Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Vermont Yankee

Wash, Rinse, Spin and Repeat by Shay Totten.


In 2003, the Vermont Public Service Board fined Entergy $50,000 for showing a “willingness to mislead” regulators — essentially, for being a bully. Prescient.
In early 2006, Entergy handed a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. It claimed VY’s cooling towers were structurally sound. In 2007, one of the towers collapsed. Spectacularly.
After the 2007 collapse, Entergy claimed it had beefed up its inspection program to prevent such a collapse from happening again. Federal regulators concurred, and state regulators were assuaged. Then, in 2008, more support beams collapsed around a cooling tower. Whoops.
In early 2008, Entergy promised the legislature that new hires would beef up VY’s quality assurance program. In 2009, Entergy issued a hiring freeze.
In 2009, Attorney General Bill Sorrell ruled that a 2008 statewide media blitz claiming VY had “zero fossil fuel emissions” was inaccurate, in violation of state consumer fraud laws. VY officials called the wording “unfortunate” and vowed not to use such adjectives again.
And the list goes on.

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