The Brattleboro Reformer
February 4, 2005
The Associated Press

MONTPELIER (AP) -- The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will see increased inspections this year as a result of emergency notification problems that came to light late last year.

The plant earned a "white" finding of low to moderate safety significance following an inspection of the emergency alert notification system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday.

Many of the tone-alert radios were inoperable, but federal inspectors also are concerned that the company operating the nuclear power plant doesn't know which residents have the emergency notification radios.

Entergy Nuclear is the parent company of Vermont Yankee in Vernon.

The NRC said Entergy Nuclear's emergency notification system hadn't performed well enough last year during an inspection. The NRC said the emergency alert radios the plant relies on to notify many residents in the 10-mile emergency evacuation zone surrounding the reactor are unreliable.

Entergy spokesman Robert Williams said the company already was making improvements to its emergency alert system, and has asked surrounding towns to adopt a "route alert" system in the interim.

The route alert system calls for emergency officials to drive around town with loudspeakers alerting residents of the emergency at the nuclear power plant.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Entergy was in the middle of taking corrective actions for the radio problem. But, he said, Vermont Yankee might be the only nuclear plant that still relies on the radios, which can be unreliable because of reception problems. Most nuclear power plants, he said, use a network of sirens to reach all the residents living within 10 miles of the reactors.

The emergency evacuation plan wasn't enough to satisfy some Vermont legislators representing residents in the area around the nuclear power plant.

Vermont Yankee, through the township and local Emergency Management Directors within the Emergency Planning Zone, has taken steps to verify all of the residents with tone alert radios. As well our emergency planning department is going to begin annual mailings of replacement batteries for the radios that are already in the field. An additional 1,300 radios have been requested by Vermont residents and these will be sent out in the near future. And to fulfill our commitment to provide the best emergency management system available we continue to explore new technologies and updates to equipment.