Welch calls for Yankee safety Checks

By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

Vermont's U.S. representative, Peter F. Welch, along with congressmen and women from New Hampshire and Massachusetts have introduced legislation that would make it easier for states to ask for independent safety assessments of nuclear power plants if there's a pattern of safety problems or a pending license extension.

Welch was joined by New Hampshire's two members of Congress, Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes, plus Reps. Edward Markey and Rep. John Olver of Massachusetts, all Democrats.

"Recent events at Vermont Yankee have raised legitimate concerns about plant management and Vermonters are entitled to an objective assurance that the facility is safe to operate," Welch said in a release.

His spokesman, Andrew Savage, said that the two most recent events at Vermont Yankee in the past two weeks had prompted Welch's action on the bill.

On Aug. 21, a portion of one of the plant's two massive cooling towers collapsed, forcing Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns the reactor, to reduce power to 50 percent, where it has remained except for last week's emergency shutdown. The cooling tower is being reconstructed and the company still said it doesn't have a firm idea what caused the collapse.

Then last Thursday, the plant unexpectedly shut down and was offline for two days, forcing Vermont utilities that are heavily dependent on Vermont Yankee at a power source to buy power on the spot market.

A preliminary finding traced the shutdown to a lack of grease in a bearing in a large, motor-operated valve, according to the state's nuclear engineer, Uldis Vanags. He said a worker had failed to adequate grease the bearing during the plant's recent refueling and maintenance outage.

Vanags also said that the NRC was investigating whether Entergy Nuclear staff actually triggered the emergency shutdown while troubleshooting the valve problem.

Savage said that Welch viewed the two events at Yankee as "extremely alarming" and said that the public had a right to be reassured that the plant was being run and inspected properly.

The motivation behind the legislation is enhancing trust and public confidence in the process, Savage said.

Vermont's congressional delegation has already asked the NRC to look into the cooling tower collapse.

The bill would leave it to the governor or public utility commission ?Çö in Vermont's case the Public Service Board ?Çö to ask for an independent safety assessment, leaving out any direct citizen involvement. They could ask for the evaluation if there was a pending application for relicensing, a request for a power increase, or a pattern of safety problems.

The bill allows a governor or public service board of a neighboring state to ask for the independent safety assessment.

Robert Williams, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said that an independent safety assessment is an outmoded evaluation tool.

"We have not read the legislation, but the Maine Yankee independent inspection was a long time ago. And the lessons learned there have been incorporated there in the federal oversight process. To impose a Maine Yankee inspection would be a step backward and that's why it hasn't been done," Williams said.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan also said that federal regulators had adopted many recommendations after the independent safety assessment at Maine Yankee in 1996, which led to the plant's permanent shut down and dismantlement. The plant's owners, a group of New England utilities, decided it didn't want to make the investment in recommended repairs.

He said when the NRC adopted its new "reactor oversight process" in 2000, it incorporated many elements of an independent safety assessment.

"An ISA would be duplicative of our current inspection activities, as well as an inefficient use of our resources," Sheehan wrote in an email.

Like Williams, Sheehan said he hadn't seen the proposed legislation.

The House bill closely resembles a bill introduced earlier this year by Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., which so far has seen no action.

Under the Welch bill, the assessment team would be composed of at least 25 members, including 16 NRC inspectors who are not assigned to the region where the reactor is located and who have worked on the reactor. Three members chosen by the state official making the request would also be added, as well as six members who are independent contractors who have not worked at the facility in question.