues. After all, watersheds cross county lines, township lines, state lines.  A council of government agencies is usually required to manage a watershed properly.  The title of this organization would lead a person toward that conclusion.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  This is an advocacy organization, like the Sierra Club or VPIRG.  Its name is as clever as VPIRG's name: Vermont Public Interest Research Group.  How many headlines have I read saying "Research Group says VY should close" (or words to that effect).  The "research group" was VPIRG, of course.  Naming an organization well can be a great advantage.

I should have guessed the Watershed Council was an advocacy group.  Deen is a River Steward with the group. Most government programs have "chairpersons" or "planning specialists."  They don't have River Stewards.  That's a title from Merry Olde England,  or maybe from Tolkien.

The Connecticut River Joint Commissions

Map of the Connecticut
From the Connecticut River Joint Commissions

In contrast, there is an official body concerned with Connecticut River watershed issues.  The Connecticut River Joint Commissions consists of legislative advisory bodies concerned with the Connecticut River. The Joint Commissions were set up by the New Hampshire and Vermont legislatures.  Fifty three Towns (in Vermont and New Hampshire) border on the Connecticut.

River management is divided into Local Committees, each responsible for understanding and advising on a section of the river. The selectmen of each town appoint up to two members of the Local Committee.  It is truly a citizen's advisory body, and does a great deal of planning.  For example, the Water Resources Management Plan provides significant guidance for many topics along the river.

The Connecticut River Join Commission holds meetings and work weekends.  It advises on permitting, boat safety, and non-point-source discharge concerns.



Who Speaks for the River?

The Watershed Council claims to speak for the Connecticut River. To some extent, it may.  It has paid staff, but it is also a volunteer group, and volunteer groups are important.  However, in this case, the group has become self-important, constantly attacking Vermont Yankee.  For example, the group claims that that the thermal plume from Vermont Yankee can be detected fifty miles downstream to Holyoke, Massachusetts. Considering that the river flows through Vernon Dam and is diverted to the Northfield Pumped Storage plant before getting to Holyoke, a thermal plume visible that far downstream is improbable, to say the least.

 The Watershed people paid for a study that claimed the plume was visible and the delta-T (temperature change) remained in the river fifty miles downstream. I find this study unconvincing, as it mixes critiques of computer models, dye-tests in the river, and measurements. It seems to claim the only thing that could be heating anything downriver is...the thermal plume from Vermont Yankee.  I admit, however, that I am not a hydrologist.

To me, the study looks like a mish-mash with an agenda. The only thing the study considers is the thermal plume from Vermont Yankee.  Any temperature change is because of the thermal plume from Vermont Yankee.  Pumped storage...not mentioned.  Evaporative cooling from the river...not mentioned. Sunny days, rainy days...not mentioned. Mt. Tom coal-fired plant upriver of Holyoke...not mentioned.  Vermont Yankee controls all. Or at least, it controls the entire hypothesis.  No alternate explanations need apply.

On the basis of this work, the group now acts as if it is a fact that thermal plumes can survive dams, pumping stations, pumped storage reservoirs, and fifty miles of river.  This is advocacy gone mad, in my opinion.

The Commission Speaks For Most of Us

In my opinion, the Watershed Council  group and its Stewards have their own agenda, which seems to have very little to do with what happens on the  Connecticut River.  On the other hand, the Connecticut River Joint Commissions are made up of local people who do not hold archaic titles. These people are far more likely to speak for the river, in my opinion.

And they speak for me.  After all, it's my river, too.

Sunny News about Fish and Vermont Yankee

All fish are radioactive. South Vermont fish, North Vermont fish, all fish.

The Vermont Department of Health (DOH) periodically tests radiation levels of fish in the Connecticut River. They always find background levels of radioactive strontium and cesium in the fish. Meanwhile, the opponents always say that Vermont Yankee contaminated the fish.

In the past two days, the DOH has announced test results of fish from the far north of Vermont, far from Vermont Yankee. The fish had the same level of radioactivity as the fish near the plant. Background levels.

The Northern Fish

Both the Brattleboro Reformer and the Burlington Free Press posted stories about the measurements of the northern fish.

Here's a quote from the Reformer: "The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."

....

"There's no danger in eating the fish," said Irwin. "Should we ever find that there are reasons to restrict diet from any sampling for any kind of radioactive or toxicological events, we would keep in mind different cultures have different diets."

(Bill Irwin is the radiological safety officer of the Vermont Department of Health)

In the Burlington Free Press, David Deen, a long-time foe of the plant acknowledged, however, that if future samples remain consistent, then Vermont Yankee officials were right that the plant was not the source of the strontium 90.

A Partial History of Fish Scares

Claiming radioactivity in the fish is due to the power plant is a well-worn tactic. In 2010, when strontium was detected in a fish from the Connecticut River, the nuclear opponents made this a centerpiece of their marches. Maggie Gundersen said that people should "throw the fish back" and not eat Connecticut River fish. Her husband, Arnie Gundersen, said they were finding radioactive fish near the plant but "blaming the bomb." In other words, he implied that Vermont Yankee was saying the fish had merely background radiation, but that was just a way to avoid acknowledging that it was Vermont Yankee's fault. My blog post It's the Nukes What Gets the Blame describes these events.

In 2011, there was another fish with strontium. Governor Shumlin said he wouldn't eat fish from the Connecticut River because of the strontium in this fish. Meanwhile the head of the Vermont Department of Health contradicted him, saying the fish was safe and the levels were low. I have a video of this press conference in the post That Strontium Fish in the Connecticut River. Later, Lochbaum and Markey weighed in on the side of the governor. I blogged about their assertions, also. They exaggerate.

