The Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel held its last regular meeting of the year Monday evening. Members heard an update on the decommissioning of the former plant and discussed possible groundwater PFAS levels on the site.
NorthStar Vermont Yankee began decommissioning and deconstructing the former Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon six years ago - in January 2019. Senior Manager Corey Daniels told the panel NorthStar is on schedule and confident they will complete the decommissioning ahead of the 2030 deadline.
“The reactor building is gone. Just a little bit of the remnants of the containment wall is up and there’s a little bit of that remaining and that’s it. The reactor building and all the equipment is pretty much gone right down to the ground level, 252 feet,” Daniels reported. “All of the remaining portion of that will be fully flush with the ground by the end of the year. And the other major activity that’s happening besides the demolition of that large structure is loading all that material and ship it off site.”
Panel member State Representative Laura Sibilia asked Daniels if there had been any evidence of PFAS on the former nuclear site or in materials they have shipped for out-of-state disposal.
“I have asked a number of questions about the groundwater that is being moved. With relation to the PFAS, do we have any sense if any of that groundwater was contaminated or any assurances that it was a not?”
Daniels told Sibilia he could not provide a definitive answer but said there is no link between any sampled groundwater and areas where PFAS has been found.
“I’m not prepared to give you with certainty if we ever tested any of our groundwater that we ship for PFAS mostly because the water that we did have was being monitored effectively for tritium or radionuclides.”
Sibilia’s question came just before a presentation by Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation Hazardous Site Manager Graham Bradley regarding the history of investigation and regulation of PFAS at Vermont Yankee.
“Over 20 years ago now there was this transformer fire and firefighting foam, or what’s known as Aqueous Film Forming Foam was used to extinguish this fire – AFFF. And AFFF contained a number of different PFAS compounds,” Bradley noted. ”I think this might be before we even had standards for PFAS, a couple years before we brought in standards in Vermont. And even then, we were recommending that because of the fire, because of the use of AFFF that soils and groundwater were sampled.”
Bradley added that the state groundwater enforcement standards are about to change for PFAS chemicals.
“The Groundwater Protection Rule and Strategy is the rule that contains groundwater standards and that has been revised and it’s been through a review process. And so the numbers will be coming down, will be kept to higher standards. And that is something that NorthStar will have to plan for next year.”
Vermont’s new drinking and groundwater standards for PFAS chemicals will be effective early in 2026.
