Close Down Indian Point

Sierra Atlantic has long called for the immediate and permanent shutdown of the two Indian Point nuclear power plants on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York, now operating with expired licenses. These plants pose a grave and unfair personal and economic risk to the people of New York City, and all of the 20 million people living or working within the 50-mile radius of the reactors.

The list of problems with Indian Point is a long one. In recent months the list of urgent problems grew longer and even more menacing. Some examples:

Continuing major issues at Indian Point include lack of an evacuation plan, numerous accidents and incidents, location at the convergence of two earthquake faults, permanent storage of 1,500 pounds (and growing) of radioactive waste onsite, risk of terrorism, and thermal contamination of the Hudson River killing billions of fish, eggs and larva annually.

Of the three reactors at the site, Indian Point 1 was closed in 1974, but its spent fuel remains onsite. Indian Point 2, built in 1974, has continued to operate after its license expired in September 2013. Indian Point 3, built in 1976, has been operating without a license since December 2015.

Who would drive a 1974 Ford Pinto that’s leaking fluids and suffering frequent breakdowns due to electrical problems if there were any other choice? Especially if the leaking fluids were radioactive?

The 2015 documentary Indian Point, directed by Ivy Meeropol, has footage of the control room, with analog dials and switches, and the green paint reminiscent of a sci-fi movie of the 1950s. This is a very old plant. Despite the heroic effort of its engineers and personnel to keep the plant running long after its permitted life.  The region is only one bad minute from disaster.

Governor Andrew Cuomo leads a long list of New York elected officials who have called for the closure of Indian Point. He shares the concerns of the Sierra Club and many other groups about the construction of Spectra’s high-pressure gas pipeline near the plant. In February, Cuomo announced that the state will undertake an independent analysis of the environmental, health and safety risks of siting the pipeline so close to Indian Point.

There have been many accidents over the years. The recent accident history at Indian Point reveals the  condition of this aging industrial facility:

Radioactive fluids were found to be leaking into the groundwater from Indian Point in 2005 and are still seeping into the Hudson. Entergy’s inability to locate and stop these leaks is another manifestation that the nuclear reactors are unreliable and dangerous. Tritium and other cancer-causing radionuclides, including Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Cobalt-60 and Nickel-63, have been identified in the leaks, according to an assessment by the New York Department of State as part of its Coastal Zone Management Assessment.

Groundwater contamination is not covered by decommissioning funds under NRC regulations. These costs will fall squarely on NYS taxpayers. Groundwater contamination greatly increased decommissioning costs at the Connecticut Yankee plant.

 

The Hudson River is a direct source of drinking water for many river towns and is a backup source of drinking water for New York City and Westchester. Radioactive contaminants may be sucked into these drinking water systems. In January 2007 it was reported that Strontium-90 was detected in four out of twelve Hudson River fish tested.

Indian Point has been a known terrorist target since 9/11. Plans for attacking the nuclear facility were found in the caves of Afghanistan, but the terrorists decided against it. Since then the world has become an even more dangerous place. Nation-states and cybercrime gangs now have the ability to destroy our infrastructure from within. 

Damaging software has been developed that could shut down an electrical grid for an extended period, in turn causing a nuclear plant’s back-up generators to shut down. Within days after the back-up generators would run out of diesel fuel, lack of power would lead to loss of control over both the nuclear reaction in the reactors and the water cooling the 1,500 pounds of irradiated waste fuel stored in the spent fuel pools.

The New York Department of State, Bureau of Coastal Management recently determined that IP was no longer needed to power our grid and did irreparable harm to the Hudson River. It denied Entergy a permit needed for re-licensing. Entergy is appealing the decision.

The BCM report states: “Entergy contends that if Indian Point generation were no longer available, highly polluting fossil fuel-fired facilities would be used to replace IP’s nuclear energy.  This contention is disproved by the three transmission line improvements, none of which involves generation of additional fossil fuel emissions. Clean energy replacements for Indian Point exist and are available this year.

Con Ed is under contract to purchase only 560 megawatts of Indian Point’s production of electrical energy.  If both reactors were immediately shut down there would be no power shortage. New York does not need Indian Point nuclear energy!

 

The ultimate authority on relicensing or decommissioning a nuclear power plant is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  The NRC has never refused to relicense a plant. In 2007, President-elect Barack Obama called the commission a “moribund agency,” a captive of the industry it regulates.  And so it is.

The NRC stands firm in its opinion that there is “no danger to the public” from any of this litany of serious vulnerabilities.   The risks at IP are magnified due to the unwillingness of the NRC to enforce its own standards, weakening them when it would cost Entergy too much to comply. The operating standard of the NRC is money, not safety.