Vt. Yankee alert drill reveals problems

July 1, 2003

By SUSAN SMALLHEER Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — A state review of Monday’s “fast breaker” drill of the emergency alert system for Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant revealed problems with the notification system for people living around the Vernon reactor.

If Monday’s drill had been a real emergency, people in the town of Vernon would not have been notified because the town’s sirens were never set off in time, according to Lewis Stowell, the radiological planner with the Vermont Office of Emergency Management.

“ Vernon sirens would not have been activated on time and this is an ongoing project for Vermont Yankee to fix,” Stowell wrote in a four-page report on the drill released Tuesday.

It is the second time the notification test has had major problems since November.

Stowell said the Vernon notification problem was due to a long-standing problem with the remote siren, which is located at the Vernon Fire Department and can only be released by someone at the fire station, which is normally not staffed.

The state has long wanted to change that system, he said, because of inherent problems with getting to the fire station in time to set off the alarms.

“What if there was a terrible snowstorm?” Stowell pointed out.

Stowell said one of the two pagers carried by emergency personnel in Vernon also didn’t work during Monday morning’s drill, and the other Vernon responder didn’t call in to State Police within the required time. A new pager was hand-delivered Tuesday to the first person, he said.

During a drill, the sirens are not set off, but personnel have to go through all the steps leading up to it, he said.

Stowell said the state had been unable to talk with the second Vernon person on Tuesday, and so didn’t know what the problem was. He declined to identify that individual.

But Stowell’s report, which was prompted by a complaint on Monday by anti-nuclear activist Gary Sachs of Brattleboro , revealed other minor problems in the monthly test of the emergency alert system.

According to state and federal regulations, the state has 30 minutes to notify its residents in the event of an emergency at the Vernon reactor. The state met that requirement on Monday, by about two and a half minutes, with some minor glitches.

Sachs had complained that the state hadn’t met its timeliness requirement, and he questioned whether the 30-minute period was realistic as well.

“If it takes 28 minutes for them to begin notification of evacuation, how long will it take for a plume to take to get five miles away?”

“I would like to know what is the worst-case scenario on which they are basing the plan,” he said. “Why have a plan at all?”

“Here’s two tests that have failed since November. Let’s stop testing fast-breaker. Why don’t they just test the basic evacuation plan?”

Stowell said that Entergy Nuclear officials had agreed just prior to the monthly drill to install the new remote-access alert system in Vernon , but that Monday’s drill had gone on anyway.

People living closest to the plant and in downtown Brattleboro rely on the siren system. Those in more remote locations have the National Weather Service alert radios, which was run by the National Weather Service.

There were also minor problems with the National Weather Service, which had been slower than federal requirements in setting off the tone alert radios.

The Weather Service, which is based in Albany , N.Y. , was dealing with a real-life weather emergency involving severe thunderstorms in the Albany area early Monday morning and a less-experienced person was assigned to handle the Vermont Yankee alert, Stowell’s report stated.

If it had been a real emergency, the nuclear plant would have taken precedent, he said.

“Emergency Management has proposed a more automated notification system in previous budgets and was hoping to procure and implement a new system in FY 2004,” Stowell wrote. “Such a system would speed up notifications and subsequent responses by responders. It is unclear at this time whether we will be able to do this in FY 2004.”

Stowell, the state’s planner, had triggered the emergency drill at 5:35 a.m. Brattleboro sirens would have been activated at 6:03 a.m. , according to the report.

Robert O. Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said the company did not participate in the drill and he referred all comment to Stowell.

He said the company had its own five-person emergency planning department, but by federal law, the utility plans for emergencies within the plant and the state is responsible for planning outside the plant’s fences.

The state has been conducting the “fast-breaker” drills since 2000. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency require that there be such a plan, but have no requirement for testing it.

There were problems with the fast-break drill in November 2002, as well.