NRC Review Meeting Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night, June 22, at 6 p.m., the NRC will host its annual review meeting for Vermont Yankee. The meeting will be held in Brattleboro Union High School, and there will be an informal meeting starting 4, with the formal meeting starting at 6. Vermont Digger published the NRC press release, and you can also read the official yearly letter from NRC.

Basically, everything at the plant is code green (just fine) as you can see on the NRC website. Also, as I noted in a previous post, the NRC Demand for Information was completely satisfied. The NRC report on its Demand for Information includes piping diagram reviews, staffing reviews, and whether Vermont Yankee had given the NRC complete and accurate information. The NRC was satisfied with all aspects of its Demand for Information review.

Is The Meeting Going to Be Dullsville?

The meeting should be dull. Everything is in order at Vermont Yankee. Everything is green and good to go.

Unfortunately, the anti-s seem to have taken to heart the old lawyer's saying about how to win a case:

• If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts.
• If the law is on your side, pound on the law.
• If nothing is on your side, pound on the table.

Nothing is on the side of the anti-s. Vermont Yankee is up and running well, and the NRC is here to tell about it. The anti-s are left to pound on the table.

In my opinion, that makes them more physically dangerous. With nothing of substance to say, they will resort to street theater. As I noted in an earlier post:

I can understand why the NRC would choose to hold a closed meeting. The public meetings are not just contentious, they can be dangerous. In spring 2009, local activist Sally Shaw attended an open meeting with NRC and Entergy. She walked up to the table and spread manure on papers and into water glasses. Letters-to-the-editor applauded her actions. In a separate incident about Vermont Yankee, the PSB building was attacked with deer-urine.

(By the way, Sally is remains proud of her actions, and chose to continue to trumpet her behavior in the comments of this recent Vermont Digger post.)

I went to an April 19 meeting held by the NRC in Brattleboro. Signs were held up, and there was a bit of shouting, but the presence of several police officers near the front of the room discouraged any more aggressive activity.

Tomorrow Night At Brattleboro

I will be there. Howard Shaffer will be there. The anti-groups will be there in full force, I expect. I have to hand it to them: they are a dedicated bunch and quite happy to come and pound on the table together.

If you are pro-nuclear, come and support Vermont Yankee! I hope to see you at the Brattleboro High School Auditoriium tomorrow night.

NRC: VY Information Accurate and Complete

In two separate actions late yesterday, the NRC exonerated Vermont Yankee of wrong-doing.

Demand for Information Satisfied

The first action was quite specific.

The NRC had issued a "demand for information" during the tritium leak. As reported by the Brattleboro Reformer:

The review by the NRC was conducted by a team of 19 NRC regional and headquarters staff members who participated in onsite inspections, personnel interviews and document reviews.

The conclusion of the review was that Information given by Vermont Yankee personnel to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the nuclear power plant's license renewal application "that was material to the NRC and/or NRC-regulated activities" was complete and accurate, according to a document released by the NRC on Thursday.

Another conclusion was that: The team did not identify any discrepancies with Entergy's accounting of buried and underground piping on-site," stated the NRC in a letter to Entergy issued on Thursday.

The NRC press release is available at Vtdigger. The press release also contains an announcement of the NRC meeting in Brattleboro, on Tuesday June 22. The meeting will take place at the Brattleboro Union High School, starting with the open house at 4 p.m. and a more formal session at 6 p.m. I plan to attend.

Tritium Leaks Dealt with Appropriately

The second NRC action was more general.

In a separate and more general investigation of tritium leaks at nuclear plants, the NRC concluded that these leaks had been dealt with appropriately.

This was an internal NRC investigation of how well the NRC is performing its oversight tasks. I think the investigation conclusions are correct: the NRC is reviewing tritium leaks in a reasonable and timely fashion. I also expect the anti-nukes will say: "Well, for Pete's sake, of course the NRC says it is doing great. What did you expect the NRC to say about its own activities?" I don't agree with that statement, but it is not totally unreasonable.

Therefore, in terms of Vermont Yankee, this leaks are treated appropriately announcement is far less important than the announcement that the Demand for Information is satisfied.

Conclusions

Vermont Yankee told the NRC the truth, including about the underground piping.

Since VY gave its Vermont regulators the same diagrams that it gave the NRC, my conclusion is that VY did not intentionally mislead its Vermont regulators. I have explained this in painful detail in several posts, starting with my lengthy post on the piping diagrams.

However, in these announcements, NRC was careful to point out that the NRC only evaluated information that the NRC received, not information that Vermont regulators received. (Aside. Has anyone noticed that information to NRC and information to Vermont regulators was the same information, same diagrams, etc? Or is it just me noticing this? End Aside.) Therefore, the Vermont Attorney General is still investigating the possibility that VY deliberately lied under oath. Again, according to Bob Audette of the Brattleboro Reformer: The Vermont Attorney General's Office is currently investigating whether Yankee personnel knowingly gave false information during a sworn hearing. An assistant attorney general told the Reformer his office has no comment on the progress of the investigation.

In other words, fired by a kind of moral hazard of the various legislatively appointed committees (the more they investigate, the more they get paid), the Vermont AG and various legislative bodies will continue their investigations. They continue to investigate, long after the cows have come home, and long after it is clear that Vermont Yankee had no intention to mislead.

Let me address the AG office and the oversight committees: The cows are back in the barn. To mix metaphors, the gravy train of paid investigations should stop running.