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State regulator: Vermont Yankee nuclear plant needs more NRC scrutiny
The Republic By DAVE GRAM  Associated Press August 17, 2012 MONTPELIER, Vt. — A top Vermont utility regulator is renewing her push for stepped-up scrutiny by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after a series of problems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

FILE-In this March 29, 2012, file photo, Department of Public Service
Commissioner Elizabeth Miller testifies at the Statehouse in
Montpelier, Vt. Miller says she’s not satisfied with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s response to her concern that a string of small
problems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant may add up to something
larger. She says she wrote to the NRC this week to ask whether it was
time for the federal agency to step up inspections at the Vernon
reactor.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
But the NRC is continuing to respond coolly to the entreaties by
Elizabeth Miller, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public
Service.

Miller wrote to the NRC this week to ask whether it was time for the
federal agency to step up inspections at the Vernon reactor, given the
recent string of minor problems at the plant.

She had written a similar letter in March, and she said incidents
since then reinforce her view that the NRC should take a second look
at whether a string of minor and, in the NRC’s view, unrelated
incidents had a common element — human error.

“My concern is that such incidents, while perhaps unremarkable in
isolation, together may raise questions regarding the training and
oversight exercised by the operator of the plant,” Miller wrote in an
Aug 14 letter to William Dean, Northeast regional administrator for
the NRC……..
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/518a2516da36453ba863f691f640dc68/VT–Vermont-Yankee

August 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA