Act 160 and Local Liars: A Review of the State's Role in the Entergy Lawsuit

Act 160 is the Vermont law passed in 2006 that gives the legislature the power to refuse a Certificate of Public Good to Entergy, therefore preventing the plant from operating past March 2012. This law was a substantial amendment to the agreement (Memorandum of Understanding) that Entergy had signed in 2002 when it bought Vermont Yankee. That Act 160 substantially changed the contract is one basis for the Entergy lawsuit.

Immediately after the suit was filed, Peter Shumlin claimed that Entergy had supported Act 160. He was surprised that Entergy went back on what they said at the time and sued about something they supported. You can see him saying this in the following clip from True North Reports. The part about Act 160 starts at about the 3.40 minute mark.

In a blog post in late April, I said that Entergy had not supported Act 160. In that post, I referred to my search for evidence that Entergy had supported Act 160. I found only evidence that Entergy had fought it, albeit without a lot of flair and energy. I found a few quotes from Brian Cosgrove of Entergy opposing Act 160. In that blog post, I asked people to give me more evidence about Entergy and Act 160 if they could find it.

On May 8, the Times Argus published a front page article, written by Peter Hirshfeld, titled "Who Said What? And Does It Matter?" The article is unfortunately behind a paywall (I can't link to it) but Hirshfeld found Brian Cosgrove of Entergy making the same negative comments about the bill that I reported in my blog post. Hirshfeld found more evidence, though. In four hearings about the bill, he found that Entergy lobbyists said very clearly that Entergy did not support the bill. On March 2, 2006, lobbyist Gerry Morris said: "This is my third time testifying on this issue and...we still oppose the bill."

Ignorant? Falsehoods?

Since Shumlin said Entergy didn't oppose Act 160, he is either ignorant, or he is lying. ( I will let you choose whether he knows what happens in the Statehouse, or he doesn't.) As John McClaughry notes in a post: Shumlin's statement about Entergy supporting Act 160 is simply not true.

I have begun to think that when Shumlin accuses somebody else of lying, that's a psychological signal that he himself is about to tell a whopper. (Hey, we bloggers can be parlor shrinks if we want to be!)

And the Legislature Lies, Too

The legislature breaks its own laws, while accusing Entergy of not respecting the law. If you remember, the Senate voted to not-allow the PSB to issue a Certificate of Public Good to Vermont Yankee. This vote took place in February, 2010. An election was held this fall, the legislature reconvened, and they never took up Vermont Yankee as an issue in the 2011 session. They acted as if that vote in February 2010 was the official and correct response to their own law, Act 160.

It wasn't official and it wasn't correct. As John McClaughry (head of the Ethan Allen Institute) points out, the legislature broke its own law. McClaughry, a former Vermont Senator, wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and sent a copy to True North Reports, which published it as The State, not Vermont Yankee, Violating the Law. Act 160 says:

“the general assembly shall consider concurrently the issue of storage of spent nuclear fuel… and the operation of Vermont Yankee nuclear power station after March 21, 2012 ,… and shall grant the approval or deny approval of such activities concurrently”.

As John continues: "A plain reading of this statute requires that the general assembly – House and Senate, in the same biennial session – must either grant or deny approval for spent fuel storage and continued operation of VYNPS."

They didn't vote. It's a new session, newly elected legislators, and they didn't vote. Only the Senate voted, last session. The "general assembly" did not vote. Act 160 does not allow the legislature to do a pocket veto of the plant. The legislature broke their own law.

Ah well. The legislators' pants are on fire, but luckily, I live about fifty miles from Montpelier so the flames won't affect me. However, their foolishness might help Entergy win its lawsuit against Vermont, and that would be a Good Thing.

(Full disclosure. John McClaughry is head of the Ethan Allen Institute, and my Energy Education Project is a project within that Institute. McClaughry and I are in agreement on the role of Vermont Yankee for the future of Vermont's energy. (He would never have let me start the Energy Education Project as part of the Ethan Allen Institute if we hadn't agreed on this.) However, since some people in Vermont see the Ethan Allen Institute as part of a vast conspiracy, I might as well point out my connection explicitly. True North Radio also gets some funding through the Institute.)

