The NRC will oversee Entergy’s efforts to address groundwater contamination at the site and will review and assess the company’s response to an NRC Demand for Information (DFI) issued in early March.
In January, Entergy had notified the NRC that it had received positive sample results for tritium from a groundwater well at Vermont Yankee. The NRC has been closely monitoring Entergy’s actions to identify, mitigate, characterize and remediate the source of the contamination.
The NRC’s resident inspectors and regional specialists continue to provide oversight of the company’s actions through direct observations and independent assessments. The current tritium contamination does not pose any health or safety concern for members of the public or plant workers, NRC said.
On March 1, the NRC issued a DFI requiring Entergy to confirm that information provided to the NRC that is material to its decisions is accurate and that the impact of recent personnel changes is assessed with regards to regulatory program performance and safety culture.
This action stemmed from an Entergy decision to take action against certain employees at Vermont Yankee as a result of Entergy’s independent internal investigation into alleged contradictory or misleading information provided to the State of Vermont and then not corrected. Entergy responded to that DFI on March 31 and agreed to conduct additional communications and outreach activities with stakeholders.
Under the NRC’s Reactor Oversight Process, a plant’s performance determines the level of inspection conducted at the site. To provide additional oversight, the agency can decide to deviate from the process and conduct further inspections, etc, when warranted by the given situation.
Any such plans are proposed in a memo from the Regional Administrator for approval by the executive director for operations. The memo, called a ‘Deviation Memo,’ provides a formal vehicle to document the NRC’s additional inspection plans to assess Entergy’s groundwater efforts. It also provides resources for the staff to thoroughly evaluate Entergy’s response to the DFI.
Samuel Collins, NRC Region I administrator, said: “In the case of Vermont Yankee, the staff considers it prudent to apply additional inspection focus to specific areas, even though licensee performance in these areas has not crossed any specific thresholds mandating additional regulatory oversight.
“Although there is not currently a public health and safety issue, additional NRC inspections and assessments as well as increased external stakeholder communications and outreach would help address stakeholder concerns.”
