nuclear-news

Vermont nuclear plant likely to be source of radiation in fish

it was impossible to establish a baseline for strontium-90 in Connecticut River fish, because the state had not tested for it before this year.

Bad news: Radioactive fish found near Vt. nuclear plant; Worse news: Fish said to be ordinary,  Washington Examiner, By: DAVE GRAM, Associated Press05/30/10 MONTPELIER, VT. — When a fish taken from the Connecticut River recently tested positive for radioactive strontium-90, suspicion focused on the nearby Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as the likely source.

Operators of the troubled 38-year-old nuclear plant on the banks of the river, where work is under way to clean up leaking radioactive tritium, revealed this month that it also found soil contaminated with strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer and leukemia.

Three days later, officials said a fish caught four miles upstream from the reactor in February had tested positive for strontium-90 in its bones. State officials say they don’t believe the contamination came from Vermont Yankee.

Tritium was reported leaking from the plant in January, and since then has turned up in monitoring wells at levels 100 times the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for that substance in drinking water. Other radioactive isotopes have been found as well, including cesium-137, zinc-65 and cobalt-60…….Now the question is whether strontium-90, generally considered a more dangerous isotope than tritium, may also have found its way to the river…….William Irwin, radiological health chief for the state of Vermont, acknowledged that it was impossible to establish a baseline for strontium-90 in Connecticut River fish, because the state had not tested for it before this year.

Bad news: Radioactive fish found near Vt. nuclear plant; Worse news: Fish said to be ordinary | Washington Examiner

May 31, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive