Tritium concentration in leak at Vermont Yankee nears theoretical maximum

The Associated Press reports that a sample of contaminated water taken from a sump pit at Vermont Yankee atomic reactor contained 2.7 million picocuries of tritium per liter. This is closely approaching the level of tritium concentration in the reactor's cooling water supply itself, which registers around 3 million picocuries per liter. Remarkably, in this sense, reactor tritium appears to be leaking, through unmonitored and uncontrolled pathways, in violation of clearly stated NRC regulatory criteria, from the reactor to unpermitted underground areas of the nuclear power plant, nearly undiluted. Tritium concentrations in groundwater monitoring wells are also showing increasing levels of contamination, now surmounting 834,000 picocuries per liter, over 41 times higher than allowed by EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act.