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Tritium Hot Zone Expands Around Vermont Nuclear Plant
VERNON - The Department of Health said late Monday there appears to be "a very large area" at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor contaminated with radioactive tritium, and contamination levels continue to rise.
Because the area is so big, according to William Irwin, radiological health chief, there are many potential sources of radioactive water at this particularly high concentration of tritium.
"This is a very large area that encompasses many potential sources of water at this concentration of tritium, including the condensate storage tank and the systems and components of the advanced off-gas system," Irwin said late Monday afternoon.
He said the area of contamination was roughly from the reactor building to the Connecticut River.
Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear said Monday the new well with the highest level of contamination saw its concentration drop a little on Sunday to 2.38 million picocuries per liter, but went higher on Monday, to 2.52 million picocuries per liter of water. The federal standard for drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter.
Williams said Entergy Nuclear investigators were working on a strategy for excavating the area next to the well with the highest contamination levels.
Irwin said despite the increased levels of tritium, no other reactor-related radioisotopes have been identified in testing.
He said another groundwater monitoring well was in the final stages of being put into use and more wells might be drilled to help define the plume of contamination.
Irwin said it was too early to say how long the leak or leaks had been active. "It could be months or even a year or two," he said.
The first indication of the contamination showed up in November in one of three 2007 monitoring wells and the levels quickly rose starting in January. New wells, closer to the reactor and turbine buildings, show contamination in extremely high levels.
"We have to uncover pipes and see what's leaking. And get a better image of flow times and flow directions," he said. Water flows west to east on the site, toward the Connecticut River. Some of the monitoring wells are 15 to 20 feet from the river, while others are 100 feet or 200 feet away from the river.
Irwin said the Health Department is starting to test wells at private residences along Gov. Hunt Road, where Vermont Yankee is sited.
He said all of the private wells the state is testing are within a quarter of a mile of the plant and the point of the highest level of contamination.
Irwin said the state was looking to add five or six private residences to the state's weekly testing program, but he said the state had to get landowners' permissions. He said the department wanted to publish those test results, with the names of the individual homes kept confidential.
He said the Department of Health is testing private wells at Vernon Elementary School, which he estimated was just under a quarter of a mile of the contamination. The state is also testing water at two area farms - the Miller farm, which he said was about a quarter of a mile north of the plant, and the Blodgett farm, which, he said, was a mile from the plant "as the crow flies."
In addition, the Vernon Green nursing home and residential center is also being tested, he said. He estimated Vernon Green was about a half-mile south of the plant.
There are no municipal water systems in Vernon, he said, and every business and home is dependent on its own well.
Irwin said the Vernon health officer had done some initial private well testing when the tritium contamination problem first was made public.
Irwin said all deep wells are testing free of tritium.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes, a New Hampshire Democrat whose district includes communities in Vermont Yankee's emergency planning zone, visited the plant Monday and said he was satisfied with the effort by Entergy to try and find the leak or leaks.
But Hodes, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, said he planned on introducing a bill that would give neighboring states with towns in the emergency planning zone surrounding a nuclear power plant some say in the plant's operation.
"Catastrophes do not make exceptions for state boundaries and neither should laws designed to protect from them," said Hodes. "Granite Staters live within earshot of this nuclear power plant and I believe that guaranteeing the safety of Vermont Yankee is central to guaranteeing the safety of our citizens," he said in a prepared release.
Under the Hodes' proposal, states in the emergency zone could initiate their own investigations into the safety of power plants.
53 Comments so far
Show AllEntergy, Inc.: Poison for Profit.
Poisoning paying customers is not good business. Perhaps they need a bailout?
and big plan to deal with the greenhouse gas problem is more nuclear plants
All the private "deep" wells are OK.
What about the shallow wells, the wells that lower income people can afford to drill?
Maybe in Vermont, but not in the SW where they exploded nukes underground. You believe that deep aquifers have not been contaminated there? Drink more Kool Aid.
