Report Says VY Had Past Radioactive Releases

AP Photo

Officials at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plan in Vermon insists that the strontium-90 found in fish in the Connecticut River did not come from the plant.

Vermont Yankee nuclear plant officials insists there's no evidence linking it to radioactive strontium-90 found in fish samples taken in 2010 from the nearby Connecticut River.

And the state says the levels found are consistent with background levels caused by nuclear bomb testing decades ago and the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

But an Associated Press review of Nuclear Regulatory Commission records finds that Vermont Yankee reported releasing strontium-90 into the environment several times since Entergy bought the reactor in 2002. Annual reports to the NRC show strontium-90 releases from Vermont Yankee from 2002, to 2005.

Yankee spokesman Larry Smith says the company remains firm that the strontium-90 in the fish did not come from the plant. There's no way to know where the radioactivity in the fish came from.