INDIAN POINT 2009 ARTICLES

“Indian Pt. Meltdown Gas Mask Survivor” by Shelli Lipton

Here are 2009 Indian Point articles, editorials, op-eds and letters in chronological order with the most recent first. You can also find news from 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001. If you find an article that should be included, please call us at 1-888-474-8848.

Pieces specifically about the ongoing leak of tritium and strontium 90 can be found here.

Westchester exec, challenger split on Indian Point

By Greg Clary • The Journal News • October 23, 2009

This time the Indian Point sirens didn't blurt out "Emergency ... Emergency."

The nuclear plant's latest test went off without a hitch Thursday, with 100 percent of the 172 sirens in four counties sounding as they were designed to.

That hasn't always been the case.

In the last five years, the emergency warning system has seemed snakebit, with problems so chronic the owners finally opted to spend about $20 million to put in a new system.

That included the voice sirens that scared New City residents last month but were merely a test.

Thursday's retest seems to indicate that the computer glitches from the new system have been solved.

It's only one test, but put together with four straight successful tests prior to this fall indicates it probably won't be long until they do away with the old sirens altogether.

The company's efforts to control leaks of radioactive tritium and strontium 90 also got a thumbs up recently from federal regulators, who said Entergy's longterm remediation program is being "effectively implemented and maintained."

That has been another $20 million project, with plenty more to be spent because ongoing monitoring is required.

It's clearly not time to hold a bake sale for Indian Point, given the fact that nuclear industry analysts estimate that the site generates as much as $2 million a day in revenue.

But with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviewing the plant's license for a possible 20-year extention, the next year or so should prove critical to the plant's future.

Without an extra 20 years, the site would have to begin shutting down in 2013 and cease operation by 2015.

So the plant and its operations continue to generate controversy.

The two county executive candidates in Westchester County, which is home to the plant, couldn't disagree more on its future.

"I don't support Indian Point, even if it was the safest plant in the world," incumbent Democrat Andrew Spano said Wednesday night at the League of Women Voters debate at Pace University in White Plains. "It's a nuclear plant in the middle of the ... most densely populated area around any nuclear plant. It's aged. They can't even get the sirens to work."

Rob Astorino, the Republican challenger, said Spano should stop pitching the idea of closing down the plant because the county doesn't have the necessary authority.

"The county wanted a study (on shutting down the plant) done and spent $385,000 to see if Indian Point could be condemned or perhaps taken over by the county," Astorino said. "Clearly, (the report) said no, don't do that."

Astorino said projections of increased need for electricity make the idea of taking Indian Point offline a bad one.

"If we take Indian Point out of the grid, do you know what's going to happen to your electric rates, and all the jobs at Indian Point?" he asked rhetorically. "Indian Point is going to stay here and as long as it does, we need to make sure it's safe and the community is safe."

Spano believes that the nuclear plant can be replaced by a gas-fired plant or by allowing the energy markets enough time to come in and supply the electricity the region needs from other sources.

"Remember, all that (Indian Point) energy does not come here," Spano said.

At least there's a clear difference between the two candidates, so when you go to the polls next month, if Indian Point's on your radar, you'll have a choice.

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Indian Point nukes threaten Connecticut

10/06/2009

By Joseph J. Mangano

Greenwich and Stamford lie nestled at the lower tip of Connecticut, on the New York State border. The prosperous suburban towns feature picturesque homes and lovely views of the Long Island Sound.

But surprisingly, Greenwich and Stamford have a very high rate of childhood cancer. According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, in the most recent six years, 62 children living in the two towns were diagnosed with cancer, a rate 40 percent greater than the U.S., and higher than almost all towns in Connecticut.

This fact should surprise many, as Greenwich and Stamford children should be healthier than those in other areas. Their mothers received excellent medical care while pregnant, and during and after birth. Their parents are less likely to smoke or practice risky health habits. Most don't have the obstacles facing poor children, like substandard housing, nutrition problems, and lack of access to medical care.

Childhood cancer may have multiple causes. But the existence of this "cluster" in Greenwich and Stamford suggests that radioactive emissions from the Indian Point nuclear plant may be playing a role. Indian Point, near Peekskill, N.Y., lies just 15-20 miles northwest of Greenwich and Stamford, the closest towns in Connecticut.

Indian Point's two reactors generate huge amounts of radioactivity to produce electricity. This radioactivity is found in the reactors' core and waste pools, the equivalent of several hundred Hiroshima bombs.

If a meltdown from mechanical failure or terrorist attack occurred, these poisons would be released into the air. Moving with the prevailing winds (from the northwest during the colder months), they would arrive at towns like Greenwich and Stamford a few hours after the meltdown. Safe evacuation of all local residents would be impossible on the already-crowded roads, and many thousands would suffer from radiation poisoning or cancer.

The full meltdown at Chernobyl and the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island demonstrated that accidents do happen. Indian Point has never had a meltdown since it opened in 1962, but a recent report identified five recent "near miss" meltdown situations at Indian Point.

The other meltdown scenario, from an act of terrorism, is all too real in the metropolitan area. During the 9/11 attacks, one of the hijacked planes flew directly over Indian Point on its way to the World Trade Center. A successful strike on the plant would inflict far more casualties than the 2,700 who perished that day.

But even without a meltdown, the two Indian Point reactors pose a threat to local residents. All nuclear reactors must routinely release some radioactivity into local air and water. More than 100 radioactive and carcinogenic chemicals make up this cocktail, including Strontium-90, Iodine-131, and Cesium-137 -- the same chemicals found years ago in atomic bomb test fallout. Each causes cancer, and is especially harmful to fetuses, infants and young children.

A recent study measuring Strontium-90 in baby teeth of local children shows that Fairfield County had the highest levels in the metropolitan area, except for the areas in New York where Indian Point is located.

The two Indian Point reactors are nearing the end of their 40-year licenses. They are owned by Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., which has applied to federal regulators for 20-year license extensions. A number of organizations -- including the New York State Attorney General's Office -- are attempting to legally block the extension based on safety concerns.

With the ongoing threat of a meltdown, and with the potential that radiation exposure may be contributing to high child cancer rates in places like Greenwich and Stamford, federal regulators should not allow the aging, corroding plant to continue operating, and instead turn to safe, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.

Joseph J. Mangano is executive director of the New York-based Radiation and Public Health Project.

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Indian Point's future critiqued

Local listeners left in lurch by glitch

By Alexa James

Times Herald-Record

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090911/NEWS/909110350

September 11, 2009

Hudson Valley watchdogs fumed on the phone lines Thursday, upset over technical glitches that compromised a critical meeting about the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

The public hearing, held in Rockville, Md., was supposed to be open to local listeners via a live phone bridge, but the audio was poor through most of the session.

"We can't hear," callers pleaded as the hours rolled by.

The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, a 15-member panel of industry experts, met with Indian Point staff and federal officials to critique the future of Buchanan's controversial power plant and the merits of its application for a 20-year operating license renewal. The current operating licenses expire by 2015.

The committee discussed a number of hot-button issues dogging the plant, including contaminated water seeping into the Hudson river, aging pipes and the integrity of Indian Point's future plans.

But the powwow was nearly inaudible over the phone.

NRC officials apologized for the glitch and said a meeting transcript would be available in about a week.

Members of the Clearwater environmental group, frustrated by the bad connection, said such meetings should be held in the region affected by the power plant.

"By holding the NRC hearing in Maryland," said Clearwater spokesman Tom Staudter, in a statement, "the public's ability to participate in the licensing process, as required by the Atomic Energy Act, is dramatically decreased."

The advisory committee will meet Friday and Saturday to develop a written assessment about Indian Point's license renewal application. That recommendation will be passed along to the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which will ultimately decide if Indian Point is fit for continued service.

The report should be available to the public next week.

Meeting documents are available at recordonline.com/IP

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September 8, 2009

NRC seeks better leak detection at US nuke plants


WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Spurred by recurring leaks of radioactive water from the nation's oldest nuclear power plant, federal regulators say they're looking for better ways to detect leaks from buried pipes at all 104 American nuclear power plants.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told its staff to consider whether programs to find underground leaks need to be improved.

The agency acted after responding to two leaks of radioactive tritium at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, N.J. this year.

The first was spotted just days after the NRC gave Oyster Creek a new 20-year license; it will be 60 years old when the license expires.

The NRC says tritium is entering a discharge canal leading to a fragile New Jersey shore bay, but at undetectable levels.

The NRC could not immediately provide an estimate of how many other plants have been affected by leaking underground pipes, but Sheehan said similar incidents have occurred. The Indian Point 2 nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., experienced a similar leak in February that allowed about 100,000 gallons of tritium-tainted water to enter the groundwater supply and recently at the Braidwood Generating Station in Will County, Ill. The later plant is owned by Exelon Corp., which also owns Oyster Creek.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko issued a memo on Sept. 3 directing the agency's staff to study whether existing programs aimed at detecting underground leaks are working well enough to find and prevent them.

He told agency staff to come up with a study within 90 days of current policies regarding buried pipes, and possible recommendations to improve the likelihood that leaks are not occurring.

Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said it has not been determined whether the review will result in physical inspections of buried pipes at each nuclear plant.

Word of the review came during a conference call with reporters in which agency officials discussed their investigation into two leaks of radioactive tritium at Oyster Creek. One was discovered in April, just days after the plant won a controversial 20-year license extension. The other occurred last month in a different area of the plant.

John White, a branch chief in the agency's division of reactor safety who led a federal investigation into the spills, said the tritium contaminated underground water on the plant grounds.

Some of the tainted groundwater is leaking into a discharge canal, where it is diluted by vast amounts of water before making its way into Barnegat Bay, he said.

The tritium is entering the canal at levels too low to be detected at a highway bridge a few hundred yards from the plant, White said.

"We test that canal every day and we haven't found anything yet," added David Benson, a plant spokesman.

White and other NRC officials could not estimate how long it might take for the tainted groundwater to work its way out of the area and dissipate.

But White said drinking water in the area remains safe, and people who enjoy the bay and the creek are not in danger.

"There would be no impact on public safety for people that fish, crab or swim in that area," he said.

Jeff Tittel, president of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter, said testing by an independent laboratory is needed to ensure that Oyster Creek does not endanger public safety.

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INDIAN POINT - NUCLEAR POWER UNSAFE FOR REGION

Joseph J. Mangano

Government licenses for the two nuclear reactors at the Indian Point plant - 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan and 40 miles south of Kingston - are about to expire.  The reactors are owned by Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Mississippi, which has asked federal regulators to keep Indian Point operating for 20 more years.

Entergy officials state that Indian Point generates electricity safely.  But this is just an opinion.  In fact, Indian Point poses a health threat to millions.

The most ominous threat is that of a meltdown.  It stores enormous amounts of nuclear waste in deep pools of constantly-cooled water.  Any loss of cooling water, from sabotage or accident, would cause a release into the environment.  Safe evacuation of the area would be impossible, and many thousands would suffer from acute radiation poisoning or cancer.

While there has never been a meltdown at Indian Point, its aging and corroding parts are more capable of malfunctioning.  A recent report by Greenpeace identified five “near miss” meltdown situations at Indian Point from 1999-2003.  A successful terrorist act could also result in a meltdown; during the 9/11 attacks, one of the hijacked planes flew directly over Indian Point on its way to the World Trade Center.

But a worst-case scenario may not be necessary for Indian Point to harm local residents.  All nuclear reactors must routinely release some of its radioactivity into local air and water.  Over 100 cancer-causing chemicals make up this cocktail, including Strontium-90, Iodine-131, and Cesium-137.

There are four New York counties closest to Indian Point – Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Orange – with a population of 1.73 million.  Thirty years ago, the local thyroid cancer rate was 2% below the state.  But now, it’s 47% higher.  Because thyroid cancer is known to be caused by radiation exposure, emissions from Indian Point must be considered as a potential reason for this change.

A number of organizations – including the New York State Attorney General’s office - are attempting to legally block the 20 year extension of Indian Point, based on safety concerns.  Indian Point has become an aging plant with frequent mechanical breakdowns, a terrorist target, and a polluter.  New York should join the nationwide push towards more renewable and non-polluting electricity, and federal regulators should not allow Indian Point to operate for 20 more years.

Joseph J. Mangano MPH MBA is Executive Director of the Radiation  and Public Health Project, a research and educational organization based in New York.

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Indian Point's contamination woes: Entergy wants 20-year extension to run nuclear plant

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/08/27/2009-08-27_contamination_woe_runs_deep_at_indian_point.html#ixzz0PNoEPYPb

BY Abby Luby 
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Thursday, August 27th 2009, 4:00 AM

Chernin/AP

The Indian Point nuclear power station in Buchanan, N.Y., 35 miles north of midtown New York City.

The Indian Point nuclear power plant is sitting on enough contaminated soil, by federal estimates, to fill Yankee Stadium with radioactive sludge a foot deep.

Years of radioactive leaks have saturated some 1.63 million cubic feet of soil at the Westchester County plant, according to a letter from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official to plant owner Entergy.

The leaks are from the reactor's 40-foot deep spent fuel pools that store used radioactive fuel, said John Boska, Indian Point's project manager with the NRC.

"Some of the contaminated soil may also have PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls] that leaked from large electrical transformers, which are cooled by oil which often contained PCBs," said Boska.

Entergy has applied for a new operating license to keep the plant running an additional 20 years after their license expires in 2015. After 2035, when the new license expires and the plant is due to close, Entergy has 60 years to get rid of the contaminated soil and radioactive waste and clean up the entire site.

Officials said there is no immediate danger or public health threat, since the soil is below ground.

The NRC says Entergy won't have enough funds to remove the toxic soil when it finally closes the plant and clean up the site.

Entergy will need $400 million for each of the three units to be closed down. The NRC claims Entergy is short $100 million from the market meltdown..

In light of the shortfall, Entergy has committed an extra $110 million in 2026 to its decommissioning fund, a mandated fund required by the NRC of all 103 nuclear power plants in the country.

The utility company pulls in more than $2 million a day and more than $700 million a year in profits from plants countrywide.

"We believe there are appropriate levels set aside in the decommissioning trust fund and that we are in compliance with NRC rules," said spokesman Jerry Nappi of Entergy.

Removing contaminated soil at Indian Point involves digging out utility tunnels and underground systems and demolishing many plant buildings where electricity is generated and where radioactive fuel is stored.

Boska said the contaminated soil and other radioactive waste is usually shipped by truck or rail to a waste disposal site in Utah or Texas.

"The waste is put in a container which can be made of flexible plastic, which prevents the soil from falling on the roadway or scattering in the wind," Boska said.

In June, Entergy asked the NRC if it could use their decommissioning funds to pay for storing spent fuel at the plant in special dry casks.

Boska didn't specify when the NRC would respond to Entergy, adding: "We have not yet reached a conclusion if the funds are adequate."




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NRC issues Entergy NY Indian Point renewal report

Wed Aug 12, 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSN1214046120090812

NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday issued a final safety report for the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for Entergy Corp's (ETR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York, the federal agency said in a release.

The NRC concluded there were no safety related items that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years.

Entergy submitted an application to the NRC in April 2007 to extend the Indian Point licenses for an additional 20 years. The current 40-year licenses expire Sept. 28, 2013, for Unit 2, and Dec. 12, 2015, for Unit 3.

The NRC uses the license renewal process to determine how an operator will manage the aging of a reactor. It is a two-step process, including a safety and environmental reviews.

The publication of the safety evaluation report marks the end of the NRC staff's safety review. The agency's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), an independent body of experts that advises the commission on reactor safety matters, will meet in September to discuss the report. The ACRS will issue a letter discussing its findings sometime after its meeting.

On the environmental front, the NRC published a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in December. The comment period for that draft report ended in March and the NRC expects to issue a final environmental report in February 2010.

STILL TO BE DETERMINED

On its website, the NRC said the date for a final decision on Indian Point was still "to be determined" due to upcoming hearings that must deal with numerous contentions.

Community and environmental organizations have been trying to shut Indian Point since before the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. They fear radioactive contamination from an accident could harm the public in the heavily populated suburbs north of New York City.

The 2,045 megawatt Indian Point station, which industry groups say is essential to New York City's power supply, is located in Buchanan in Westchester County about 45 miles north of Times Square in Manhattan. The station has two units: the 1,020 MW Unit 2 and the 1,025 MW Unit 3, which entered service in 1973 and 1976.

One MW powers about 800 homes in New York.

Since 2000, when the NRC approved of its first 20-year license renewal, the Commission has renewed the licenses for 54 reactors, more than half of the nation's 104 operating reactors. It was now evaluating 12 applications, including Indian Point.

Entergy, of New Orleans, owns and operates about 30,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes power to 2.7 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)

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Indian Point over safety hurdle for relicensing

By Mary Dempsey

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Indian Point is one step closer to being relicensed.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released Wednesday, Aug. 12, its safety evaluation report on the nuclear power facility and concluded that there are no outstanding issues that would prevent Entergy’s request for a 20-year licensing renewal. The facility’s 40-year operating license for units 2 and 3 is set to expire on Sept. 28, 2013.

“The NRC’s report is another step in the process of relicensing,” said Jerry Nappi, an Entergy spokesman. “It’s an important step in the process and demonstrates how Entergy has met all of its obligations to ensure the plant will run safely through the period of licensing renewal, or the next 20 years.”

The safety report is one of two areas the NRC focuses on during its relicensing process. The report “marks the completion of the NRC staff’s safety review that is published and subsequently reviewed and publicly discussed by the agency’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards,” according to the NRC.

With the safety review completed, the NRC is reviewing the environmental portion of the plant’s license renewal application. The commission must complete the environmental review before a final decision on the license renewal can be made, according to the NRC.

Riverkeeper, based in Tarrytown, questioned the results of the NRC’s safety report, said Deborah Brancato, a Riverkeeper staff attorney.

“We don’t agree with the NRC’s report,” Brancato said. “Riverkeeper has raised several safety concerns that the final report doesn’t address.”

The environmental group will continue to submit safety concerns regarding the Indian Point plant with federal regulators at future public hearings on the issue, she said.

“We will raise our issues with Indian Point during the hearing process,” Brancato said. “We are focusing on the hearings and we will press the issues as far as we can.”

Although Riverkeeper plans to make its case concerning safety issues at Indian Point during the hearing process, the group has not ruled out taking the issues to court.

“It’s too hard to say at this point if we would go to court,” Brancato said.

The release of the report comes two days after a lightning strike shut down Indian Point’s unit 3 nuclear power plant. It is expected to be offline for a few days, Nappi said.

“Our belief is that a lightning strike caused an electrical disturbance in the Buchanan switchyard located across the street from the plant,” Nappi said.

A lightning strike near the switchyard is the probable cause of the problem, he said.

“We quickly realized what the problem was,” Nappi said. “A lot of the systems have to be checked out and evaluated before we go back online but it should be back up within the next couple of days.”

There was no release of radioactivity and no threat to the safety of workers or the public, he said.

Although the shutdown was caused by a natural occurrence, Riverkeeper questions the number of unscheduled shutdowns the facility has had in the past six months.

“We do understand that it (the shutdown) was caused by a lightning storm,” Brancato said. “We are somewhat concerned that there is another unwarranted shutdown in a short period of time.”

Units 2 and 3 have both experienced at total of at least four temporary shutdowns as a result of mechanical malfunctions since March, which were subsequently repaired. None of the shutdowns caused any release of radioactivity, Nappi said.

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http://www.lohud.com/article/20090812/NEWS02/908120349/1018/NEWS02


August 12, 2009

Regulators weigh more oversight of Indian Point after shutdown



Greg Clary
gclary@lohud.com

BUCHANAN - Federal regulators were still sorting out yesterday whether the latest emergency shutdown of Indian Point 3 would trigger tighter oversight of the nuclear reactor's operations.

The nuclear reactor went into automatic shutdown at 8:32 p.m. Monday, after a lightning strike at a Consolidated Edison switch yard across from the plant apparently caused a power surge, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Indian Point said.

"The plant acted like a giant circuit breaker and tripped automatically," said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point.

"The NRC will have to look into it and make a determination about what transpired," Nappi said.

NRC resident inspectors were going through shutdown procedures and worker actions yesterday, but the preliminary indication was that tighter oversight would not be required, despite this being the fourth unplanned shutdown this year.

"It's a rolling average," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said of the system, which tracks unplanned shutdowns per 7,000 hours of operation. "This was induced by nature; it wasn't their fault. But it counts as an unplanned shutdown nonetheless."

Indian Point 3 had been working for nearly two years without an interruption until it shut down in March for a planned refueling.

Those months of continuous operation may serve the plant well because the shutdowns look to be spread over enough time not to trigger extra regulatory supervision.

"We're stilling crunching the numbers, but preliminarily it looks like they won't be over the limit," Sheehan said. "One more in the immediate future certainly would."

Plant engineers have found no equipment damage as a result of the surge, Nappi said. He estimated that the plant, which is basically idling without completely shutting down, would be back online in a matter of days.

"Plants only go to cold shutdown if they have a more serious issue involved equipment," Sheehan said.

The shutdown itself went by the book, NRC officials said, except that one of the transformers on site didn't "fast transfer" to an off-site location as it was supposed to because a breaker failed to close.

A diesel generator kicked in automatically, Sheehan said, and supplied necessary power.

Workers followed procedures properly in handling that incident, he said.

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Judge rules Indian Point's fish-killing cooling process must stop

BY Abby Luby 
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Friday, July 3rd 2009, 4:00 AM

Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., is said to be responsible for killing fish, eggs, larvae and plants.

Officials at the Indian Point nuclear power plant - which has been called responsible for killing more than a billion fish each year - will have to figure out another way to cool its giant heated steam turbines, a state court has ruled.

The plant sucks in and returns more than 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water daily - 2 million gallons per minute - in a system that pulls in and kills fish, eggs, larvae and plant life.

The hot water flushed back into the river is fatal to some 1.2 billion fish every year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The cooling system doesn't use radioactive water from the reactor core.

Last week, acting state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly turned down plant owner Entergy's bid to overturn a year-old DEC decision that faulted Indian Point's water intake system for killing the fish.

The judge said Entergy's appeal was premature, stating: "Petitioner's claims are not ripe for review by the Court at this time."

The ruling now gives the DEC the green light to push for a new cooling system that would reduce fish-killing water usage by 95% at the Westchester County plant.

Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the court's decision determines how the utility company will "ultimately obtain a water-use permit that makes the most sense environmentally and economically for the area around Indian Point."

Entergy has balked at the $1.4 billion price tag for the new cooling system. Nappi said the plant already has spent more than $100 million to protect fish by installing special screens to reduce the number of fish pulled inside.

The DEC estimates a new cooling system would cost $740 million, and $145 million a year to run - or 5% to 6% of Entergy's annual gross revenue.

Entergy makes more than $2 million a day - and more than $700 million a year - from electricity produced at Indian Point.

The court ruling was a victory for the DEC and the environmental group Riverkeeper, which have been waging court battles with Entergy for years over the fish kill. Riverkeeper's chief prosecutor is Robert Kennedy Jr.

Indian Point, 24 miles outside the city, is applying to renew its operating license and keep running until 2035. If the license is renewed, Riverkeeper and the DEC say, the power plant would be forced to build a cooling system if it wants to stay open.

Hearings on the new draft water-use permit for the plant, which would mandate closed-cycle cooling, are tentatively scheduled for next year.

Nappi said Entergy is weighing an appeal of the court ruling.



http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/03/2009-07-03_judge_rules_indian_point_fishkilling_cooling_process_must_stop.html#ixzz0KDscDHFl&D

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http://www.lohud.com/article/20090627/NEWS02/906270347/1018/NEWS02

Judge won't bite on Indian Point fish fight

Greg Clary

gclary@lohud.com

A state court has told Indian Point officials their timing is wrong in trying to fight New York regulators about using Hudson River water to cool the plant's nuclear reactors.

"Petitioner's claims are not ripe for review by the Court at this time," acting state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly wrote in a decision released June 19.

Connolly ruled that the power plant was premature in appealing an August 2008 state Department of Environmental Conservation recommendation that Indian Point be required to use "closed cycle cooling towers" as a way of reducing fish kills.

That method uses primarily the same river water over and over to cool the reactors, along the lines of a car's radiator, rather than continually pulling in fresh water.

The electric power plant in Buchanan uses billions of gallons of river water daily, and the closed system would cut that use by 95 percent.

Environmental organizations like Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson believe Indian Point is harming area fish by cooling its nuclear reactors with water that is pumped back into the Hudson River at higher temperatures, creating "thermal pollution."

In its announcement of the decision, Riverkeeper called the judge's ruling "a major victory" in bringing Indian Point into compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Officials for Entergy Nuclear, Indian Point's owner, said they haven't decided whether to ask a higher court to review the decision but were happy the judge didn't say their current permit was invalid or that they weren't using a proper method to cool their operations.

"The N.Y. courts' decision was simply a step in the process that will allow us to ultimately obtain a water-use permit that makes the most sense environmentally and economically for the area around Indian Point," Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said. "This decision makes no determination about what the best available technology is."

Riverkeeper said the DEC now can move to require closed-cycle cooling. Hearings on a new draft water-use permit for the plant are tentatively scheduled for 2010.

The DEC declined to comment on the decision.

State DEC officials estimate that more than 1 billion fish a year are killed by the thermal pollution.

Experts for the nuclear industry assert that the majority of those fish killed would never reach maturity and that the change in water temperature is negligible.

The state's recommendation, issued in a 54-page report, also said the feasibility of cooling towers - estimated to cost more than $1 billion - should be considered during what is expected to be a lengthy legal review process.

Company officials say putting in a new system would also affect the environment, with blasting and other construction, and that must be part of the debate as well.

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June 26, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact:  Andrea Kott 
(914) 478-4501 x 239
akott@riverkeeper.org

NY State Supreme Court Affirms that Indian Point Adversely Impacts Fish
Riverkeeper and DEC victorious in effort to bring plant into compliance with CWA

(TarrytownRiverkeeper and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and dismissed Entergy's petition to overturn a decision by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). That decision, released on August 15, 2008, determined that Indian Point’s cooling water intake system causes adverse environmental impacts on Hudson River fish.

In October 2008, Entergy filed a lawsuit challenging DEC’s determination. On behalf of Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson, Riverkeeper Attorney Victor Tafur filed a motion to have Entergy’s suit dismissed on the grounds that the claims are premature, and that DEC established “adverse environmental impact,” in large part, by relying on Entergy’s data.

The DEC will now move to require closed-cycle cooling, which would reduce water usage and fish kills by 95 percent or more. Hearings on the new draft permit for the plant, which will now mandate closed-cycle cooling, are tentatively scheduled for 2010.

This marks a major victory for Riverkeeper, NY State and the other proponents of bringing Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant into compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Background
In accordance with the Clean Water Act (CWA), facilities with cooling water intake structures must utilize the “best technology available” to minimize adverse environmental impacts. Currently, Indian Point’s cooling water intake structures utilize 2.5 billion gallons per day of Hudson River water to cool its facilities. These antiquated intake structures kill over 1.2 billion fish each year through impinging larger fish against their intake screens, and entraining smaller fish and larvae sucked into the cooling system. For almost 30 years, Riverkeeper, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Scenic Hudson, as environmental interveners, have been fighting to compel state officials to enforce the Clean Water Act by mandating closed cycle cooling at Indian Point and other Hudson River power plants.

ABOUT RIVERKEEPER: Riverkeeper is an independent member-supported environmental organization. Riverkeeper’s mission is to protect the Hudson River, and its tributaries, and the New York City drinking water supply.  For more information, please visit www.riverkeeper.org.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2009

Decommissioning funds in question

If Entergy’s license renewal application for Indian Point Unit 2 is turned down by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the company wouldn’t have enough decommissioning funds to close down in 2013 when its license expires. The multi-billion dollar utility company also wouldn’t have enough money to decommission and close down Unit 1, the oldest of the three plants at Indian Point in Buchanan.

Entergy is asking the NRC if it could use their decommissioning funds for storing spent fuel at the plant in the dry cask storage operation. The NRC would have to approve an extension to the decommissioning regulations to allow Entergy to re-direct some of the funds.

When the Indian Point plants actually do close down, the funds are slated to pay for the removal and disposal of subsurface contaminated soil, including the demolition of several buildings.

According to recent NRC documents sent to Entergy, the decommissioning fund for Unit 2 as of December 31, 2008 was $321.39 million and $218.39 million for Unit 1. The NRC estimates that over $400 million is needed to decommission each unit. Regulations provides for a 60 year shut down process.

Entergy has said that although the economic meltdown has decreased the funds, they will have enough money in the future.

“Entergy meets all current NRC decommissioning funding account guidelines and regulations, and will meet those that change in the future,” said Jerry Nappi, Entergy spokesperson.

Westchester County Legislator Mike Kaplowitz (D-Somers) said Entergy shouldn’t be allowed to tap in to the decommissioning funds for non-decommissioning uses.

“Entergy makes $2 million a day and over $700 million a year in profit. They shouldn’t have to tap into this fund for any other purpose.”

Kaplowitz said he expects the NRC to approve these extensions. “They’ve never turned down one. Now that there’s a move in the country towards more nuclear power, the sea of change is in their favor.”

John Boska, the NRC Indian Point Project Manager said Entergy can come up with the needed decommissioning funds though financial maneuvers.

“For short-time swings in the financial markets, licensees could establish supplemental trust funds to cover the deficiency if the NRC approves it, and remove those if the financial market recovers.” Boska said NRC approval would be needed to remove the funds. Other financial fixes include adding a periodic amount to the fund every year for a number of years or add a lump sum amount now to the fund.

According to NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan, a private call is being scheduled with Entergy within the next few weeks to discuss decommissioning funds for Indian Point.

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June 15, 2009

Nuclear plant seeks OK to move uranium



Greg Clary
gclary@lohud.com

BUCHANAN - Indian Point officials want to shuffle some of their used uranium fuels rods between nuclear reactors to create storage space, but federal regulators say they'll need to see a lot more details before they'll approve such a plan.

"This has not been done with any frequency in the United States," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "So a lot of questions need to be answered. It is unusual and that's why it is going to take a great deal of study."

A meeting is set at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Maryland headquarters today to go over details of the proposal, which hasn't officially been submitted, Sheehan said.

Indian Point technically would be seeking a license amendment, which can take two years to complete and could involve public hearings, but the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear, wants a fast-track version that would allow the move to be completed before a refueling outage in early 2011.

Local emergency officials say they're always wary about moving radioactive uranium, regardless of the regulations in place.

"We're concerned about the number of times the fuel's being handled," said Anthony Sutton, Westchester County's commissioner of emergency services. "We want to know in detail what they're proposing."

Sutton said he expected that Westchester County would push for a hearing on the amendment.

Sheehan said the industry's history of moving fuel is "very good" but there have been problems.

He said a year ago at an Entergy plant in Vermont, neglected maintenance on the brakes of a refueling crane caused it to fail as it was lowering fuel a few inches from the floor of a spent fuel pool. No fuel was damaged and there were no injuries, Sheehan said, but the agency required a complete investigation of the incident.

Handling spent uranium rods has become a discipline in its own right since the federal government failed to deliver a national depository for the still volatile material at the end of 1998 and the plan for a storage location at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is all but dead.

Sheehan said the industry has moved to store fuel at individual plants, saying officials expect to be able to do so for 100 years.

Indian Point has been aggressively moving spent fuel rods from its defunct Unit 1 and its Unit 2 storage pools to permanent storage containers that sit on a cement pad at the Buchanan site.

The canisters, however, weigh about 200 tons and a crane that is in use at Unit 3 is insufficient to handle such weight. Plant engineers want to offload smaller canisters of uranium rods to Unit 2, which has a crane big enough to handle the 200-ton permanent containers.

Industry officials say creating storage space in spent fuel pools is important because it allows for the most efficient use of fuel and provides flexibility in case of emergency.

Indian Point 3 no longer has adequate space to empty its reactor completely, according to Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi.

During fueling outages, for example, workers could empty the reactor like a homeowner cleaning a closet and then put the rods back according to a specific plan that maximizes fuel efficiency.

Shuffling materials around within the reactor takes more orchestration and time, valuable commodities when a plant can make $1 million a day hooked up to the electrical grid.

Nappi said the company plans to submit its application soon and basically wants to be able to work with canisters that contain 12 fuel-rod assemblies rather than the 32-assembly permanent canisters.

"It's just a smaller version, made by the same company that we been using," Nappi said. "They have a lot of experience in the industry. We're eager to work with the NRC to make sure they have what they need."

Sheehan said the regulatory agency would be proceeding on this issue in its normal, thorough way.

"You're talking about moving fuel between buildings," Sheehan said. "It would be in the protected area, but it would still be outside."

Riverkeeper, which opposes the continued operation of Indian Point, said nuclear plant officials were choosing profits over safety.

"This convoluted (fuel-shuffling) process may make financial sense, but it defies common sense and may increase the likelihood of an accident while moving the waste," said Phillip Musegaas, Riverkeeper's Indian Point specialist.

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http://abbyluby.blogspot.com/2009/06/clearwater-contentions-against-entergy.html

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) announced last week that they have rejected new contentions submitted by Clearwater against the re-licensing of Indian Point. In March Clearwater argued against the license renewal by Indian Point’s owner, Entergy, until a water safety study is done. Clearwater was acting on the pending application by United Water New York to build a desalination plant that will, if built, extract water from the Hudson River and provide municipal drinking water to Rockland County. The desalination plant would be located across the Hudson River, 3.5 miles downstream from the power plant. Clearwater’s concern is that the treatment plant is not equipped to effectively filter out radioactive isotopes that Indian Point regularly discharges into the Hudson River along with contaminants in Indian Point’s groundwater which are suspected of finding their way to the river as well.



The ASLB, three-judge panel said Clearwater’s arguments didn’t present new information and that “the issue involving the desalination plant will be encompassed by another contention from Clearwater that was admitted to the proceeding.”



The ASLB, who works in tandem with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), has been reviewing arguments, or contentions, against issuing a new operating license to Entergy who applied in 2007 to extend their license to keep Units 2 and 3 running 20 more years to 2033 and 2035.



Manna Jo Greene, environmental director at Clearwater said she wasn’t disappointed with the ASLB decision since it indicated that concerns about the water treatment plant would be looked at under a previous contention submitted by both the environmental group Riverkeeper and Clearwater.
“It’s really a case of bad news and good news,” said Greene. “They are saying the proper place to look at how contaminated, radioactive water leaking under the plant and into the Hudson River would impact a water desalination plant is being addressed in an earlier contention. They left the door open.”



Earlier in the review process the board denied a request from Entergy to reconsider turning down a contention regarding impacts groundwater contamination from leaks at Indian Point and the possible effects on drinking water, especially if the source is the Hudson River.



Entergy spokesperson Jerry Nappi said the recent ASLB ruling speaks for itself.
“This issue was already referenced in an earlier filing, and further, this contention will be encompassed by another contention that has already been admitted. Entergy looks forward to a thorough review by the ASLB and is working to provide them with any information they need in advance of future hearings.”



NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the judges saw nothing "new and significant" in Clearwater’s contention. “As part of their consideration of that contention, the judges believe the issue of impacts on the river will also be addressed.”



Entergy’s license renewal application has elicited 154 contentions opposing the continued operation of the plant. According to the NRC it’s the largest number of contentions for a license renewal proceeding to date. Out of 154 contentions the ASLB has accepted 15 including contentions submitted by New York State Department of Conservation, the Attorney General’s office, Riverkeeper and Clearwater.