Potassium and Strontium

In a wonderful guest post, Richard Schmidt compared the relative dangers of strontium, mercury, and naturally-radioactive potassium in the fish. In his post What is the Real Impact? Richard Schmidt on Strontium, Mercury and Potassium in Fish, Schmidt points out that 2 % of the radioactivity in the fish comes from strontium, and the rest comes from natural potassium.

Yesterday, the Brattleboro Reformer said pretty much the same thing. In the Reformer: In the same analyses, the fish had almost 500 times more potassium-40 in them than they do cesium-137, [Irwin] said. Potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioactive material that is in nearly everything and was created when the planet was formed billions of years ago, said Irwin.

In other words, the natural radioactivity in the fish swamps any man-made sources of radioactivity.

It is safe to eat the fish. The fish in the north of Vermont. The fish near the plant. All the fish.

The Bomb: Not Banned Soon Enough

Where did all that strontium come from? It came from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Fallout is real. Fallout measurements are not something a power plant "hides behind." Though the atmospheric test ban treaty in 1963 stopped most of bomb testing, there have been 2000 bomb tests.

On this video, you can see the accelerated rate of testing through the early 60s.

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Picture at the head of the post shows me approaching Blinky the fish outside a Public Service Board meeting in July 2010. I have the light-green top and black purse: Blinky has three eyes. Picture by Howard Shaffer, published in earlier blog post.

Carbon Dioxide and Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Plant Opponents and Climate Change

Let's talk a little about carbon dioxide.

1. Burning fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide leads to climate change.
2. Nuclear power produces only negligible amounts of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases.

Opponents of nuclear power are stuck with these facts about carbon dioxide, but they try to get around them. They want to have their cake (close nuclear!) and eat it as they wrap themselves in environmental nobility (stop climate change!) How do they do this?

• Few opponents will say carbon dioxide doesn't matter, because then they would be "climate change deniers" -- which is the wrong political party.
• Some opponents say that both nuclear and fossil should be and will be replaced very quicky by renewables, so the comparison is not important.
• Some say nuclear power cannot make much of a dent in the problem anyway, and the nuclear fuel cycle makes as much carbon dioxide as natural gas.

Gundersen: A Little Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Matter

At the January Janus Forum debate at UVM, Arnie Gundersen took a different approach than the ones I outlined above. He discussed nuclear plants (Vermont Yankee) and climate change. Here is what Gundersen said in January.

Gundersen's argument is that nuclear plants have poorer Carnot efficiency than fossil plants and therefore heat up the rivers more, which is bad for the fish. He claims that Vermont Yankee heated the river and decreased the shad in the Connecticut from 70,000 fish to 16 fish. Therefore, the little bit of global warming we would get if we replaced Vermont Yankee with fossil power does not matter very much. He claims we will save the river, even if we hurt the climate a tiny bit.

Actually, there are far more than 16 shad in the Connecticut River, but this post is not about refuting Gundersen. I did that in an earlier post, Hot Climate and Cold Fish. My aim in this post is to show the variety of complex, baffling, and ultimately false arguments nuclear opponents make about carbon dioxide and nuclear power.

France versus Denmark on Global Warming

Luckily for pro-nuclear people, we don't have to make complex arguments. We don't have to look at the future when (hopefully) renewables-do-it-all---and pretend that future is here right now. We don't have to tell lies about the nuclear fuel cycle being as bad for the climate as natural gas. We don't have to claim that warm water (not hydroelectric dams or imported bass) is killing the native fish.

Pro-nuclear people can be straightforward, because we have real facts and can make a real arguments. Pro-nuclear people can can look at actual countries (Denmark and France), actual carbon dioxide numbers, and cheerful videos to show that

Nuclear Energy is a major ally in the fight against carbon dioxide increase and changing climate.

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Video Note: Gundersen video is from the UVM debate in January. France/Denmark video by MyLiberationBaby for Brave New Climate.

Gundersen note: Gundersen made similar remarks about the river when he was on the panel discussing the Transparent Radiation film at University of Vermont about a week ago. (I don't have links to the panel itself, so I will link to my post on the UVM film.)

Climate Change Note: I am aware that a certain portion of my readers do not believe carbon dioxide is leading to climate change. I think carbon dioxide is leading to climate change, and that is a problem. However, I was pro-nuclear long before climate change was an issue. Whether you think carbon dioxide causes climate change or not, I hope you can agree that using up our fossil fuels for generating electricity is not a good idea, since nuclear power will do the job just as well.

The Strontium Fish and the Associated Press

In August, the Vermont Department of Public Health analyzed some Connecticut River fish for radioactive strontium. To their surprise, they found strontium in the flesh of one fish (they usually find it in the bones). Amounts were background levels, and officials in the Department of Health said that they did not believe the strontium came from Vermont Yankee, there was no pathway from Vermont Yankee to the river for strontium, and the levels of strontium in the fish were very low. The fish would have been safe to eat. (For background on all this, I recommend Victoria Barq's posts at NEI Nuclear Notes and NRC Chairman Jaczko's letter to Representative Markey on the subject.)

Larry Smith, plant spokesman, said there was "absolutely no evidence that Vermont Yankee is the source for the strontium 90."

On the same day as the announcement, AP reporter Dave Gram wrote an article which said that Smith's statement did not mention the plant's announcement in May of 2010 that strontium-90 had been found not in groundwater, but in soil samples taken from the plant grounds.

