In a startling development, news agencies are reporting that water containing 2 million picocuries per liter of radioactive tritium -- "about 100 times the allowable federal level for drinking water and 70 times the standard for groundwater" -- has been discovered at Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee atomic reactor. The discovery comes just days after Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams mischaracterized a more than 15% increase in radioactive tritium concentrations in test well water, from 17,000 to nearly 20,000 picocuries per liter, as a stabilizing situation, stating on a Vermont Public Radio interview "Essentially, those two readings - 17,000 to 20,000 - those are in the ballpark where you could say it's essentially stable at this point." Now that tritium readings in water at Vermont Yankee that are 100 times more radioactive than that have been revealed, let's hope Entergy spokesman Rob Williams stops trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation.