MONTPELIER, Vt. - When a nuclear watchdog group asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a study on leaks of radioactive water at the Vermont Yankee plant, it was told the NRC had seen the report but had never officially taken custody of it - so it wasn't public.
Critics say it's a style of communication between regulator and regulated that cuts out the public and even state regulators trying to track leaks of tritium, a radioactive form of water linked with cancer when ingested in high amounts.
An NRC spokeswoman confirmed the agency routinely sees industry reports that it does not share on its public website.
"We don't take possession of them, so you can't get them from us," said Diane Screnci, spokeswoman in the NRC's Northeast regional office.
The fight comes as the NRC comes under heightened scrutiny for what its critics say is too much coziness with the industry it oversees, and is part of what Michel Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes called a pattern of making public access to information more difficult.
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An already difficult-to-navigate NRC online documents service recently was redesigned and became more so, Keegan said. The NRC uses company claims of proprietary information, security concerns and exceptions to limit access, he added. The agency also notes that the industry is sharing information with it voluntarily.
"The NRC hides behind this," Keegan added.
At Vermont Yankee, the battle is even more pitched than in most places. The governor and Legislature are pushing to shut the plant down when its initial 40-year license expires next March. They cite the recent tritium leaks and misstatements by company executives - Vermont's attorney general announced Thursday the company won't be prosecuted for perjury - as reasons Vermont should get done with nuclear power.
Plant owner Entergy Corp. says the Vernon reactor is safe and reliable. It is suing in federal court, saying the state's efforts to shut down Vermont Yankee are pre-empted by federal law.
Raymond Shadis of the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition said the NRC, which renewed Vermont Yankee's federal license in March, is making regulatory decisions based on information the public doesn't get to see. "It's our position that this should be open to the light of public scrutiny," he said.
The issue came to light on June 22, when officials from the NRC's regional headquarters in Pennsylvania traveled to Brattleboro for a public meeting designed as a review of the agency's annual report card for the Vernon reactor.