Indeed, there had been some strontium found in soil near the tritium leak. All such soil was removed and appropriately disposed. No strontium was ever found in the groundwater, which means it did not migrate to the river. As I quoted in my August blog post, Irwin (of the Vermont Department of Health) says he doesn’t believe the Strontium-90 found in the fish was from Vermont Yankee. “We would need to see a pathway between the source and the fish,” he said.

You would think that would be the end of the story. It wasn't.

The Next AP Report

On August 6, Gram wrote another article about the fish. In this article, Gram reported that the Vermont Nuke Plant Had Past Radioactive Releases. Quoting his article: 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.

A question occurs. Did Gram look at the reports to the NRC, or did he just quote Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear about the reports without checking the reports? Basically, yearly releases of Sr 89 and 90, combined, were about two ten-thousandth of a curie. This information on quantity is in the NRC reports referenced above. I am preparing another blog post with links to NRC reports. (If you are impatient with my blogging, please go to the NRC website and search the Adams files for Vermont Yankee effluent reports.)

All put together, the reported releases are tiny. Strontium 90 releases from the plant are even smaller: I added strontium 89 and 90 to get ten-thousandths of a curie. Strontium 90 releases are on the order of ten to the minus 7 or 8 curies. This is in the level of ten to hundred billionths of a curie. In the biosphere, these releases cannot be distinguished from background strontium.

Why No Numbers?

Those numbers are not in the AP story, however.

So, question arises: why did the reporter write that there were releases and not quantify the releases? The numbers are in the same NRC reports that lead to the conclusion that "Vermont Yankee reported releases" to the NRC. Did the reporter not know the quantities (poor quality reporting)? Did he know, but decide not to admit the quantities were very low (biased reporting)? Obviously, I don't know the answer to these questions.

However, I do not want to just point a finger at a single reporter. This type of reporting looks like Business as Usual for AP about nuclear energy.

AP Reporting on Nuclear

The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded through Columbia University, and the Columbia School of Journalism is widely acknowledged as one of the premier schools of journalism in the country.

The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) is a prestigious watchdog for good journalism. In the past three months, CJR has criticized two AP series for disorganized and slanted reporting of nuclear matters. In the first review, September 28, CJR first blasted the Nuclear Energy Institute for a heavy-handed response to the AP articles.. Then CJR got around to looking at the AP articles themselves.

But the AP series, while it tackles a critically important public policy issue, suffers from lapses in organization, narrative exposition, and basic material selection, what to leave in and what to leave out.....As a citizen reader with no particular background in nuclear power generation but residing less than 50 miles (the preferred safety margin, according to the AP report) from one of these old clunkers, I felt throughout like I was clinging to a pendulum, swinging wildly between “Uh oh” and “Phew, false alarm.”

Two months later, AP had an article about the consequences of Fukushima. On November 22, CJR reviewed the AP work on Fukushima.

Journalists often play up the dramatic and alarming aspects of the information they’ve found, and play down or leave out the ameliorative, neutral, or balancing aspects that might help do justice to the truth, but which could “weaken” the story. The AP’s article illustrates what this looks like.

Conclusion: when the CJR gives several negative reviews to a source for biased or confusing reporting on a particular issue, something is happening at that source. I think something is happening at AP. When I read an AP story about nuclear, I expect to see biased reporting.

Update: Canadian Energy Issues blog linked to this post and expanded on some of the themes. The title of their blog post is Why so much anti-nuclear sentiment at a time when the world urgently needs a major expansion of nuclear energy? It is being deliberately manufactured, by leading mainstream media vehicles like the Associated Press Thank you to Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues.

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Low Memorial Library at Columbia University, from Wikipedia.

In full disclosure: our son-in-law is a professor at Columbia, and several members of the family (including our daughter) hold degrees from that institution.

Vermont Yankee on the Web: Opponent Rallies, Fishy Tales Refuted, and Good News

Several news stories and blogs have covered Vermont Yankee issues recently. Here's a quick catch-up from the past few days.

The cartoon above is by Tim Newcomb and originally appeared in Seven Days. I thank Mr. Newcomb for granting permission to use it in this blog.

Opponents

At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Howard Shaffer covers the background of the opponent rally at the plant gates. The comment stream discusses the rise (and fall?) of the Clamshell Alliance.

Fishy Tales: Entergy Answers Markey's Fish Story By Quoting Shumlin

Senator Markey, a long-time foe of nuclear energy, wrote a letter to the NRC accusing them of letting Entergy get away with a lie about the "strontium fish". Here are two excellent blogs by Victoria Barq of NEI Nuclear Notes about Markey's letter (included in this blog post) and Entergy's response. Yesterday, Barq wrote a follow-up blog post about Entergy's response, including quotes from the Vermont Department of Health (no reason to believe the strontium in the fish came from the plant) and even quotes Governor Shumlin! Entergy has never detected any strontium in liquid releases or required environmental samples of groundwater, etc. Even Shumlin said we could not tell where the strontium came from! A very enjoyable post. It's great to see a solid response to unfounded, publicity-seeking attacks.

In local news, Lochbaum joined in the fray on Markey's side, and my hometown paper, the Valley News, published a very misleading Op-Ed quoting Markey and Lochbaum: Entergy "Doublespeak." Howard and I are collaborating on a letter-to-the-editor in answer.

For some background: I blogged about the facts and the fish in August. This blog also hosted a guest post by Richard Schmidt in September. His post compared mercury in fish (a real problem) with strontium at background levels.

Cartoon, Letters, and Animation in Favor of Vermont Yankee

A letter on What It Means to Be a Nuclear Worker in the Commons, a Brattleboro paper. Any nuclear workers reading this blog might want to comment on it: the one comment so far is a plant opponent.

Evan Twarog's letter (A Teen's View of Vermont Yankee, on this blog yesterday) was also published at True North Reports.

Charles Barton's Nuclear Green Revolution blog ran Robert Hargrave's Vermont Yankee Explained animation. An enjoyable six minute video.

The cartoon, by Tim Newcomb, heads this post!

What is the Real Impact? Richard Schmidt on Strontium, Mercury and Potassium in Fish

This opinion piece by Richard Schmidt ran as an editorial in the Brattleboro Reformer on August 26, 2011. Mr. Schmidt was kind enough to allow me to post it on my blog.

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Recently, the Vermont Department of Health (DOH) received a routine test report on one fish that was caught in the Connecticut River nine miles upstream from Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. The edible portion of this fish contained a very low but surprising level of radioactive strontium-90.

The DOH regularly monitors the environment for many such "radionuclides" to detect possible leakage from Yankee. This analysis of fish is part of that program.

Strontium-90 is a fission product that has spread throughout our environment predominately from pre-1964 nuclear bomb atmospheric testing, and is dissipating slowly with a 29 year half-life. Because strontium-90 is "hard to detect" and was detected in only one sample of fish flesh, a scientist will term such a result to be an "outlier." It lies outside of the norm. This subjects the sample and test process to scrutiny, and the result is held until further review. This is exactly what DOH has done by calling for more fish samples.

DOH said that they cannot associate low levels of strontium-90 with Yankee without supporting evidence. The DOH website also states that the result is "within the range of background strontium-90 in edible portions of fish reported in a 1971 study," prior to Yankee's startup.

Also, according to U.S. Department of Health "strontium-90 is a fairly constant part of the U.S. diet," and New York State has found similar strontium-90 levels in fish.

By taking more samples, DOH is doing a professional job and maintaining a scientific perspective on the matter.

But in a press conference found on YouTube, Governor Peter Shumlin blew this matter out of perspective when he called the strontium-90 level "high," attributed it to Yankee, and said that he would not eat fish from the river, although he did so as a boy.

He said this despite contrary information from his health department, and despite unwarranted damage to tourism. It appeared that his only purpose was to discredit Yankee.

Strontium and Mercury

This brings up two questions. The first is about strontium-90 levels over time. According to the DOH and other sources, the strontium-90 levels in fish that Gov. Shumlin ate as a boy were up to 20 times greater than the levels in this fish because radioactive decay and dispersion have since reduced the radioactivity.

The more significant question is about highly toxic mercury in our fish. Mercury in our environment is primarily due to coal-burning power plants, as coal contains mercury that is released from coal plant stacks.

Vermont and New Hampshire and most states issue advisories to limit the eating of locally caught fish due to mercury. For example, the N.H. Fish and Game Department warns against eating more than four wild-fish meals per month, restricted further to one meal per month for children and pregnant women. Children and the unborn are particularly sensitive to this neurotoxin. There is no direct connection between mercury and Yankee because the plant releases none. But if Yankee is shut down, its power will be largely replaced by low-cost coal power.

Unfortunately for us, most coal plants are to the west of us; New York has 48. The prevailing winds will carry more mercury, cadmium, arsenic, particulates and other pollutants to our environment, to the detriment of our health.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants stronger pollution controls on coal plants. It estimates such controls would reduce deaths in the U.S. by 17,000 per year and reduce related illnesses.

Radioactivity in Fish

Before making public statements about the fish, the governor should have asked "Is this strontium-90 significant?"

Let's compare the fish's strontium-90 radioactivity to the natural radioactivity that we ingest with fish and other foods, which contain the essential nutrient potassium and its inseparable radioactive isotope potassium-40.

A person eating the DOH fish sample would ingest about 2 percent of the radioactivity (6 percent of the radiation risk) from the strontium-90 relative to the natural potassium-40 in the same fish. Interestingly, natural potassium-40 makes our bodies about as radioactive as that fish in the news.

What is the Real Impact?

In truth, neither the strontium nor the potassium are significant hazards at all.

The question "Is this material significant to my health?" was completely lacking in this case. The real health impact of Gov. Shumlin's statements is to encourage the burning of more coal and the continued mercury pollution of our fish, our bodies, and our biosphere.

Richard Schmidt is a chemical and nuclear engineer and energy consultant who is not associated with Vermont Yankee. He lives in Westmoreland, N.H.

Fish shield image is the coat of arms of Narva, Estonia.

Mercury image from Wikipedia.

The Shumlin press conference video is also on one of my earlier blog posts.

That Strontium Fish in the Connecticut: Vermont Yankee, Shumlin, and the Facts

The Fish and the Facts

A smallmouth bass was caught nine miles upstream of Vermont Yankee power plant more than a year ago (June 2010). This fish was not destined to be eaten: it was tested for radiological contamination, according to Vermont's testing program for the river near Vermont Yankee. It turns out the the fish contained radioactive strontium, slightly above the detection limits, in its flesh as well as its bones. Though the fish was caught in 2010, it was tested only last week.

Was that fish contaminated by Vermont Yankee? The Vermont Department of Health didn't think the strontium came from Vermont Yankee. An article by Taylor Dobbs in Vermont Digger said that:

Bill Irwin, the radiological health chief of Vermont Department of Health, said his team doesn’t believe the Strontium-90 came from Vermont Yankee. There is no unequivocal evidence either way, he said. It’s possible, but very unlikely, he said, that cross-contamination of the non-edible and edible fish samples occurred. Irwin says he doesn’t believe the Strontium-90 found in the fish was from Vermont Yankee. “We would need to see a pathway between the source and the fish,” he said.

However, Shumlin thought the strontium came from Vermont Yankee, and he did something about it. He wrote a press release.

On August 3, Shumlin sent a strongly worded press release, directed at Entergy about the fish. Here's a quote: “Today’s troubling news from the Vermont Department of Health is another example of Entergy Louisiana putting their shareholders’ profits above the welfare of Vermonters."

The next day, Shumlin had a press conference, and he had to back off on his statement that this was Entergy's fault. According to today's Digger article by Taylor Dobbs, at the press conference, a day after his strong press release, Shumlin said: "We don't know exactly where [the strontium] came from."

The Fish and More Facts

The Vermont Department of Health website today has a complete listing of the facts about that fish. Basically, the Department of Health catches fish for testing. The bigger the fish the better, because bigger fish are more likely to contain radionucleides. The Department catches fish at two locations: right by Vermont Yankee's outflow, and nine miles upstream. This fish was caught nine miles upstream.

If there is contamination from the plant, it is expected that the fish caught near the outflow would be more heavily affected. However, fish do swim around, and the wildlife biologists said that a smallmouth bass could have swum ten miles upstream. (The problem with nature is that it just doesn't behave like a well-controlled laboratory)

Still, for a first approximation, the fact that the upstream fish had more strontium than any fish near the plant implies the fish was probably not contaminated by outflows from Vermont Yankee. As a friend of mine said: "Amusing when the control group is more contaminated than the sample group."Also, as Irwin said above, there is no clear pathway between the plant and the fish.

Reading the Department of Health website, you can note that:

• The amount of strontium in the bones of the fish in the Connecticut River is the same as in the bones of other fish in other rivers: background levels.
• The level of strontium in these fish is very low, and the Department of Health has to find special labs that can do "hard-to-detect" analysis. They have switched labs recently, due to poor results from one of their contract labs.

In other words, when the head of the Department of Health, Harry Chen, reassured people that the fish had low levels of strontium (hard-to-detect levels, actually) and fishing in the Connecticut River was okay, Chen was showing good scientific judgment.

The Fish and The Wiggles

Science doesn't mean much to Shumlin if it contradicts his plans. Shumlin does his best to use this fish against Entergy, even though he can't actually use it because he can't say Entergy caused the fish to contain strontium. This leads to amusing wiggles at his press conference.

The video below is Shumlin's press conference yesterday, when he reluctantly admits that we don't know where the strontium comes from. However, he continued to attack Entergy for contamination. It's a frustrating video to watch because the sound is very poor. However, you can enjoy:

• Around the three minute mark where Shumlin is asked about the fish and whether he is concerned with health effects (translation, "is he regulating radiological health effects, which is the federal prerogative?") and Shumlin steps quickly into "environmental effects"
• The nine minute mark, when Harry Chen, the head of the Department of Health, says these levels are so low we will never know where they come from and the fish are safe to eat. Shumlin answers it may not be science, but common sense is the reason that that he himself wouldn't fish in the river.
• Around the 13 minute mark, where a reporter tries to understand if Shumlin is attacking Entergy about the strontium in the fish, and or the tritium leak in the past or what? Shumlin says he has been very clear about this. His statement obviously clears everything up.

I find this press conference amusing, but not everyone does. One lawmaker objected that this sort of message from the governor would hurt the tourist industry in Vermont. The governor's office quickly issued a statement explaining that not eating the fish was a "personal choice."

I'm sure potential tourists will find that very reassuring.

Little Update: Thank you to Vermont Tiger for writing that Meredith Angwin's take on this latest dustup between the state and Yankee is, naturally, sharp and bankable.

Alas, I still haven't found the bank....

Update: Ray Shadis, of New England Coalition, a hardworking foe of the plant, quoted on WAMC, says there is no indication, other than Vermont Yankee manufactures the isotope, that the Strontium-90 came from the nuclear plant.

Group of smallmouth bass. Featured illustration from Wikipedia.

Hot Climate and Cold Fish: Gundersen's Debate Misstatements

Debating Gundersen

On Thursday February 24, I debated with Arnie Gundersen on the topic: Vermont Yankee: Keep It Running or Shut It Down? The debate took place at the Janus Forum held by the University of Vermont. You can link to the audio of the debate here and read my recent post about it here.

The debate was very well-organized, but like all debates, it was time-limited. Gundersen often said things that sounded completely wrong to me, but I didn't have time to answer each assertion. My policy during the debate was to speak about what I knew about. I made notes of other Gundersen statements and planned to look up the information later.

For example, during the debate, Gundersen claimed that there are only sixteen shad in the Connecticut River. I knew this had to be wrong. Arnie said that there used to be 70,000 shad in the Connecticut River, and now there are sixteen. He emphasizes the word sixteen: "Not sixteen thousand, sixteen." He claims we have to shut down Vermont Yankee to save the shad, because the waste heat from the plant has killed them off.

(If you move the audio slider of the debate to the 46 minute mark, you can listen to this section.)

I have no idea where Gundersen could have gotten the number "sixteen." The shad counts in the Connecticut River in recent years are between 150,000 and 225,000 fish per spawning season. (See my Geeky Shad Section below for references.) There are thousands of shad in the river, though fewer and fewer as you go upstream. Shad swim upstream to spawn, like salmon. They spend most of their lives in the ocean.

