Vt. governor urges lawmakers to hold off on Vermont Yankee relicensing

Gov. to lawmakers: Hold off on Vermont Yankee vote

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The state’s lone nuclear plant had a tough day in the capital Wednesday, getting reprimanded by utility regulators in the morning for misleading statements and getting calls from the governor later in the day for a management shake-up.

Gov. Jim Douglas urged the Legislature not to vote this year on whether the Vermont Yankee plant should be allowed to operate for 20 years after its current license expires in 2012. The afternoon announcement reversed course from last week, when he urged lawmakers to give relicensing a green light and leave a final decision to the state Public Service Board.

Douglas reasoned that the atmosphere had grown too toxic for the plant since it was announced Jan. 7 that radioactive tritium had turned up in a groundwater monitoring well at the plant. Five days later, it was revealed that plant officials had misled state regulators and lawmakers by falsely saying it didn’t have underground pipes that could carry tritium.

While trying to carve out a way forward for Vermont Yankee, the governor had harsh words for the reactor’s management. He urged the plant’s owners, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., to replace its top Vermont managers.

Douglas said “like many Vermonters, I have lost trust in the current management team, and I have been disappointed that changes have not already been made. So today I am calling on Entergy to make immediate, necessary changes in management.”

Plant spokesman Robert Williams said Wednesday that Vermont Yankee was “disappointed” by the governor’s action but remained “committed to cooperate in every way possible with the state’s own inquiries.”

“As the reviews proceed, it is important for the public to understand that elevated tritium levels found in a monitoring well at Vermont Yankee present no risk to public health or safety,” Williams wrote in a statement.

Douglas rejected calls for the plant to be shut down, saying he wanted to preserve jobs for its workers, the tax revenue Vermont Yankee generates and the role it plays in southeastern Vermont’s economy.

Management changes would restore the public’s confidence, Douglas said.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin replied that changing top personnel at the plant wouldn’t do the trick. “Entergy Louisiana will not regain the trust of Vermonters by having some heads roll,” Shumlin said.

Douglas also said he wanted the Public Service Board to put off a decision on a plan by Entergy to sell off Vermont Yankee and five other reactors to a newly created company called Enexus. Critics of that plan say the new firm would be too mired in debt to afford to dismantle Vermont Yankee when it comes time to decommission the plant.

Douglas said he was directing the Public Service Department, which appears for ratepayers before the board, “to request a stay from any further action by the board on the Enexus spin-off until the investigations have run their course and Vermonters can be confident in the transparency and honesty of the company’s management.”

Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith declined to comment on Douglas’ call for a delay in a vote on Vermont Yankee’s future. They earlier had indicated there likely would not be a vote this year, especially with Entergy’s misstatements prompting calls for the Public Service Board to reopen its investigation of Vermont Yankee’s fitness to continue operating for an extra 20 years.

One plant critic accused Douglas of playing political games with the timing of a legislative vote. Vermont is the only state with a law giving legislators a say in the relicensing of a nuclear plant.

“It’s like playing the Super Bowl, and your team is down with 30 seconds left, and you say, ‘Hey, I need five more minutes to get this done,’” said Robert Stannard, a lobbyist for the anti-nuclear Citizens Awareness Network.

Earlier Wednesday, the Public Service Board Chairman James Volz began a status conference on the Vermont Yankee relicensing case by scolding the plant’s management over its misstatements to regulators and lawmakers.

“It should go without saying, but perhaps Entergy needs to hear it anyway: Such conduct is absolutely unacceptable,” Volz said. “Our decision in this proceeding, the cases presented by other parties, and the Legislature’s own, parallel determination, all depend on Entergy providing timely, accurate, and complete information.”

(This version CORRECTS years to days in the third paragraph.)