I received a letter today from Governor Douglas, signed an everythin’.
I felt pretty special about it, like maybe he had actually heard some of my concerns emailed and phone called repeatedly while Vermont Yankee was recently off line for refueling and while VY did modifications in preparation for uprate (once the NRC gives their ok) and while VY supposedly spent more cash searching for lost radioactive waste.
Then I remembered. There were these series of TV interviews that Douglas did on the news up in Burlington. I saw one that was absolutely hilarious where the Governor claims something to the effect that at least Entergy/NRC lost the spent fuel and not the more dangerous uranium before it was spent.
For anyone who does not know, uranium before it is in the reactor core is about as dangerous as garden soil. I may be incorrect here but it seems like “The emperor has no clothes.” Oh but wait… he has name recognition and may get re-elected on it. It was today G.W. called Rumsfeld’s job superb, but I digress.
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Below is the Governor’s letter dated May 6, 2004
Thank you for your correspondence regarding the Entergy (Vermont Yankee) nuclear facility in Vernon….
The recent reports of missing spent fuel rods at the Entergy nuclear power plant have caused me great concern. As I have stated publicly, this situation is intolerable and completely unacceptable. I have spoken with the Chairman of the NRC and demanded that they move swiftly to conduct a full and unfettered investigation in order to determine the whereabouts of this material. They have heeded my call by dispatching a special investigation team to the Vernon site. My Commissioner of Public service and Commissioner of Public safety are also involved in the investigation.
I will not be satisfied until I have the answers to the many questions surrounding the missing spent fuel rods. While I am certain Vermonters are not in danger, I have yet to receive an explanation as to how this could happen…
Signed in ink by the Governor
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My response to the Gov’s letter,,, (not sent)
Gov- I hear you say you want answers to the questions of how it could happen or how the NRC or VY could have done such a poor regulating job as to not have documentation as to where these two spent fuel rod pieces went. This being the case, that we know no more about the issue today 5/10 then we knew when it was announced on 4/21, how could you allow VY to reopen after the outage to continue making high level radioactive waste when clearly they do not know how to safely contain or monitor it?
Has your Commissioner of the Dept. figured out the difference between a neutron and a crouton?
Who will you hold accountable? If you get no more information about the missing rods whose head will roll?
Or if you learn of VT’s high level waste having been shipped and stored illegally as low level waste possibly to South Carolina or Washington who then would be held responsible or accountable?
I am of the opinion that if as you wrote above,” The recent reports of missing spent fuel rods at the Entergy nuclear power plant have caused me great concern”, you would not have allowed the nuclear station to re-open. Oh but this would have cost Entergy money and would have decreased the state’s revenue from the power station.
Maybe you would have been more truthful to state, the missing spent fuel causes me some concern, but not enough to risk adversely affecting the state’s tight budget.