Sixteen Shad and Climate Change?

At the same time that Gundersen said we had only sixteen shad in the river, he also said that replacing Vermont Yankee with fossil fuel would only add one ten-thousandth of a degree to the temperature of the earth, but in return we would "get our river back."

So, there's another number. One ten-thousandth of a degree climate change. This is per year? Over twenty years? Due to how much carbon dioxide? In other words--huh??? One-ten-thousandth of a degree is another number flying in from somewhere unknown, like sixteen fish. However, this post is long enough and I cannot address Gundersen's climate-change assertions today. More later, perhaps.

(The climate statement is near the sixteen-fish statement on the audio.)

A final word. I don't know why the Gundersens are so fond of misstatements about fish. Last summer, fish in the Connecticut River were tested for radiation, and showed only background levels. This caused Maggie Gundersen to write that you shouldn't eat fish from the river, but rather "throw them back."

There's something going on here about the Gundersens and fish, but I don't know what it is.

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Geeky Shad Section

There's a picture of an American Shad at the head of this post. Shad is a delicious but bony fish, much loved by Native Americans and early colonists. John McPhee wrote a book about it: The Founding Fish. Shad have a life-cycle similar to salmon, spending much of their lives in the ocean and returning to their native streams to spawn. The shad run on the East Coast starts in April and ends in June, reaching a peak when water temperatures in the rivers are about 67 degrees. A pretty native American shrub is nicknamed "shadbush" because it blooms when the shad runs.

The shad run over the years has been hurt by pollution and the building of dams. Doe shad are very heavy with roe, and can't climb fish ladders, according to Wikipedia. Therefore, shad disappeared years ago from the Merrimack River:

Even more important to the decline of the shad is the damming of the rivers and streams in which they spawn, as pregnant doe shad are quite heavy and do not jump even when hooked. As noted above, the number of shad caught in the Merrimack River declined from almost 900,000 in 1789 to 0 in 1888, due to the fishes' inability to reach their spawning ground.

Overfishing has also had an effect. The U S Fish and Wildlife Service has an interesting web page about shad and restoration efforts. Wikipedia notes that the commercial shad catch has varied from 860,000 tons in 1999 to 600,000 tons in 2005 and is generally falling. Meanwhile, U. S. Fish and Wildlife tracks the Connecticut River shad, with 228,000 fish observed at the Holyoke Dam in 2000 and only 163,000 observed in 2007. Another important point is that the shad run historically ended at Bellows Falls, which is the next dam north of Vernon Dam (Vermont Yankee is located near Vernon Dam). A fishing website, iFished, gives a good overview of recreational shad fishing and availability on the river, including that just below Vernon Dam is an excellent place to catch these fish.

The Connecticut is not a river with sixteen lonely shad in it!

American Shad illustration from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website.

Shadbush illustration from Wikipedia.

PSB Update: Send Your Comments

Please send in your comments to the Commissioners. The Public Service Board (PSB) Commissioners are receiving hundreds of comments on docket 7600. This docket proposes to shut down Vermont Yankee immediately. Even up the balance! The opponents have organized campaigns to send comments to the PSB, and we have to send comments also!

You can file a comment using the PSB general Comment Form. Choose "other" from the Drop Down list, and head your comments with the words "Docket 7600."

The Door to the Meeting

The picture above shows the scene near the door of Brattleboro High School on July 8, just before the PSB meeting on Docket 7600. That's me on the left (green shirt, purse). My own picture of the man in the fish costume didn't show all three eyes, but Howard Shaffer was kind enough to send me this picture.

If you double-click on the picture, you can read the sign "Revoke the Certificate of Public Evil." I suspect the fish was part of the Safe and Green Campaign's Fourth of July event, focusing on "radioactive fish." The fact that all fish have only contained background levels of radioactivity doesn't matter much to the foes of the plant. The fish are NOT radioactive, but with a fish costume and a few lies, the facts won't matter.

As I approached, the fish began talking to me. "Hi Meredith," it (he?) said. "See what your tritium has done to me? I have three fins!" (It had three eyes and two fins, actually.) After a few moments banter, the fish said he was going to eat a banana, and I warned him against doing so.

This is the first time a fish has addressed me by name. However, my favorite Mahler symphony includes a movement about St. Anthony talking to the fishes. The fishes hear the Saint's good advice, but don't change their actions.

So I was partially prepared for this conversation.

No News is Still News?

The opponents had nothing new to say. The tritium leak is fixed, the NRC gave the plant a clean bill of health. A heat-wave was raging with power prices up near $150/MWh and the plant was at 100% power, selling by contract at $45 .

What could they say? They said the same old stuff. They said that they are scared of the plant. They SUNG that they are scared of the plant. (Two people sang their testimony.) They brought banners saying No Nukes. Street Theater from top to bottom. No content.

The picture shows a man testifying (I don't know his name). The commisioners are at the front table. You can see John Dunn's back (striped shirt on left). John works at the plant. The woman with the banners is taking a picture. The man with the video camera is the controversial documentary maker, Robbie Leppzer.

The Good News

From my point of view, there were several pieces of good news about the meeting. Sure, the statements of the opponents were repetitive and snore-inducing. How long can you listen to "I'm scared. I'm really really really scared?" I guess, about three hours is the limit.

