Now, new tests of bass caught 150 miles away in northwestern Vermont and outside the area affected by the plant's groundwater show similar levels of Strontium-90, said William Irwin, chief of the Vermont Health Department's radiological division.
The likely source, rather than Vermont Yankee, is residue from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union in 1986, he said.
This report puts it as follows:
Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State.
"The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."
The similar levels of radioactive contamination suggest that the reasons for shutting down an aging plant like Vermont's Yankee Nuclear are distinct in this case, not the least of which is that the design is identical to the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plants which melted down after the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.
This report puts it as follows:
Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State.
"The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."
The similar levels of radioactive contamination suggest that the reasons for shutting down an aging plant like Vermont's Yankee Nuclear are distinct in this case, not the least of which is that the design is identical to the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plants which melted down after the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.
