If the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station were a family pet, it would be long past the point when it was time to do her a kindness and put her out of her misery.

Cooling tower collapses and reactor ‘scrams’. Three coolant leaks in a year. ‘Hot shipments’. Major doubts over the financing of decommissioning.

And now metal fatigue ‘on metal nozzles used to supply water and maintain the temperature in the reactor core.’

What next, you have to wonder? The worrying thing is that it’s possible that it’s about to become more difficult to find out. The New England Coalition, a Brattleboro citizen organisation and nuclear watchdog group has, according to coalition consultant Raymond Shadis, nearly been bankrupted due to the costs of bring cases to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the panel that acts as the judicial arm for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

When citizen groups are having to risk their financial hardship to ensure proper scrutiny - the state Public Service Department has said Vermont will now hire experts to monitor plant manager Entergy’s handling of the metal fatigue issue – you can be forgiven for thinking that something is seriously wrong.

Where’s the proper internal scrutiny of the Vermont Yankee plant? It always appears in the news after an incident. This time, thanks to concerned and tenacious citizens, a problem has been identified and publicised before anything serious could happen. Next time New England Coalition might not have the funds and Vermont Yankee might be not be as fortunate.