However, in the good news, more people than usual testified in favor of the plant. I was particularly happy to see a person I had never met speaking up for the plant. As the Sentinel Source reported:

David Garrecht of Guilford, Vt., spoke in support the plant’s operation and said he’s concerned that the plant will be closed early due to pressure from the media and opponents of the plant.

Garrecht said he isn’t involved with any of the advocacy groups that have formed in support of or in opposition to nuclear energy generation.

“The only connection I have is that I use electricity and I get bothered a little bit when some of the advocates say they’re speaking the public will, because that’s not my will,” he said. “I think that Vermont Yankee ought to continue until it can be replaced in 2032 by a more dense design of clean energy.”

To which I say: Amen.

It's the Nukes What Gets the Blame: A Fish Story Continued

On Friday, the Vermont Department of Public Health announced they had caught another fish in the Connecticut River, and it contained background levels of strontium 90 in its bones. The Department of Public Health website says that the fish contained 80 to 100 picocuries per kg in "inedible portions" of the fish. Generally, fish bones are tested for strontium, since strontium behaves similarly to calcium in the body.

The Vermont Health Department website made a gallant attempt to put these findings in perspective, noting that: A New York study found background levels of Sr-90 in fish to be in the range of 120 to 360 pCi/kg. Heck, a month ago, I made my own gallant attempt to put strontium levels in perspective in my post, a Radioactive Fish Story.

These Connecticut River fish have the same amount of strontium in them as any other fish.

What They Say

"Perspective" is a weak buttress against the hysteria shown by those who oppose Vermont Yankee. For example, Maggie Gundersen contributes to the Green Mountain Daily blog. Gundersen's post about the fish is thick with innuendo and conspiracy theories. Here are a few quotes:

When the Vermont Department of Health (DOH) does the heavy lifting, Entergy's Vermont Yankee plant doesn't have to lift a finger.

(The) DOH was able to post it on their website late on the afternoon prior to one of the region's biggest holidays... NEWS DUMP.

No wonder Vermont Yankee did not want to let all the press know about more contaminated fish and needed some DOH help with the NEWS DUMP. Hope folks along the Connecticut River aren't planning any fish fries for the holiday weekend. Best to throw them back.

What They Say, but Translated into English

The confusing quotes above require some translation. To understand them, you have to believe the following:

• The fish in the Connecticut River are dangerously contaminated with radioactive strontium.
• This strontium comes from Vermont Yankee.
• The fish in the Connecticut River should not be eaten.
• The Department of Health and Entergy are in deep collusion. Together, they conspire against the people of Vermont.
• Press releases from the Department of Health reveal terrible things about strontium contamination from Vermont Yankee.
• However, the Department of Health prepares press releases just before holiday weekends, in the hopes that nobody will pay attention to these releases.
• The press releases are issued at low-readership times as a favor to Vermont Yankee.
• The Department of Health's attempts to compare this fish with other fish from other rivers is part of their effort to mislead.

This might seem like a grab-bag of assertions, but there is a set of underlying themes.

Underlying Tactics

The tactics above are simple and well-used. They follow two themes:

• Heavy-duty conspiracy theory: They are all lying to you! Believe only ME!
• Scares and warnings of imminent danger: Hope folks aren't planning any fish fries!

When will the plant opponents stop these conspiracy theory plus scare story tactics? When will they stop telling lies about background versus dangerous levels of radiation? When will they stop maligning Vermont public officials and Connecticut River fish?

Probably never.

Fear translates directly into donations, and donations are what anti-nuclear groups require.

In the music-hall song, She Was Poor But She Was Honest, the chorus reminds us that:

"It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame

It's the rich what gets the pleasure

Isn't it a blooming shame?"

I would change the words a little.

"It's the same the whole world over

It's the nukes what gets the blame

It's the scares what gets the money

Isn't it a blooming shame?"

Late News

In an article in the Times Argus today, Arnie Gundersen also expresses his belief that any strontium present in these fish must come from Vermont Yankee. He ignores statements from:

• the river steward of the Connecticut River Watershed Council
• the Vermont Department of Health

Both say that the strontium measurements in the fish are background level.

Hmm. I'm wondering if I should have labeled Gundersen's comment "news"? If it is predictable, is it "news"?

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The graphic, from Wikimedia Commons, shows the Coat of arms of Narva town, Estonia. It appealed to me because of the conjunction of fishes and weapons of war.

A Radioactive Fish Story

The Strontium Fish from the Connecticut River

There was a fish caught in the Connecticut river. It had radioactive strontium in its bones. How much radioactive strontium? The measurement was 59 picocuries per kilogram of fish. Or maybe it was 59 picocuries of strontium per kilogram of fish bones. I couldn't completely understand this sentence:

Irwin said the 59 picocuries per kilogram found in the perch's bones was actually at the low end of measurements taken from fish caught even much farther from nuclear plants.

Bill Irwin made the above statement about the Connecticut River fish. He is the radiological health chief in the Department of Public Health in Vermont.

Meanwhile, the radiological health chief of New Hampshire, Michael Dumond, had this to say about the strontium in the fish:

"It's clearly consistent with the background levels from Chernobyl and weapons testing that went on until 1965."

Similarly, a consultant in radioactive testing, John Till, president of South Carolina-based Risk Assessment Corp. said that the amounts of strontium were too tiny to be a concern. Remembering that a pico is a trillionth of a curie, "tiny" is indeed the correct word.

If there had been 1000 picocuries per kilogram, we would have a billionth of a curie per kilogram in the fish's bones. Thank heavens, there were only 59 picocuries. 59 trillionths! Whew!

As I investigated, by the way, I realized that the confusing sentence about picocuries in fish bones was correct. The reporter referred to picocuries per kilogram of bone. Similar measurements of radioactive strontium in fish from the Hudson River ranged from 200 to 270 picocuries per kg of bone, while measurements of strontium in the flesh ranged of those fish ranged from undetectable to 8 picocuries per kg.

Helen Caldicott

In a rational world, the story might end there. There are incredibly tiny amounts of radioactive strontium in the fish. Three professionals, one from Vermont, one from New Hampshire, and one from a consulting company, said the equivalent of: "Don't worry about eating the fish. The fish are fine." The amounts of strontium are consistent with background radiation from old atomic testing.

However, that would have been a rather one-sided story, so the enterprising AP reporter called Helen Caldicott at her home in Australia.

We all know what Caldicott said: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

(rephrased by me of course, not a quote)

However, I must give one of Caldicott's statements some respect. Irwin said they hadn't been testing the fish in the river until recently, and Caldicott said that since this was the first fish they tested, they didn't have a baseline for comparison of strontium in fish. Caldicott's implication was that the plant is leaking strontium like crazy. Nevertheless, she was right about the baseline. You don't have a baseline when you catch the first fish, and that's a fact.

Getting a baseline for radioactive strontium in fish due to fallout. How hard can it be? I have access to Google. I decided to try.

Update: Arnie Gundersen feels the fish "raises a lot of concerns." A great blogpost, Blinky, on this fish story in Capacity Factor.

Strontium in Fish

How hard can it be? Very hard.

The first thing I noticed is that most of the strontium-in-fish stories were repeats of the same AP story that I referenced above. Google "advanced search" came to the rescue. I looked for strontium in fish without the word "Vermont" in it, and I got some moderately useful results.

The first was the one listed above: fish in the Hudson, near and far from Indian Point. 200 t0 270 picocuries per kilogram in the bone, less than 10 picocuries in the flesh.

Then there was an entire set of literature about tracing fish lives through the strontium in their ear otoliths (who knew?) Turns out that natural strontium isotopes vary in different areas, and you can trace a fish's migration by the measuring the isotopes in the layers of strontium in its ears.

I also learned that strontium is necessary for reef building organisms, and you can buy strontium to add to your advanced aquarium. Similarly, I learned that fish segregate strontium to their bones and their scales, parts of the fish that we rarely eat.

Unfortunately, there really does not seem to be baseline measurements of radioactive strontium in fish. I found fish measured in the Hudson River near Indian Point. I found warnings about removing the bones from fish from the Savannah River before eating them. I even found an article about fish in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. In other words, nobody measures the radioactive strontium in fish unless there's some reason to believe there might be some radioactive strontium in the fish.

Or as my friend Howard said: "Why don't they measure some fish from Lake Champlain for a baseline?" I agree.

Radioactive Strontium and Food

Finally, after all of this, I found radioactive strontium as a toxic substance in the Center for Disease Control archives. A quote from section 1.3 of their toxic assessment:

90Sr is found nearly everywhere in small amounts from past nuclear accidents and fallout from nuclear explosions. You can be exposed to low levels of 90Sr by eating food, drinking water, or accidentally eating soil or dust that contains 90Sr. Food and drinking water are the largest sources of exposure to 90Sr. Because of the nature of 90Sr, some of it gets into fish, vegetables, and livestock. Grain, leafy vegetables, and dairy products contribute the greatest percentage of dietary 90Sr to humans. The concentration of 90Sr in fresh vegetables grown in the United States is less than 9 pCi (or 0.3 Bq) in 1 kg of dried vegetables (in a hot oven). The intake of radioactive strontium for most people will be small.

In other words, the picoCuries of strontium in fresh vegetables (less than 9 picocuries per kilogram) is about the same as in Hudson River fish (less than 10 picocuries/kg in the flesh). Fish are not a source of radioactive strontium in the diet.

The Other Fish Story

This "radioactive" fish was truly Much Ado about Nothing. I wasted my time with fish ear-bones and picocuries. There is no baseline for strontium in fish, but considering the tiny amount of radioactivity present, there probably doesn't need to be a baseline. There's less radioactive strontium in fish flesh than in fresh vegetables. In either case, we are talking about less than ten trillionths of a curie. (1o picocuries).

Meanwhile, the entire Gulf of Mexico is being contaminated by carcinogenic, toxic oil. Fisheries are being wiped out and may not recover for decades. I don't like to knock other technologies (nuclear good! everybody else bad!) There's no free lunch, and everything has its downside. And yet, when I think of the truly horrible devastation in the Gulf, I wonder how Vermonters can waste time and energy on the picocuries in this fish.

I imagine myself back in geothermal energy, at the geopressured zones near Houston. I remember eating the most magnificent seafood I have every had in my life. Houston has restaurants that serve seafood Cajun style, French style, Japanese style. Every style. You name it. That is a city where they know how to cook fish.

Is that world gone forever? And all the people who made a living at catching fish and cooking it and serving it in little tiny restaurants or fancy white-tablecloth restaurants. Is that world gone? Has our thirst for oil destroyed it?

I believe that more nuclear power and less oil and gas drilling would be a very good thing for the world.

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Postcard image from the Safe and Green Campaign, aka the Anti-Vermont Yankee walkers. I think the image is supposed to show that Vermont Yankee is ripe for a disaster. To me, it shows that so many other disasters have happened, and all Vermont Yankee has done is release a small amount of radioactivity to the ground within the plant boundaries.