Vermont AG Won't Prosecute Top Vermont Yankee Execs, Though They "Knowingly Misled" State Officials

[hatrack]

Attorney General Bill Sorrell will not bring criminal charges against top executives of the Louisiana company that owns Vermont Yankee. Sorrell says that - even though the executives "knowingly misled" state officials about the existence of underground pipes at the plant - their actions don't constitute criminal behavior.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports: (Kinzel) Sorrell's announcement capped an 18 month investigation to determine if Entergy executives committed perjury when they testified under oath at the Vermont Public Service Board that there were no underground pipes that could leak radioactive materials at the Vernon reactor.

Entergy officials later admitted that these statements were wrong but they denied that there was any intent to mislead the state.

Sorrell says his investigation came to a different conclusion: (Sorrell) "Including some documents demonstrating in our view that Entergy and certain of its personnel have acted in at best an untrustworthy manner. However, we lack the smoking gun evidence to prove to our satisfaction, let alone that of 12 Vermont jurors, that this untrustworthy behavior was criminal."

EDIT

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/91310/

[izquierdista]

1. How about protestors?

15 Arrested at Valley Nuke Protest
by Eesha Williams

Fifteen women were arrested June 30 for non-violent civil disobedience outside the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Vermont Yankee is three miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire. The women who were arrested were....

http://valleypost.org/node/578

Did their actions constitute criminal behavior?

[wtmusic]

2. "Knowingly misled" seems to be an addition not present in his remarks.

Poetic license?

[kristopher]

5. I'm comfortable that it is actual reporting.

This news outlet has been following this case since the beginning; did you consult the entire history of Sorrell's utterances?

If it matters to you why not call or email the reporters and ask for a reference for the remark. If they can't provide it, demand a retraction. You can post the exchange here as it occurs to ensure they know the public eye is on them.

[bananas]

3. You just can't trust the nuclear industry.

Watch how they will try to spin this.

[bananas]

4. More articles at evacuationplans.org

http://evacuationplans.org/

[kristopher]

6. NRC and industry colluding to hide information from the public?

From your "evacuation plans" link:

NEC Decries "Secret Portal" of Information Sharing Between Entergy and NRC

According to an e-mail (attached) from Mary Mendiola, a Technical Librarian with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a recent document request (June 27th) from Raymond Shadis, New England Coalition technical advisor, yielded this response (June 28th) from NRC Region I health physicist, James Noggle,

"The NRC was provided a Hydrogeologic study report on Vermont Yankee online via the industry's Certrec computer system, which Entergy uses to provide inspection access to licensee documents, without the NRC actually taking custody of the document. Therefore, the NRC never received the document that Raymond Shadis is requesting. He should contact Entergy directly for this document, which they have previously released to certain State officials."

According to Shadis, "This little note opens a small window on a phenomenon over which I have been puzzling during the tenure of our interventions on Vermont Yankee licensing at NRC. For the last ten years we have observed, what we see as a remarkable decrease in the number of licensee communications posted on the agency's public accession pages, the Agency-wide Documents Accession Management System (ADAMS). Making documents of NRC's public business of regulating nuclear licensees available to the public is extremely important to the exercise of our hearing rights under the Atomic Energy Act. The hearing process requires that intervenors substantiate their contentions with plant-specific documentation, much of which is available only through ADAMS. We recognize the need for licensee's to make their records available to NRC inspection, but if licensees and the NRC can connive a means to share information upon which regulatory decisions are made out of the public record and out of public view, then they are way ahead of the game in defeating the rights of citizens to even try litigating to protect themselves and their environment. We will be protesting the transparent ploy to establish a private communication portal that is outlined in this email (attached) to our Congress and to the highest levels of NRC. "

http://evacuationplans.org/


Thank you for the link.

[SpoonFed]

7. Brutal

but not really unbelievable at this point. I've learned an awful lot in the past 3 months about the guts of the nuke industry. :puke: