N.H. To Do Extra Testing For Nuke Plant Tritium

By The Associated Press
Aug 18, 2011, 2:52 PM
1 Comments

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire public health officials say they’ll conduct additional testing of Connecticut River water in the wake of the discovery of radioactive tritium in the river.

Starting Friday, the state Division of Public Health Services will step up testing.

Joan Ascheim, bureau chief for the public health agency, says that the Vermont Department of Health’s tritium results finding doesn’t necessarily create a risk of harm to the public, but that it’s still concerning.

She says New Hampshire has been testing for months and gotten no results above minimum detectable levels.

New Hampshire, which is across the river from the plant, collects and analyzes hundreds of environmental samples each year in the 10-mile emergency planning zones of Vermont Yankee and Seabrook Station nuclear power plants.

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X-Ray

If your instrumentation is sensitive enough, one can find Tritium in any outdoor body of water. So a little more needs to be done if it is going to be linked to the plant. Futhermore, the absolute level compared to background needs to be revealed. It may be trivial.