Clean nuclear energy is an oxymoron, as is clean coal. I believe the general public needs to get that straight. Nuclear energy may be necessary when oil availability becomes seriously diminished, but it should never be trusted.
And the issue of radioactive waste disposal must be resolved.
And Obama wants to start up the next generation of nuclear power plants all across our great nation.
Complete madness.
We have enough wind and solar energy within our borders to energize every house in the country. Yet no mention of these renewable energies during his SOTU speech.
Completely Insane.
Sometimes, the Nuclear Dragon swats us with its tail or rends with its claws and jaws. Other times, it poisons us with its fetid breath. Now, apparently, it poisons us by pissing in our aquifers.
In 1956, (Operation Redwing, Bikini) I saw its claws and felt its jaws, I was poisoned by its breath, but (so far) have survived. Not very many of us left.
Chernobyl; not an explosion, just a very stubborn fire in radioactive fuel. A huge area so contaminated that it will be three to six hundred years before it can again be occupied. Most of Europe was contaminated by the fallout. People have had elevated cancers, genetic damage to their children, etc., ever since.
We have had a number of "accidents" at our own Nuclear Dragon cages. Three Mile Island, the Fermi Breeder Reactor near Detroit, and on and on. Statistically, the number of cancers, birth defects, etc., is much higher in those areas, compared with areas far away, and not downwind of the plants.
The same with the native populations of the Marshal Islands from our testing.
As these things get into our aquifers, there is no way to avoid them. You just have to take your chances, play the odds. People have to drink.
The only way to avoid the situation is to cease this endless twisting of the Dragon's tail. The only safe nuclear reactor is approximately 93,000,000 miles from earth and delivers more than adequate energy, if we will just take the effort to learn to harness it.
Remember, we already have mountains of spent fuel which we have as yet found no safe way to dispose of. All of this leads to still more contamination, more exposure, more cancers, birth defects and deaths.
I won't even discuss the horror that awaits us as DU spreads around the world from our endless wars.
We know so very well so many ways to harness so many renewables that powering the nation only requires the investment resources to accomplish.
Sioux Rose
MINITRUE: Great post.
Don't look good, but it isn't as bad as say a plutonium or uranium leak.
Here is a bunch of info about tritium:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
You'll have to copy and paste but it is info that not even this site will tell you about for your own information which may make you wonder what's the big deal, well, it is a big deal but not one that is a untreatable one on individuals at home.
Wrong, probably MORE dangerous in long run. Don't believe it? Study Hanford in WA. The feds have spent BILLIONS to stop the leakage into groundwater there (not just tritium). They haven't stopped it and they still, after 50-60 years haven't been able to clean it up. Remember, dosage, lenght exposure and route of entry. It may be low level, but constant and long. People tend to dismiss risk when it is slight and benign to the senses, even though it can be just as deadly as an immediate expolosion like at a Chernobyl.
Tritium mixes with water as well as food color, it's been said...
I can understand that more because tritium is the 'heavy water' one hears so much about in nuclear endeavors.
I have read about, and even watched a news segment on the nuclear leakage in Washington state. Maybe, on David Brancaccio, or maybe, on Democracy Now! -- I can't recall.
Redpill: You address important issues in your post!
Well on the link I have provided, it seems that drinking pure water will or should substantially reduce effects of contamination and rather quickly, but IT DOES NOT MEAN that those people should be straddled with the fact of having their water source contaminated and forced to purchase 'bottled' water in those BPA soaked plastic containers which is another long term poison.
And this post is talking just about tritium which of most all radioactive materials is one that is easier to flush out of the body.
Try the link, here it is again:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
I'd rather drink the tritium than visit the nuclear testing sites in Nevada from the 1950's.
In the scheme of things it's probably no more dangerous than eating BBQ hotdogs three times a week.
samosamo,
What kind of CRAP are you trying to pulling here?
People are not just concerned with tritium.
You make it sound like it is no big deal.
