NRC Member Criticizes Yankee decision
Article published Mar 17, 2006
NRC member criticizes Yankee decision
Rutland Herald
www.rutlandherald.com
One of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s five members believes Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant should not have been allowed to boost its power until safety concerns still under appeal had been resolved.
In a letter made public Thursday, NRC member Gregory Jaczko wrote to his fellow commissioners that he had “substantial concerns” about letting Vermont Yankee produce more power immediately.
“I have substantial concerns about the decision to make the license amendment approving the requested Vermont Yankee extended power uprate application immediately effective,” Jaczko wrote.
Several safety issues raised by the Department of Public Service and the ant-nuclear group New England Coalition about the power increase still are pending before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial panel affiliated with the NRC. Hearings won’t take place until this fall.
“It appears that in complex cases like that confronting the NRC in Vermont Yankee’s application, the agency has misapplied the implementation of the ‘no significant hazards consideration’ determination,” Jaczko wrote.
Under NRC procedure, the NRC staff must make a finding of “no significant hazards consideration” before the uprate can go ahead. According to Jaczko, the staff only issued that finding after the final amendment was issued March 2, when usually such a determination is made very early in the review process, raising questions.
“This in and of itself reveals that this determination was obviously complex more of an analysis regarding whether there were significant hazards rather than an analysis of whether the application involved significant hazards considerations,” he wrote.
“Somewhere we strayed from our course,” he wrote, saying he believed that the NRC staff had adopted procedures contrary to law.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Jaczko was only one member, and that his concerns would be addressed at a later meeting of the full board.
“He’s one of five commissioners and he’s free to express his concerns,” Sheehan said.
He said Jaczko’s letter came after the New England Coalition filed a petition with the NRC on March 3 asking for a stay to prohibit the company from boosting power. That request came a day after the NRC issued Entergy Nuclear its final permit.
Entergy spokesman Robert Williams said Jaczko’s comments “are an issue between the commissioners” and declined to comment.
Earlier in the day, Williams noted that computer analysis of the acoustic vibration in a steam line at the plant, which has essentially put the uprate on hold after a 5 percent boost, needed additional analysis which would take another week.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser for the New England Coalition, couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday about Jaczko’s statement.
Jaczko, who has a doctorate in particle physics, has worked for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate minority leader who is one of the strongest critics of the plan to build a high-level nuclear waste facility in Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas, as well as U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a long-standing nuclear critic.