AP, Barre Montpelier Times Argus
March 12, 2007
By David Gram

MONTPELIER — The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant most likely did not exceed state limits for radiation emanating from the Vernon site in 2004, contrary to a state report at the time, a state consultant has found.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities also recommended that Vermont "update" its regulations for radiation exposure around Vermont Yankee, noting that they predate and are five times as stringent as limits issued by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Bill Irwin, chief of radiological health at the state Department of Health, said in an interview that he agreed that radiation readings taken in 2004 — which were believed to have exceeded the state limit of 20 milirems of exposure a year, likely overstated the amount of radiation emanating from the plant.

"The state agrees with the findings of Oak Ridge that the measurements reported for 2004 were not as precise or accurate as they could have been," said Irwin, who joined the Health Department last year. "Given what we know now we do not believe there was ... in excess of 20 milirems for 2004."

Radiation emissions were a key issue as the plant sought and won permission to increase its power output by 20 percent, which it did a year ago. The Oak Ridge group said the power boost was likely to add 26 to 30 percent to radiation emissions, and whether the plant could stay under the state limit came into question. New radiation shielding was added at the plant last May, the report said.

Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams, in an interview Friday, said plant officials were "generally pleased" with the report. "It appears to confirm that the method that is in use here (to measure radiation) is the appropriate method."

The Oak Ridge Associated Universities group is made up primarily of academics and researchers and is affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Founded in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb, the lab has been at the forefront of nuclear technology since then.

Williams called the Oak Ridge group "the recognized expert in the field." But Raymond Shadis, technical adviser to the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition, took a more critical view.

"They've never seen a unit of radiation they didn't like," Shadis said. "Oak Ridge lives and dies on the propagation of the nuclear industry, the nuclear culture."

Of the group's findings, Shadis added, "What a surprise ... I haven't seen one of these findings move in a precautionary direction in decades. It always goes the other way."

Irwin said the state had already taken some of the steps the report called for in improving its radiation monitoring around Vermont Yankee. One criticism in the report was that the state relied on measurements from two testing locations — one in Putney and the other in Wilmington — to measure the background radiation.

Oak Ridge said the state needed a broader sample to get a more accurate background reading, and Irwin said it was now averaging data from all of the 34 measuring stations in an outlying ring around the plant.

While Irwin said the state generally agreed with the Oak Ridge findings, he said it's highly unlikely that Vermont will raise its radiation limit to match those imposed by other states and the NRC.

He called the suggestion from Oak Ridge, "clearly one of the recommendations of the Oak Ridge report that we will not be adopting.

"We believe it's important to uphold the intent of the regulatory limit as it was established in the '70s. The limit was established because the Legislature wanted to have more restrictive public health exposures than the federal government."