Entergy Says Reps Didn’t Intend To Mislead State

(Host) Owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant say their representatives never intentionally misled the state about underground pipes that carry radioactive material underneath the plant in Vernon.

A law firm hired by the Entergy Corporation said company representatives gave incomplete answers in testimony at the Public Service Board. The law firm's report says Entergy officials should have corrected the misstatements, but that the company did not try to deceive state regulators.

But Public Service Commissioner David O'Brien, criticized Entergy's internal investigation. O'Brien said the investigation was one-sided.

(O'Brien) "I found the report a lot more about trying to prove or assert that no intentional deception occurred here, as opposed an investigation into what went wrong. Perhaps the one simple way to look at it is that the only people that were interviewed by the investigative team was Entergy personnel."

(Host) The report draws the distinction between pipes carrying radioactive material in contact with soil -- as opposed to those carrying the material that were underground but contained within trenches.

Entergy officials repeatedly said the plant did not have buried pipes that could leak. That was proven wrong when a leak of radioactive tritium was discovered in January.