The dangers go FAR beyond that one substance.
Guess what other big mean nastys are found along with the tritium?
I'll bet you don't even know, do you?
Try living down-wind of the Hanford plant.
Then you would know, that is if you lived to tell about it.
The 'CRAP' is just the tritium that the post is about and those 'OTHER' things are not mentioned!!!!
I am just giving information from supposed reliable sources like a University of Idaho source on tritium and THAT IS WHAT THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT!!!!
I reference the relief that plutonium or uranium were not a factor and I also reference and I have other references about major disasters in my comment of ""samosamo February 9th, 2010 4:43 pm" and it appears you don't give a rat's ass about tritium because you obviously did NOT check the link I provided.
As to the other 'nasties', I can safely assume the Vermont is as polluted with all the other CRAP that america is polluted with the we the citizens just don't do enough to stop our 'wonderful corporations' for dumping anywhere at anytime, unfettered; AND as per my last comment to this post ""it further out right exposes the ignorant and flippant way humans treat the use of nuclear power as something that desperately has to be used for the 'good of mankind'"".
Damn some people just don't care to investigate something even just a little bit more, I guess because it just confuses them.
Soooo, is this another Chernobyl or Bhopal? The only thing we can be certain of are lies from the Ministry of Truth.
Nuring home, farms, an elementary school!, private homes, all within a mile of the leak, some much closer. Nice planning, folks!
"[T]ritium is not ... dangerous externally, but it is a radiation hazard when inhaled, ingested via food, water, or absorbed through the skin."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
It's probably on a flood plain too! A lot of nuke plants are. Morons.
Sioux Rose
DUS: That caught my eye/conscience, too.
When the housing bubble began to rise, prices in the Florida Keys became outrageous. An elementary school needed to be built, and because land is so expensive there, the geniuses decided to build it next door to a big dump on Stock Island. ( It's one Key north of Key West.) I used to share an occasional radio show with professor Bill Trantham, a marine biologist; and on-air someone asked if there were toxic materials at the new elementary school site. He said it was a 100% certainty. So for this "family values" nation, children's safety is not, and seldom has been much of a priority. Sad. So much for investing in the future.
dus7, not much different than our use of depleted uranium in our war making around the world, is it?
Great incident to support Obummer's SOTU clean nuke energy....hahhhahah
I am sorry for the folks in Vermont. Good luck getting help.
I have to say, as far less benign as this spill is compared to something like an nuclear explosion or Chernobyl incident, it further out right exposes the ignorant and flippant way humans treat the use of nuclear power as something that desperately has to be used for the 'good of mankind', never mind the bad intentional use which I believe the U.S.A. is still the only country to use an nuclear weapon against people.
Who needs foreign terrorists. The U.S. can do the job of self-destruction quite well on its own, thanks just the same.
RV If only it would stop being true.
Nuclear power plants are obscenities upon the earth.
Oh, come on now. Radiation is good for us. Don't you want to be a mutant? Think of just how tasty that 6 legged fish is going to taste with it's sauce made with that lovely new fruit that glows in the dark.
Seriously I'd be in favor of using nuke power, if, and only if, the scientists found a way to burn it and leave not a trace of radiation. Until they can eliminate the problem of nuke waste, and I don't mean use it to build DU shells, leave the uranium in the bloody ground. (except for the stuff that's used for medicine...)
Nucular Obama : NUKING FUTS!
"VERNON - The Department of Health said late Monday there appears to be "a very large area" at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor contaminated with radioactive tritium, and contamination levels continue to rise.
Department of No Surprises. Wake up guys -- they are ALL contaminated.
Jeevee
The stuff that's used for medicine isn't so good either. There are systems of alternative medicine that have far better track records, especially because they don't destroy the immune system, which so-called "chemotherapy" does, and don't cause the loss of hair.
Interesting, can you name some?
The Coxley cures for skin cancer seem interesting.
Ray Berthiaume
Read Kevin Trudeau's NATURAL CURES THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT.
