Vermont Yankee decommissioning is nearly complete

[Marlin]

Vermont Yankee decommissioning is nearly complete

https://vtdigger.org/2026/09/23/vermont-yankee-decommissioning-is-nearly-complete/

[Core Content]

NorthStar Group Services has nearly completed the physical demolition of the former Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The ten-year project used almost the entire six hundred two million dollar decommissioning trust fund to clear structures and ship radioactive debris to Texas.

The swift dismantling highlights an alternative to traditional deferred plant dormancy by using third-party contractors for rapid site remediation. Spent nuclear fuel remains stored in dry casks on the property pending a federal repository, while regulators must still review the completed work before releasing the land for future use.

Almost all of the $602 million decommissioning trust fund has been spent on demolishing the reactor and its affiliated structures and shipping the debris thousands of miles away.

This story by Susan Smallheer was first published in the Brattleboro Reformer on Sept. 21, 2026.

VERNON — The sound of jackhammering has largely stopped. And the view of the Connecticut River is frankly astonishing: Gone is the large, five-story pale green reactor building that has dominated the site for close to 50 years. There are no more giant industrial buildings at the former Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, just what looks like an ordinary construction yard.

Read the full article at VTDigger:
https://vtdigger.org/2026/09/23/vermont-yankee-decommissioning-is-nearly-complete/

[Marlin]

VY was my first plant out of the Navy. Probably a very good plant to transition to commercial nuclear. First time I saw large area wipes used, the Navy was rigid on sampling and insisted on assigning a number to each sample in uuc/100cm2. As it turned out 100 cpm on a smear was 1000 dpm/100cm2 which matched 450 uuc/100cm2 which made the transition easy. Taking a 100-foot masslin wipe to verify a clean floor was much easier. At the S1W prototype part of the ELT training was to enter a sampling room over the reactor that was built for previous experiments on the reactor. I took a number of wipes in the drip trays and did not get near the frisker on the way out. Again, the Navy's need for numbers had me cutting the smear on what I judged to be the geometric center and count a half smear on a scaler and if still to high cut that in half and so on until the scaler was not saturating. Putting a dose rate meter on a smear and record as mr/100cm2 seemed much more logical but there is the right way the wrong way and the Navy way. VY and Pilgram both received a batch of bad fuel. VY made the decision to shut down and remove leakers. This gave me the opportunity to operate the sipping panel which back then was a sheet of plywood with tubing and valves. I took the samples to the chemistry lab and used Geli to do an isotopic. In the Navy our only isotopic was called a Mare Island sample the consisted of a resin column and filter we collected and shipped off every six months. After a shift sampling we did a shift doing job coverage on the refuel floor and in the fuel pool (empty). I had my first experience handling rad waste cleaning out a storage room of drums and placing them strategically in the semi-van in a way to meet the DOT dose limits. Loved VY with its old retired hippies in the area very nice restaurants for tourists. I worked Pilgram years later for the piping replacement and the decision not to shut down and remove leakers showed with dose rates around the plant. It is the first time I saw a "Danger High Radiation" sign; it was on the backwash receiver tank door. I was the lead tech for the control rod Drives; they replaced almost all of them. Dose was surprisingly low operations did a flush to clean them out a bit, except for one 400 R/Hr drive. When we got the word from the drywell it was coming out, I ran over to the boilermaker who had already placed the shield over the filter end. He was looking at his dosimeter as I walked up then looked at me with a stern look saying its broken. Not an over exposure just more than he expected.

Sorry for nostalgia but it is a slow Sunday afternoon for an old retired Nuke.