Power company Entergy plans to remove contaminated water it has been storing in portable swimming pools at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant by the end of this week, a company official said Monday.
Photos of the storage practice surfaced earlier this month, drawing criticism from Vermont Speaker of the House Shap Smith, who compared the containers to “kiddie pools.” Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said Monday that regulators have known about groundwater intrusion issues at the plant’s turbine building, and though the company’s use of portable pools and storage bladders is “not ideal,” it poses no safety threat.
“There’s nothing that would represent a violation of NRC requirements,” Sheehan said during a telephone interview, adding that an inspector visited the site from Feb. 1-4. “We don’t have any immediate concern. It’s one of those areas that we’re going to continue to follow up on as part of our decommissioning inspections.”
Entergy anticipated groundwater intrusion at its turbine building when shutting down in 2014, but company spokesman Marty Cohn said over the phone Monday that a wet and warmer than expected period in 2014-2015, coupled with less evaporation because a shut-down plant is cooler, led to unexpected amounts. Sheehan said the water is contaminated with low levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
To date, Entergy has pumped 80,000 gallons of water from the turbine building. Cohn said the company has contracted with EnergySolutions to move the water to a processing facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., with weekly shipments of between 10,000 and 20,000 gallons. The first shipment was executed last week, and it could be a month or two before it’s all shipped. The water held in pools will go first, followed by the water in the bladders.
“Right now we’ve got a plan in place, and we’re very confident that the plan is working. (The pools and bladders) are temporary storage,” Cohn said.
