Owners of the Salem/Hope Creek complex along the Delaware River say public concern about newly discovered radioactive water leaks at a Vermont nuclear plant hasn't affected their application for a license renewal.

Local environmental group leaders are taking a closer look at lingering problems at Salem as Entergy Corp. and government regulators investigate leaks of radioactive tritium from underground pipes at the Vermont Yankee plant. Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, was found at levels 100 times the federal drinking-water limit in a pipe conduit under the plant, and about 5 percent higher in nearby groundwater.

Leaks of the same material caused uproar last year at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey -- the nation's oldest operating commercial reactor -- and in 2003 at Salem, on the river southeast of Augustine Beach.

"It's an example of ongoing maintenance problems in the industry," said Jane Nogaki, a New Jersey Environmental Federation member. "These are issues that haven't been addressed and could be indicative of other, more serious problems that have yet to unfold."

More than a dozen of the nation's 104 operating reactors have had tritium water leaks over the years, and a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a general investigation in 2006. Agency officials have said they have revised inspection and oversight practices to better deal with leak problems.