August 4, 2011
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant insists there's no evidence linking it to radioactive strontium-90 found in fish samples taken in 2010 from the nearby Connecticut River.
And the state says the levels found are consistent with background levels caused by nuclear bomb testing decades ago and the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
But an Associated Press review of Nuclear Regulatory Commission records finds that Vermont Yankee reported releasing strontium-90 into the environment several times since Entergy bought the reactor in 2002.
Annual reports to the NRC show strontium-90 releases from Vermont Yankee in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Yankee spokesman Larry Smith says the company remains firm that the strontium-90 in the fish did not come from the plant.
There's no way to know where the radioactivity in the fish came from.
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