Entergy Makes its Gesture

Well Entergy of Louisiana can’t keep the valves at the plant oiled but they do keep their legal team lubricated with money. Entergy’s legal team was successful in the challenge to Vermont’s law covering Vermont Yankee operating past 2012.The Times Argus reports that Entergy has sent a message from New Orleans demanding Vermont pay $4.6 million in legal fees they claim they incurred in the suit against the State of Vermont.

Reacting to this news Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said he had thought the claim from Entergy would be “in seven figures” more in line with Vermont standards. The Attorney General says “I guess it [$4.6 million] shows the ‘David-versus-Goliath’ aspect of the case,” The mismatch is suitable but it’s kind of an ill fit otherwise for this situation as Goliath has won and is now making demands from David after this part of battle.

It also seems Sorrel had a surprising hope. Against all past dealings with Goliath he thought Entergy might make a gesture of being a good corporate citizen to atone for sins of the past.

Sorrell said he had even thought Entergy might not seek legal fees in a gesture of being “a good corporate citizen making up for the sins of the past and the misleading statements about the underground pipes.”

Sorrell had investigated Entergy officials for more than a year for possible criminal charges for the misstatements about underground pipes, which were later found to be the source of radioactive tritium leaking at the plant in 2010. Entergy executives had said such pipes did not exist.

Under pressure they grudgingly admitted to miss communicating about underground pipes.No criminal charges charges were filed; no case was brought so why would Entergy feel it had sinned? Hardly sinning in Goliath’s rule book, maybe in the eyes of Entergy Corp the only sin is losing.

Vermont Yankee IAM4 Sale

Entergy is actively peddling the aging Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The rumors Vermont Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien mentioned last week have proven to be true. According to reportsEntergy will make an announcement this week. Officials at VY didn’t respond but David O’Brien, continuing his policy of active public commentary on Vermont Yankee offered up his assessment of the value of the aging plant. David O’Brien is proving Entergy Louisiana’s most active broker,real estate agent or simply a nuclear used car salesman.

He stresses the NRC’s rating of the plant he never mentions the condition of the plant. At the same time he fails to mention why this sale is in the interest of the people of Vermont and turns a blind eye to leaking under ground pipes, a tritium plume and the dangerously under funded decommissioning fund that may leave taxpayer footing the bill.
What does Commissioner David O’Brien see as the largest hurdle to the sale of Vermont Yankee? He does note one environmental problem surrounding the sale.

He said its biggest liability is the political environment in a state with a powerful anti-nuclear movement and where the incoming governor and key legislators are longtime critics of it.
"Certainly the political environment that's developed in recent years in Vermont is a cause for concern for any potential bidder," O'Brien said. "That's real. That I would say is the largest hurdle" to a sale.