Vt. Yankee valve still leaking

By SUSAN SMALLHEER Rutland Herald Staff – Published: February 17, 2009

 BRATTLEBORO — A valve leaking more than 3,600 gallons of radioactive water a day at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station, discovered seven weeks ago, still hasn’t been fixed, an Entergy Nuclear official said Monday.

Several attempts to fix the leaking gasket, contained in a 4-inch pipe in the reactor’s clean-out system, have failed, according to Robert Williams, company spokesman.

Williams said company engineers will attempt to reinstall a sealant this week.

The company announced the discovery of the leak in early January, saying the leak had been discovered two weeks earlier.

According to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Entergy has tried at least three times to fix the problem, traced to a faulty gasket in a valve in the reactor’s clean-out system.

Sheehan said the leak was now down to one-tenth of a gallon a minute, but he said he didn’t know how long the leak had been reduced. He said the water was “slightly radioactive.”

Read the entire article: http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090217/NEWS02/902170341/1003/NEWS02

The show must go on

Months have passed and, praise Jah, Bush has left the helm. May President Obama stay strong, hold tight to what’s important, and get himself educated about nuclear power.

That’s why I’m back. The nuke news is plentiful and, once again, it’s in teeny-tiny box spots in the paper (if at all). I hope that by making those headlines a bit larger, I can do a small part to help get the word out.

I’m coupling that with the latest dose of self-realization: Wake-up calls require no narrative. Shhhhh…