A wee bit of the old glow in the dark?

Vermont Public Radio reported this week Entergy's Vermont Yankee has another leak. A high pressure emergency coolant system is leaking small puffs of steam, mild levels of radioactive steam. If it’s not exactly the same as many other times it’s at least a very familiar chain of events.

"We're talking about relatively mild levels of radioactivity coming out of here. This is a system connected to the reactor obviously but any radioactive liquid flowing out of here would be at low levels."

There was a notable delay in reporting the news to the public as often is the case. Remember as Vermont PSD Commissioner David O’Brien said recently

“How many days until the election?”

The leak (called minor by the NRC) was discovered almost a month ago, September 24th and reported to the NRC.

"Our maintenance department put a maintenance patch on this drain line to make temporary repairs and we have permanent repairs that will be made sometime in the future. But the high pressure injection coolant system is operable.

We have no issues whatsoever with the operation of the system and we're considering this routine maintenance

that our maintenance department would perform at a nuclear plant on a day to day basis."

Tuesday VPR reported poll results showing that statewide 44 percent of those surveyed said they want the plant to close, 39 percent supported re-licensing and 17 percent undecided with an error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.