In the face of legal pressure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has switched directions and denied “exemptions” to fire safety requirements at the Indian Point nuclear power plant.
Richard Brodsky, a former 14-term state assemblyman, and the Atlantic Chapter as a co-plaintiff, have a case before Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York challenging a secret NRC decision permitting substandard insulation of the electrical cables designed to control the shutdown the nuclear plant in a fire emergency.
The NRC initially determined that the insulation, which is supposed to last 60 minutes in a fire, actually disintegrated in 27 minutes. Rather than require Entergy (operators of the plant) to upgrade the insulation to meet its own requirements, the NRC —with no public announcement, no public participation, and no public hearing— granted Entergy an “exemption” allowing it to ignore the 60-minute rule.
Following the NRC’s reversal, Brodsky said the “action focuses attention on two ongoing crises. First, it illuminates the extent of Indian Point’s non-compliance with crucial fire safety regulations. Second, and even more importantly, it shows how the NRC use of illegal ‘exemptions’ has undermined public safety, the rule of law and the NRC’s reliability as the protector of public health and safety.”
“We will pursue the case before the Second Circuit,” Brodsky said. “But it is increasingly clear that the mechanism used by the nuclear industry and the NRC to gut public health and safety provisions will not survive.”
“For years, and on literally thousands of occasions, operators of nuclear reactors, including Indian Point, have been granted secret exemptions from fire safety rules intended to prevent a reactor meltdown,” Brodsky said. “The laws governing the NRC do not allow for exemptions to fire safety rules. This practice is illegal and dangerous.
“What the NRC has not done is to allow for public notice and participation in these decisions, and it has not admitted that it has been acting illegally. The NRC is to the nuclear industry today what the SEC was to Wall Street four years ago. We must reform the NRC by assuring that specific fire safety requirements are met, and by ending the Soviet-style practice of secret and dangerous exemptions being continually given to the nuclear industry.
The illegal use of exemptions in fire safety systems “is the most dangerous of the many regulatory failures of the NRC,” said Ulrich Witte, a nuclear safety consultant with 30 years of experience in the industry.
Sierran Annie Wilson, New York City Group energy activist, hailed the work of Witte. “We are deeply grateful to Ulrich Witte for his expertise and diligence,” she said.
Indian Point is on the Hudson River, about 38 miles north of New York City.