Vermont Yankee Oversight Panel (VYOP) report was 50 pages long, which makes it difficult to summarize in an opinion piece limited to 600 words, but as the VYOP's first chairman, I believe it is important for all Vermonters to understand the panel's assessment of Yankee's reliability. Our report was a consensus report created by four individuals with many years of broad nuclear power experience.

The rumor around the state, that the VYOP gave Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear plant a clean bill of health, is simply not true. With significant reservations, we concluded that Entergy's Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear plant might operate "reliably" for 20 more years if Entergy made all the required repairs and updates, but thus far there is no methodology in place to assure Vermonters that those costly repairs are made.

The VYOP uncovered serious and system-wide problems. We concluded that VY has both mechanical and cultural problems that Entergy must address before any license extension to 2032. Entergy's deferred maintenance of VY's mechanical components is troubling and expensive to fix. The VYOP uncovered more than $100 million in deferred maintenance on components that must be replaced to assure VY reliability beyond 2012. VY's condenser is a good example of failing components. Nationally, most nuclear plants replace their condensers between 20 and 30 years of operation. VY's condenser has been operating for 37 years and Entergy has known the condenser had issues prior to its purchase of VY in 2002, yet chose to delay the repairs until at least 2014. The VYOP also found that VY's design could not be licensed today because it does not meet today's modern NRC design criteria.

More important than mechanical component failures are the serious systemic cultural problems the VYOP uncovered. Historically, VY has been a very reliable plant, but we found that it is now considered among the 25 percent worst nuclear plants in the United States according to the "Equipment Reliability Index."

The VYOP also discovered that Entergy could have prevented the 2004 transformer fire and the 2007 and 2008 cooling tower failures. Entergy's failure to rely upon industry notices of similar failures, weak inspections at VY, and a lack of time and money for adequate inspections were to blame for these failures. Even though VY discovered rotten wood columns in their cooling towers beginning in 1994, they chose not to enhance their inspections. VYOP also found that Entergy employees were denied their requests for more time and money to assure more thorough inspections. Additionally, the VYOP also found that high employee turnover and upcoming retirements might adversely impact future reliability.

Finally, we discovered that Entergy has allowed VY to have a very high backlog of Corrective Action Requests, which are problems that need to be addressed. Highly rated nuclear plants have less than a handful of Corrective Actions in backlog, while VY had 38. A Corrective Actions backlog of this magnitude is a serious reliability problem and leading indicator of long duration shutdowns. Nationwide, half the U.S. reactors that have been shut down for a year or more due to sudden escalating problems were nuclear plants with large backlogs of Corrective Action Requests similar to VY's. Some of these plants were shut down for 30 months and had to train entirely new management teams due to failure of management oversight.

While it is true that if each problem is taken individually, it may be resolvable, collectively these issues indicate systemic management failures that may severely undermine VY's future reliability just to optimize Entergy's short-term profits. Entergy's management culture profit focus is at the root of our concerns for reliable operation of VY past 2012.

Arnie Gundersen of Burlington is the former chairman of the Vermont Yankee Oversight Panel.