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Vermont Yankee was nearly forced to shut down due to a new leak from a valve in an emergency cooling system. The leak was fixed early on Wednesday, in time to avoid a required shutdown.
The allowable limit for leakage is 1 gallon of water per minute. Tuesday morning a valve in the main reactor building was leaking 1.6 gallons of radioactive water per minute. The water did not drain into the outside environment; it was being collected in a drain system. The leak was repaired in five hours.
Though there was no direct threat to the public, regulations would have required the plant to shut down within 24 hours if the plant could not repair the leak.
Source: The Burlington Free Press 6.11.10
