By the Associated Press
August 7, 2004

BRATTLEBORO — An inspection team has been appointed to review safety at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given approval to putting a state expert in with the team of inspectors, although critics of the Yankee plant complain that the observer won't be one of them.

A series of problems at the plant, and a proposal to boost the amount of power produced there, prompted the Public Service Board to request the inspection of the plant, which is owned by Entergy Nuclear.

The NRC on Friday detailed the makeup of the inspection team, which will be led by Jeffrey Jacobson, a 19-year NRC veteran who has led many inspections. Several of those reviews raised significant safety issues, the NRC said in a written statement.

Backing up Jacobson will be four other NRC inspectors and engineers and three independent consultants.

At the request of Gov. James Douglas, state nuclear engineer William Sherman will observe the 700-hour inspection, which the NRC said would try to identify any "latent issues in the plant's design."

"Based on the team's qualifications and demonstrated ability to identify issues on previous inspections, I'm confident this team will perform a rigorous inspection at Vermont Yankee," said James Dyer, director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

Paul Blanch, a nuclear engineer critical of Vermont Yankee's plan to boost power production by 20 percent, said the team, while highly qualified, was not independent. Blanch wanted to be either on the team or serve as the state's observer.

"It appears to be a group of well-qualified individuals; however they will do whatever their boss wants them to do. ... There can be no significant findings," he said Friday.

Blanch, an electrical engineer who works with the New England Coalition, an anti-nuclear watchdog group, also said Sherman was ill-suited to be an observer of the engineering inspection.

"I've known Bill Sherman for 25 years and he's a good engineer, but he's also very supportive of anything Entergy or anything Vermont Yankee wants to do," Blanch said. "He's not an independent observer, believe me."

Jason Gibbs, Douglas' spokesman, disagreed vehemently with Blanch's assertion.

"He's wrong," Gibbs said. "The state nuclear engineer is highly qualified and understands his obligations and responsibility to closely audit and monitor this process and ensure the public is protected."

Douglas did call on the NRC in a letter Friday to certify the objectivity of the independent contractors and to make a series of other accommodations.

He also wanted the NRC to make all of the inspection team members available for regular briefings with the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel and the commissioners of public safety and public service.

Some of the governor's requests seem to have been anticipated by the NRC. It said in its statement that it would hold a public hearing on the inspection's results in September, and required that all NRC employees and contractors involved in the assessment must be separated from Vermont Yankee by at least two years.

The NRC went further for the contractors, saying they also could not have been employed by the plant's parent company, Entergy Nuclear, for two years. Blanch said that requirement was designed specifically to exclude him.

Entergy is committed to maintaining a cooperative and constructive dialogue with Vermont’s Public Service Board, The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and independent experts during the independent safety review.

Increasing Vermont Yankee’s generating capacity by 20% will help assure Vermont’s energy future is bright for years to come. The process – called an uprate – will provide enough clean-air electricity for an additional 100,000 households.

The 'uprate' involves upgrading the equipment at Vermont Yankee without increasing the size of the facility. This is important to Vermonters because the state will need more electricity in coming years. The uprate will supply a portion of that need with additional clean, low-cost electricity that will not require building additional power plants or the associated transmission lines.