- MONTPELIER, Vermont -- Two
highly radioactive fuel rods from a Vermont nuclear plant are missing,
plant officials said.
-
- Engineers were searching the spent fuel pool at the Vermont
Yankee plant for the small rods, which were removed from the reactor in
1979.
-
- ìWe do not think there is a threat to the public
at this point. The great probability is this material is still somewhere
in the pool,î said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.
-
- One of the missing rods is about the size of a pencil.
The other is about the thickness of a pencil and 43 centimetres long.
-
- Gov. James Douglas, after speaking with the head of the
NRC, said he was ìvery concernedî about the missing fuel at
the plant, run by Entergy Nuclear.
-
- ìThis situation is intolerable,î he said
in a statement.
-
- In 2002 a Connecticut nuclear plant was fined $288,000
after a similar loss. That fuel was never accounted for.
-
- Vermont Yankee is located in the southeastern town of
Vernon, on the border with Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
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- http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=1234351
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