Editorial Against VY Acknowledges that Groups Against VY Are Not Telling the Truth

The Brattleboro Reformer is not known as a friend to Vermont Yankee. Most people at the plant refuse to read the paper, calling it the MisInformer. The Reformer editorial policy can be summarized in three words: Shut It Down!

So imagine my surprise when I read the July 14 editorial entitled: Just the facts, please.

Now, I don't want to oversell this editorial. It does not support VY's continued operation, and ends by urging people to give money to the most effective anti-VY groups.

But, in the meantime, this editorial lists and refutes the usual pack of lies told against VY. Here are the first few paragraphs:

The opponents of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s continued operation are passionate, emotional and rightly concerned about the health of their children, themselves and the environment.

But many of the claims used to support their stance are not hard cold facts but rather exaggerations, misinformation and downright wrong, which do not serve their cause well.

For example, there were cries of distress when the Department of Health revealed that bones from fish caught near the power plant tested positive for strontium-90, proof the plant has been leaking radioactive materials into the environment.

A spokesman for the Vermont Department of Health told the public that the strontium levels were normal and within the background levels that are a result of the meltdown at Chernobyl and weapons testing that went on until 1965. Even the river steward of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, a fierce opponent to the plant’s continued operation, said the levels were normal.

The editorial goes on to refute several of the other calumnies against the plant and against nuclear power (the Tooth Fairy Project, the German children-get-leukemia study). It urges anti-plant activists to

• stop throwing compost at people in meetings
• stop pretending to copulate during public meetings
• stop other antics which please the hard-core zealots, but repulse ordinary citizens

The editorial ends with this ringing suggestion:

So if you are opposed to the plant operating past 2012, put your money where your big mouth is, become better informed and stop the childish outbursts and juvenile foot stomping.

Wow. What happened in Brattleboro?

I think I know.

The Fish Turned

As the editorial noted, the Vermont Department of Health, and a well-informed anti-nuclear group (among others) noted that the fish in the Connecticut River contain only background levels of radioactive strontium. However, as I have noted in earlier posts, that has not prevented groups from marching in the Brattleboro Fourth of July parade as radioactive fish, showing up at meetings as radioactive fish, etc. It did not prevent Shumlin from stating that radioactive strontium was attacking the teeth of children in Vermont.

In a post called Destructive Lies, published in June, I stated that the lies of the anti-nukes were destroying the Vermont Brand. I think that when the (not) radioactive fish walked down the street in Brattleboro in the Fourth of July parade, other people also noticed this. (You can't help but notice a human-sized, three-eyed fish.) Other people saw this and became aware of what the anti-Vermont Yankee lies are doing to Vermont.

People in Brattleboro will no longer accept lies about contamination and dangers caused by VY.

Good News on Indian Point

I want to give a tip of the hat to Rod Adams, for his excellent post on pro-Indian Point citizens coming out to testify in New York. We can all learn from this! We have to be out there and visible.

Especially now that the fish has turned.

Destructive Lies

Entergy Makes Misleading Statements and is Punished

Recently, the Public Service Board awarded various intervenors (VPIRG and others) financial restitution to be paid by Entergy. The basis for this award was that Entergy had supplied misleading information about its piping, causing the intervenors to be forced to spend money on research and attorney's fees on these issues.

The PSB ruling was somewhat confusing. Here's a quote, edited slightly for length:

However, we further conclude that reasonable attorney's fees and costs of VPIRG, NEC and WRC subsequent to the disclosure of the leaks, and that were and will be incurred as a result of Entergy VY's provision of incorrect information, should be reimbursed by Entergy VY. ..... there is a clear causal connection between the misrepresentations made by Entergy VY and additional expenses that WRC, VPIRG, and NEC would incur, and in fact have incurred, in this docket.....The affidavits supplied by NEC show that its staff person, its technical consultant, and its attorney expended a considerable number of hours to address matters in Docket No. 7440 directly related to the Entergy VY misrepresentations. For example, NEC's technical consultant, Raymond Shadis, affirms that between January 7, 2010, (the date on which the existence of the leaks was publicly disclosed) and March 10, 2010, he spent 172 hours on Docket No. 7440 issues related to piping, soil and decommissioning.

I am not a lawyer. and I don't know why intervenors are paid if they have to do more work due to misleading statements by one of the parties. I also can't get too excited about this. Entergy won't decide to shut down the plant because they had to pay Raymond Shadis. I don't think this ruling is fair, but I also don't think it's a big deal.

What Were the Real-Life Consequences of the Entergy Statements?

Without going through the entire history, from "They Lied" at the potluck to the legal report showing that Entergy statements were careless but unintentional, let's just look at a hypothetical case. Let's say Entergy had said: "Yes, we have some underground piping that carries water with radionuclides. It is the piping that takes the non-condensable gases and some water vapor from the turbines to an advanced condenser. The condenser is also a heat exchanger. The piping returns the condensed water to the plant."

Now, since I noted before, the service water is more of a reliability problem than this off-gas system, this statement might have changed nothing about the review process. On the other hand, it might have changed the inspection protocols. Entergy could have been required to open up the famous tunnel and inspect the pipe at that point. Let's say Entergy had been required to do so, and let's say they discovered the leak before any tritiated water touched the soil. So what?

A great deal of time and trouble would have been avoided. However, in this scenario, the same amount of tritiated water would have been detected in the river or the aquifers below the plant. No tritiated water. Zero. Nada. Below the detection limits.

In other words, Entergy's misstatements gave them a black eye and cost them money, but made no difference to the environment.

The Lies of the Anti-Nukes

I don't know where to start. The constant chorus against Entergy of "tritium is getting into the river and nobody can fish in it now." (No detectable or significant amounts or tritium got into the river, and there is no problem with the fish.) Or "They lied under oath." (No, they didn't.) Or "Oak Ridge Associated Universities does Junk Science" (this was a pre-tritium accusation).

As I pointed out in a recent post, the lies don't stop there. Shumlin, Smith and Klein are quite happy to describe radioactive strontium as "attacking the bones and teeth" of Vermont's children. They describe the tritium leak as Vermont's BP, an environmental disaster!

What Are the Real-Life Consequences of the Lies of the Anti-Nukes?

And what consequences have all these anti-nuke lies had? They have been effective at turning public opinion against the plant, which may have to shut down. I hope not. Still that has been the purpose of the constant accusations and street theater. Of course, they want to shut down the plant, so they like these consequences.

The other real-life consequence is that the constant lies about the amount of radioactivity released into the environment, and its effect on rivers and children...these lies are destroying the Vermont brand. As I noted before, if I lived in the Midwest and saw all the ranking Vermont legislators talking about all the radiation and Vermont's BP and children's teeth...I would never buy a Vermont product again.

The lies of the anti-nukes will cause people to suffer. The anti-nukes don't care about laying off the VY workers. They publicly malign Vermont farmers and food products and destroy the Vermont Brand.

All they want is a hobby horse on which they can ride to election. Scapegoating is an age-old technique, and the anti-nukes are using it.

For these lies, the people of Vermont will end up being punished.

A word about the cartoons.

If you remember, I suggested that pro-nuclear advocates need some political cartoons. I mentioned the Marek Bennett cartoons, Mimi's Doughnuts, some of which I hate (It's Tritty) and some of which I love (Same Words, Different Eras). George Murphy (no, I don't know if that is a pen name) immediately sent me links to Vermont Yankee cartoons that he derived from the original cartoons. Since then, Murphy and I have had quite a correspondence. Since his cartoons are parodies or extensions of political cartoons, they are free and protected speech.

So the question arose: would I run them? They are more hard-hitting than my usual posts, but that is what cartoons are, after all. Hard-hitting. Visceral. Perhaps too honest.

Murphy has more of these. Let me know what you think.

Note: After comments and email exchanges with the original artist (Marek Bennett) the attribution at the base of each cartoon now reads: Fair Use Parody by G. Murphy using original artwork of Marek Bennett. I thank G. Murphy and Marek Bennet for resetting the attributions to everyone's satisfaction.