FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greenfield, MA, March 6, 2013. – The Vermont Public Service Board admitted the Connecticut River Watershed Council’s (CRC) four expert reports as part of the on-going Certificate of Public Good relicensing hearings for the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear facility. These reports – developed by experts with decades of experience in biology, thermal pollution, engineering, and water quality modelling – outline significant concerns about Entergy’s impact on the Connecticut River. Entergy’s suite of four law firms had been working hard to keep CRC and these reports out of the proceedings.

The PSB admitted David Deen, CRC’s upper valley river steward, into the proceedings as an expert witness bringing the CRC’s reports into evidence. Among the points Deen made in his analysis of the reports is that Vermont Yankee’s current expired permit uses a flawed, overly simplistic mathematical formula rather than actual river temperatures to conclude if their pollution is within legal limits. Actual temperature data taken by Entergy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service shows the river exceeds permit temperature limits 50 -75% of the time. According to Deen, “Fish can’t do math, but they sure know when they are in hot water.”

“The Clean Water Act requires discharges to not harm the river or fish,” says CRC executive director Andrew Fisk. “But Entergy has been using flawed and outdated science, operating under an expired discharge permit, and heating the Connecticut River. It’s time for the state to issue a new permit that requires Yankee to use its cooling towers and stop using the Connecticut River as its dump.”

CRC thanks the Vermont Natural Resources Council and the Vermont Law School for their expert legal support. The case will continue for several more months, but now CRC is at the table behind a big stack of reports and data that point to the many flaws in Entergy’s case to continue its thermal pollution.

For more information or if you would like to read these reports visit ctriver.org.

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CONTACT:

Andrew Fisk, Executive Director, afisk@ctriver.org, 413-772-2020 ext.208     413-210-9207 (cell)

David Deen, Upper Valley River Steward, ddeen@ctriver.org, 802-869-2792