Environment

Safe, Clean Nuclear Power

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont has been leaking radioactive Tritium. In fact, "100 times the federal Environmental Protection Agency's safety limit for that substance in drinking water." It's also been leaking cesium-137, zinc-65 and cobalt-60.

And today we learn:

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.

Yeah, they're saying it's coming from various nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War, as well as from the Chernobyl disaster.

They added that all living things including humans now have traces of strontium-90 in them because of Chernobyl and the nuclear tests.

Sleep tight.

Adding... That power plant in south Jersey is still leaking Tritium into an underground drinking water aquifer. Just thought I'd mention that. You know, because nuclear energy is so clean and safe.

Related... This post is a must-read about the possibility of nuking the leaking oil well.