LEAKY PIPE BURIED

Not front page news.

Buried inside (p. 4B) today's Vermont section of the print edition of the Freeps:-VERNON — Engineers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are still trying to stop a pipe from leaking slightly radioactive water.

Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams says there have been several attempts to fix the gasket in the 4-inch pipe in the reactor’s clean-out system, but all have failed.

The company announced last month that the leak had been discovered. At one point, it leaked about 3,600 gallons of water a day. The water isn’t released into the environment.

Williams says engineers will attempt this week to reinstall a sealant.

Neil Sheehan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the pipe now leaks about one-tenth of a gallon a minute.

Sheehan says one option would be to shut down the plant and install a new valve.