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SCREENING PROGRAM TO TEST IF INDIAN POINT HAS HARMED THYROID GLANDS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS

For immediate release   Contact Joseph Mangano 609-399-4343         Sharon Cunningham 647-477-5672

June 3, 2009 – A fast, inexpensive test that determines elevated thyroid stimulating hormone, an indcator that the thyroid gland may be under stress, will be available at a public event later this month.  The ThyroChek testing program will examine if persons living near the Indian Point nuclear plant have higher than normal levels of TSH.

The test uses a drop of blood from a finger stick to determine whether the level of thyroid stimulating hormone is normal, in just 10 minutes.  The test will be available at the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson the weekend of June 20-21.  Screening Devices Canada, which manufactures the FDA regulated test in California, will have professional staff available to explain the importance of thyroid health, administer the test, and provide results on the spot.  The cost is $10.

The information from the two day testing program may provide information on whether emissions from the Indian Point nuclear reactors are affecting the thyroid glands of people who live in the vicinity.  The percent of tests indicating elevated TSH in local residents will be compared with results of other populations living far from reactors.  Indian Point produces and emits radioactive iodine particles; when they enter the body, they attack thyroid cells, leading to cancer and other problems like hypothyroidism.

“ThyroChek is an easy way to study a serious public health issue,” says Joseph Mangano, Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.  He adds there are no standard screening programs for thyroid health in the U.S., even though the rate of thyroid cancer has nearly tripled since 1980.  Experts believe that hypothyroidism rates have soared as well.  No single blood test can determine thyroid cancer but a TSH test may be used to evaluate the thyroid's activity and test for hypothyroidism, a common disease of the thyroid.   There are about 30 million Americans with hypothyroidism, a disease that if not detected and treated may lead to cardiac disease, reproductive issues, mental health concerns, obesity and a variety of autoimmune diseases.

Official statistics indicate that the 2001-2005 thyroid cancer rate in counties closest to Indian Point are nearly double the U.S., and among the highest in the nation.  The annual U.S. rate of 8.9 per 100,000 persons is exceeded in Rockland, Putnam, Orange, and Westchester Counties (18.3, 18.0, 16.6, and 12.6, or 106%, 102%, 87%, and 42% higher). About 300 residents in these counties are diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year.

"As a local family practice physician, I see a high number of people with thyroid disorders," says Susanne Saltzman MD.  "When I discovered that nuclear power plants routinely emit radioactive iodine, which damages thyroid tissue, I became very concerned that Indian Point might be contributing to the higher rates of thyroid problems in the Hudson River Valley.  Studies must be done to evaluate health effects of living near and downwind from Indian Point."

Sharon Cunningham, president of Screening Devices Canada welcomes the opportunity to test at the Clearwater Festival.  “By providing results on the spot, we will be able to educate on the importance of thyroid health and how the environment can affect it.  More about thyroid health testing can be obtained from the company’s website, www.thyrochek.com.

Mangano says RPHP, which is a New York-based research group, plans to analyze the data, and announce results in the near future.  More information on the Clearwater Festival is available at www.clearwater.org.

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June 2, 2009

Indian Point 3 shut down once again



Hoa Nguyen
hnguyen7@lohud.com

BUCHANAN - The Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor has been shut down for the third time in three weeks, putting into question its record of reliability, officials said.

This latest shutdown on Sunday comes after a string of glitches at the plant. Indian Point 2, the plant's other reactor, was shut down April 3 due to a malfunction in a cooling system pipe for steam generators.

Indian Point 3 has been continuously in operation for nearly two years without an unplanned shutdown, but on May 15, the reactor was shut down when a missing lock washer allowed a feedwater valve to loosen and leak. Then, early Thursday morning, plant operators noticed a vibration in a main feedwater pump and powered the reactor down to 60 percent. But then water levels began rising in the steam generator, tripping a safety shutdown in the reactor.

On Saturday, as they began to bring the plant back online, they also decided to do further troubleshooting, which is when they realized there was something wrong with a control oil system that sits between two main boiler feed pumps, officials said. That is when they decided to bring the plant offline once again to make further repairs, rather than risk another automatic shutdown, officials said.

"The shutdown on Sunday, it was a controlled shutdown," said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for plant operator Entergy Nuclear. "Shutting it down over the course of few hours is more preferable to an automatic shutdown."

Resident inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were on site to monitor operations, agency spokeswoman Diane Screnci said yesterday.

"The plant was shut down safely and the plant is stable," she said. "There was not an impact on public safety."

The reactor's performance in terms of the number of continuous days in operation is currently rated at "green," the highest issued by the NRC. However, if the reactor has more than three unplanned shutdowns within about one year, then that rating can be downgraded, triggering additional inspections of the plant's operation in the future.

Although Entergy said Sunday's shutdown was planned and would not affect its performance ratings, Screnci said that had not yet been determined.

"We will need to look at that more fully and whether this met the criteria of an unplanned shutdown," she said. "If one of those performance indicators moves from green to white, we would conduct an additional inspection to make sure they are getting to the root cause."

Nappi said the company was taking steps to "holistically" look at the problems. Officials believe the problems may be connected to when it was shut down for a biennial refueling and other preventive maintenance work during March 10 and April 15.

"Shutting down three times in three weeks is not preferable and clearly indicates that coming out of the refueling outage, the plant needs to be looked at to see why it's not running as reliably as before," he said. "Obviously, there's an issue."

Before the refueling, the reactor had been operating for a record 678 days, officials said.

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IP is safe, says NRC

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/May09/22/IP_NRC-22May09.html

May 22, 2009

TARRYTOWN – It was much the same story as with past annual performance assessments – the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Indian Point is safely run, by parent company Entergy.

One thing different is the crowds keep getting smaller.  Only about 30 citizens showed up for Thursday night’s three-hour session in Tarrytown.  Among them, some of the usual cast members, including Paul Steidler, of New York AREA, a group that fully supports Indian Point.

“This is a plant that for five years, has got the NRC’s highest evaluation.  It’s intently scrutinized because of political pressure and other requests that come into play, much, much more so than any other plant in the country, and it continues to do very well.”

Croton-on-Hudson resident Gary Shaw is with the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, a group very critical of Indian Point.  Shaw argued it’s easy to get good marks when the NRC doesn’t look at everything, and lowers the standards for some of the things they do look at.

“They’ve reduced the margin from an hour, that the insulation had to protect the safety equipment, down to 24 minutes.  We think that’s absurd.”

Another concern, identified by Riverkeeper Staff Attorney Deborah Brancato, is the recent underground pipe leak.

Mel Gray is the NRC’s chief of DRP Projects Branch 2.  “We are always learning, and I think what we are referring to is the underground spent fuel pool and when we do have an issue that shows itself and an early indication of a leak, we will look at that comprehensively, and first of all, recognize and determine if there is any immediate safety issue with it.”

Entergy’s site vice president, Joseph Pollock, said their goal, particularly for 2009, is to stay a step ahead of the NRC, with, among other things, an aggressive self-monitoring program.

“Our corrective action program.  It is our job to identify, find and fix.  The NRC is an oversight inspection group, so when the NRC finds it, we didn’t do our job well enough.  That’s what we strive to do; continually improve.”

Entergy is seeking a 20-year renewal of the licenses for the two active reactors.  The current licenses expire in 2013 for Unit 2 and 2015 or Unit 3.  The initial license was for 40 years.  The annual assessment review is not part of the relicensing procedure.