Sioux Rose
RAY: I'm going to be on Kevin's radio show tomorrow. 3 PM Eastern time.
Oh, sure, make me work for the answers...;-)
Be afraid...be VERY afraid.
It seems passing strange that there are no Nuke plants in downtown New York City.
You might think that the parasites who live there wouldn't mind having one of their 'safe' profit centers right next door on Wall Street.
Don't worry. Obama, Emmanuel, Hansen, Pachauri and the nuke industry all know what's best for us liberal retards.
There are thousands of places with leaks of more toxic chemical substances every day - including fracking operations for natural gas. But no one here on CD seems too concerned about them.
And you should really be worrying about the far greater hazard from perfectly natural Radon in your home.
Yesterday, five people were killed in an accident at a natural-gas power plant.
When I was growing up in NYC, ConEd, the local electric utility and the AEC(The Atomic Energy Commission) promoted nuclear energy and told us it would be "too cheap to meter." There was "Atoms for Peace" where we sold nuclear reactors and fuel to countries to improve their economy. And we have seen what India and Pakistan have done with their "Atoms for Peace" reactors.
We have conservation, biomass, solar, wind, tidal, and small scale hydro, their are many new innovations people and businesses can use to stay off the electric grid.
When does a dream become a nightmare?
It is good that they are seriously pursuing this problem. Once the leak is found, the information can be used to make all our nuclear plants even safer than they already are. The information may even benefit other nations' nuclear plants, and especially the huge number of them being planned or built now. We should all support DOE-sponsored research efforts to prevent any contamination as well as this private investigation.
Rent a copy of the movie, "THX 1138". It covers just about everything that has happened in the last month or so on the domestic front.
The average human being has no way to protect him/herself from this scourge.
Also, the ignorance displayed on this thread is tragic. For example, Inocsifan writes:
"Once the leak is found, the information can be used to make all our nuclear plants even safer than they already are."
"The leak"??? "Nuclear plants even safer than they already are"???
Magical thinking at this level will not save your grandchildren.
Educate yourself, while the information remains in the public domain. And while you're at it, you might want to copyright your DNA! If you don't, Monsanto might.
Corporate "personhood" demands that every Person incorporates. Preferably Citizen Jones, LLC.
-30-
FYI, I am not sure if the book is still in print, but you can propbably find it at the local library, it's entitled "The Day We Almost Lost Detroit" It's about the near melt down of the Enrico Fermi I plant near Monroe, MI back in the mid 60's. Detroit Edison then built Fermi II, it went on line in January of 1988, it is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2025. For about one half of the 22 years that Fermi II has been in operation it has been down for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. (mostly unscheduled).
DTE is now in the process of building Fermi III. Even though the large majority of citizens are against it, both the State of Michigan and the Federal Government are doing everything in their power to accommodate the efforts of DTE Energy.
Oh, by the way, all of these plans for 100-150 new nuclear plants was originaly the pipe dream of the Republicans in Congress since then picked up by the Obama administration.
Fermi III along with all of the other reactors that the government wants to build in co-op with companies like DTE are on a cost plus basis. Yes, the same way the government paid companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root and Bechtel for their marvelous work over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their bottom lines swelled under the constant bombardment of taxpayer money. I am sure DTE's balance sheet will look just as impressive!
A half-million people are killed outright (and Goddess knows how many are maimed or inflicted with cancers and similar disorders) *every year*, and both ground and water suffer an incalculable amount of long-term contamination by the petroleum and transportation industries acting together.
Yet so many people ignore this real, present, ongoing, everyday horror story to obsess about largely theoretical harm from nuclear power.
Why?
And WHAT does the idiot Obama want to do?? BUILD MORE NUCLEAR FACILITIES!!
There's your hope and change, boys and girls. From someone who doesn't give two $#!ts about this country. And isn't bright enough to realize that this would affect him and his offspring.
Republican Trojan horse.