Testing:“Everything associated with an actual disaster”

The headline Monday read: NRC Report Vt. Yankee hasn’t done all promised.
However the article reads as if Entergy had done nothing at all. According to the NRC, Entergy had promised after the tritium leak a year ago to do more studies on radioactive tritium and groundwater contamination.

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that Entergy Nuclear had promised to do more studies on the issue of the tritium and other radioactive contamination and groundwater protection, but hadn’t carried out all those promises.

“No significant findings were identified,” Sheehan said Friday. According to the[NRC] report, Entergy “has yet to complete its longterm groundwater monitoring program.”

While noting that Vermont Yankee failed to complete its longterm groundwater monitoring program as they had promised ,the NRC obligingly employs a little of its faith based regulatory rhetoric, Sheehan said the NRC believed that Entergy

“effectively evaluated the contaminated groundwater with respect to off-site effluent release limits, and the resulting radiological impact to public health and safety; and complied with all applicable regulatory requirements and standards pertaining to radiological effluent monitoring, dose assessment and radiological evaluation.” Emphasis added

Well as long as the NRC believes they have effectively evaluated the contaminated groundwater, no doubt it will be too busy this week to work on past promises as today they start a simulated radiation leak exercise.
A control room simulator will “create blueprints for everything associated with an actual disaster” Once the plume is originated by the computers, plant employees will use wind patterns to track which way it would travel and state hazardous material technicians will be sent out to various sites to collect simulated measurements.

William Irwin, chief of Radiological Health for the Vermont Department of Health, said.

"We’re going to hold companies and people more accountable as a state. Vermonters should be proud of the systems in place."