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http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090528/NEWS/90528019

News

Indian Point shuts down for 2nd time in 2 weeks

May 28, 2009 10:34 AM

BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) -- The Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant has been shut down for the second time in less than two weeks.

Plant owner Entergy Nuclear says the reactor turned off automatically at 6:40 a.m. Thursday after water levels rose in a steam generator.

The company says there was no release of radioactivity and no danger to workers or the public. It says the cause of the problem is being investigated.

The reactor is one of two in Buchanan, north of New York City. 
It also was shut down May 15 because of a problem with a valve in a steam generator. It went back into service the next day.

Entergy is seeking 20-year license extensions for both reactors.

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May 24, 2009

Indian Pt. to give out emergency plan funds



Greg Clary
gclary@lohud.com

BUCHANAN - Indian Point officials expect to launch an emergency planning grant program for local communities as early as next week, a step they hope will bolster response capabilities in the event of an accident at the nuclear plant.

"We want to ensure that we provide financial support more visibly and to a broader base in the community," said Donald Mayer, who oversees emergency planning for Indian Point. "To that end we've developed a grant process on local community needs, relating specifically to emergency planning equipment and training."

The nuclear plant paid for a study last year on safety issues and an independent panel of experts recommended better coordination with local responders as well the financial support.

Mayer also reiterated the company's commitment to build a new off-site emergency operations center, and officials will likely be choosing that location by the end of the summer.

The grants, which Mayer said will likely be in the $5,000 to $25,000 range, will be handed out after review by Indian Point officials internally and then by respective county officials to ensure that they fit into the larger safety net for the region.

"A key element is give all four counties the opportunity to participate in the prioritization of the grant requests," Mayer said.

He declined to say how big the grant fund is.

Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties are within the 10-mile emergency evacuation radius of Indian Point. The counties themselves already receive money for emergency planning.

Local emergency officials said overall coordination and a more formal program should deliver the expected benefits.

"They've done some individual stuff in the past, like a fire prevention grant for a single department, but nothing like this," said Dan Greeley, who heads emergency response for Rockland County. "It's a good program and welcomed. We'll see what happens."

Greeley's counterpart in Putnam, Adam Stiebeling, said the four counties are different and have needs that vary. Getting each involved in setting priorities for improving response will increase efficiency.

"I believe it should be routed through the counties," he said. "We're in touch with the needs."

Indian Point officials expect to have two applications periods this year - in June and October. The program will fund projects for equipment or training for first responders and nonprofits and municipalities that provide emergency management type services.

The first checks should be distributed by Sept. 1, with the second wave coming by the end of the year. After the first year, the company said it would assess the programs effectiveness with an eye toward continuing it.

Indian Point has applied to extend its operating license for the Buchanan site through 2035. Though emergency planning is technically not part of that review, it has been a hot-button topic in the region because of evacuation obstacles.

"Indian Point is not a typical site because of its topography and dense population," Stiebeling said. "It isn't Kansas."

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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/20/2009-05-20_high_court_to_rule_on_barriers_okd_for_indian_point.html

Indian Point barriers to be subject of Federal appeals court ruling

BY ABBY LUBY 
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Wednesday, May 20th 2009, 5:35 AM

Di Paola/Bloomberg

Indian Point nuclear power plant operates along the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York.

A matter of 24 minutes could affect the lives of 20 million people within 30 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Plant.

That's the core of an argument awaiting a ruling from a federal appeals court in a case against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for allowing lower-quality fire barriers at the Westchester County plant 24 miles outside of the city.

The case also marks the first time the NRC is challenged to grant so-called exemptions that affect public safety without alerting the public.

The court case comes on the heels of an NRC public meeting Thursday night on safety at Indian Point.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 455 South Broadway in Tarrytown, with an informational open house starting at 5:30 p.m. The NRC will address ground-water contamination, radioactive spent fuel storage and emergency planning.

Last week, State Assistant Attorney General John Sipos and Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) told a three-judge panel in Manhattan Federal appeals court that the NRC's decision drastically compromises the safety of workers at Indian Point and some 20 million others within 30 miles of the nuclear plant.

Last year, the NRC granted a request from Entergy, the plant owners, to use fire safety insulation material that resists fire for only 24 minutes - not enough time to catch and contain a fire with the current hourly inspection schedule, the plaintiffs said.

Sipos and Brodsky also argued in court there would be a danger of fires in electrical junction boxes that control safe, emergency shutdowns, if needed.

NRC attorney Robert Rader countered that NRC staff determined there was a "reasonable assurance" fire-protection measures approved by the exemptions would control any credible blaze at the plant.

Rader said the NRC analyzed the requested exemptions in depth and found them adequately protective and were assured that the "underlying purpose of the fire protection rule had been met."

The NRC said that using lower-quality fire barriers has been allowed at many other plants in the country, and the NRC has granted similar exemptions to certain fire safety standards over the last eight years.

The dispute also involves the NRC's rules for granting exemptions without requiring public notification or participation.

Rader said the agency's rules for granting exemptions are spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act as part of the "comprehensive regulatory framework" and the "ongoing review of nuclear power plants located in the United States."

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009

Fire Safety Regulations at Indian Point Challenged

Last year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a request from Entergy that allowed the utility company to change the type of fire safety protection used at their Indian Point Nuclear power plants to a material that resists fire for a shorter amount of time. The request was granted as an “exemption” from Entergy’s operating license.

On Monday, May 11, a case arguing that the NRC lacked the authority to grant the exemption was heard at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City. Arguing against the NRC was Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) and New York State Assistant Attorney General John Sipos.

Granting an exemption does not require public input but a public hearing is required when amending a power plant’s operating license. Brodsky and Sipos argued that the regulatory agency mischaracterized the request as an “exemption” rather than an amendment to the license and the NRC “failed to consider relevant evidence in making its decision.”

At the crux of the case was the impact of reducing the fire safety protection at Indian Point. If a fire broke out at the plant the new fire resistant materials lasting 24 minutes as a barrier to a blaze, would not be enough time to catch a fire especially with current inspections scheduled every hour, Sipos and Brodsky argued during the proceeding that lasted over an hour. They also argued the dangerous consequences of fires in electrical junction boxes carrying 480 volts of power to cables that control safe, emergency shut downs, if needed.

NRC attorney Robert Rader held that the NRC staff determined there was “reasonable assurance that the fire-protection measures approved by the exemptions would control any credible blaze in affected areas at Indian Point.” Rader held that the agency's rules for granting an exemption are spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act as part of the “comprehensive regulatory framework” and the “ongoing review of nuclear power plants located in the United States.”

The NRC claimed that using lower quality fire barriers have been allowed at many other plants in the country and have granted ‘exemptions’ to certain fire safety standards over the last 8 years.

Yesterday’s hearing marks the first time the NRC’s right to grant these exemptions without alerting the public has been challenged. Of the three judges hearing the argument was the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor who is widely rumored to be on Obama’s list of choices for the Supreme Court. It is unclear when the judges will rule on the case.

Posted by Abby Luby - Journalist at Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2009

Underground at Indian Point: pipe leaks and cables

Last week Matt Wald of the New York Times reported about a leak discovered at Indian Point in February. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/nyregion/02nuke.html?_r=1&hp

Wald’s lead, however, seemed to indicate the leak was new and the actual date of the leak followed some three sentences later.

The news hook for Wald was that Congressmen Ed Markey (D-Mass) and John Hall (D-NY) had just sent a high pitched letter dated April 30, 2009, to the NRC about the February leak saying “We are shocked that a 1.5 inch diameter hole, leaking at a rate of 18 gallons per minute, could develop without detection.” Undoubtedly this was a serious leak and when Entergy located and plugged up the hole in the corroded, buried pipe, it was estimated that 100,000 gallons of water laced with low levels of tritium had escaped.

The local papers reported on the leak in February but the New York Times did not. Instead, the paper ran a metro brief about Congress calling for an independent safety assessment of Indian Point.

My story about the February leak appeared in The North County News, http://www.northcountynews.com/news/ncn_news5.asp. http://www.abbylu.com/pdfs/SPOT/ippipeleaknothreat.pdf

It’s important to note that the New York Times needed a national hook to report the two-month old leak, the "after the fact" has become a growing trend for the “paper of record” and veers away from local coverage, even if it does affect some 30 million people.

Washington usually deals with the issue of nuclear power in the greater context of energy, so the news media gives us less information about potential problems at aging nuclear power plants, such as Indian Point, and how they are being regulated.

The story about the leak is the tip of the iceberg when dealing with inaccessible sprawling networks of underground pipes and cables necessary to run a nuclear power plant. Failures in these systems can come from a variety of things, including age, water damage, earthquake shifting, rats or other burrowing vermin.

Questions to be asked: How does the NRC monitor these underground systems when they can’t see them? Is there a list of inaccessible underground cable systems and pipes showing when they were installed and the rates of failure?

In a letter from the NRC to Entergy dated October 30, 2008, the regulatory group thanks Entergy for supplying some information about how they assess their underground cables.

The NRC also requested the information from other plants including Oyster Creek in New Jersey because of a failed buried cable needed for emergency operation of a diesel generator and from the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan for aging affect that were unmonitored.

The three page letter basically says the NRC has all the information it needs, but at the time, Lochbaum said the NRC asked plant owners only one basic question: it they had buried cables for key systems that might age faster than expected – a good question but too narrow, too focused.

The question that would garner a more detailed response would have been: Are there underground cables or pipes in environments harsher than was assumed that is speeding up the aging process?

Arguments against Entergy’s license renewal application for continued operation of the two reactors has included one made by the NYS Attorney General about old pipes. The AG argues that Entergy does not provide an adequate Aging Management Plan for buried pipes, tanks and transfer canals that contain radioactive fluid. Those contentions are being considered in the re-licensing process.

Posted by Abby Luby - Journalist at Tuesday, May 05, 2009

###

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/nyregion/02nuke.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

The New York Times

May 2, 2009

At the Indian Point Nuclear Plant, a Pipe Leak Raises Concerns

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The discovery of water flowing across the floor of a building at the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., traced to a leak in a buried pipe, is stirring concern about the plant’s underground pipes and those of other aging reactors across the country.

A one-and-a-half-inch hole caused by corrosion allowed about 100,000 gallons of water to escape from the main system that keeps the reactor cool immediately after any shutdown, according to nuclear experts. The leak was discovered on Feb. 16, according to the plant’s owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, a subsidiary of the Entergy Corporation.

Entergy and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission emphasized that the Indian Point reactor could still have been shut down safely with either of two other backup systems, although operators generally avoid using both.

They also stressed that the supply pipe was quickly repaired after the leak was found and that the water itself, which is cleaner than tap water, posed no environmental threat. Yet the leak’s discovery has prompted Entergy and the regulatory commission to begin studying how the chief system for cooling during shutdowns, so important that the Indian Point 2 has three pumps in place to do the same job, could be endangered by the failure of a single part.

More broadly, it has raised concerns about the monitoring of decades-old buried pipes at the nation’s nuclear plants, many of which are applying for renewal of their operating licenses. Indian Point 2, whose 40-year operating license expires in 2013, already faces harsh criticism from New York State and county officials who want it shut down.

This week Representative Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads a House subcommittee on energy and the environment, said the leak raised serious questions about Entergy’s and the regulatory commission’s oversight.

“This leak may demonstrate a systemic failure of the licensee and the commission to inspect critical buried pipes in a manner sufficient to guarantee the public health and safety,” he wrote to the commission’s chairman, Dale Klein, in a letter on Thursday. The letter was also signed by Representative John J. Hall, whose district includes the plant. The congressmen said they were “shocked” that a leak that big could develop without detection and called the system for detecting such problems “profoundly inadequate.”

One argument raised by New York State in opposing extension of the license of Indian Point 2 or the adjacent Indian Point 3 reactor is that crucial components are aging in ways that the operators may not anticipate or understand.

The supply pipe at issue, measuring eight inches in diameter, is used to fill a 600,000-gallon tank that is employed whenever the plant “trips,” or shuts down because of an equipment malfunction. Such shutdowns are not unusual; one occurred on April 3, roughly a month after the pipe was fixed.

James F. Steets, a spokesman for Indian Point, said it was unclear when the leak began. The company initially said the pipe was losing 18 gallons a minute but later amended that to 12; either number is small relative to the 600,000-gallon tank, he said.

Mr. Steets said that the water level in the tank offered no clue that the supply pipe was leaking. The tank has an alarm to indicate its water level is falling, he said, but it did not sound because an automatic system was topping off the tank with purified water.

At a nuclear plant, a central water system takes heat from the reactor in the form of steam and turns it into electricity. During a shutdown at Indian Point 2, that system often turns off and a pipe measuring 12 inches in diameter carries water from the tank into the cooling system to carry off excess heat.

The buried portion of neither the eight-inch supply pipe nor the 12-inch pipe connecting the tank to the reactor cooling system has been visually inspected since the reactor began operating in August 1973, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nor does the commission require such inspections.

Paul Blanch, an electrical engineer and nuclear safety expert who worked at Indian Point in 2001 and 2002, said that because neither pipe had been inspected, except for a short section that was replaced when the hole was located in February, “they shouldn’t be operating right now.”

He said the plant could be operating with a backup system that is ready to fail.

Mel Gray, a branch chief at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who oversees inspections at Indian Point, confirmed in a telephone interview that inspectors “have not dug up and laid eyes visually” on the pipes. But he said that experts routinely conduct “surveillance tests,” measuring the tank level and the flow through the pumps that direct water from the tank to the reactor.

“If you had a gross leak, you’d detect its going somewhere else,” he said, referring, for example, to a leak large enough to drain the tank quickly.

Mr. Gray acknowledged that the 12-inch line that delivers water from the 600,000 gallon tank during a shutdown might be rusted in places, too, but he said it was unlikely to fail suddenly when called on. But Mr. Blanch warned that if gravel or dirt leaked into the 12-inch supply pipe when the pumps started up, that could make them shut down.

Mr. Steets of Entergy said that if the tank were disabled, a tank filled from Buchanan’s municipal water system could be used to deliver water during a shutdown.

But Mr. Blanch and the letter from the two congressmen faulted the system that relies on city water.

Plant operators dislike using such water because city tap water is not as clean as reactor water. And critics point out that the system is not safety-rated, meaning it is not certified to work in adverse conditions like blackouts and earthquakes and is not maintained as carefully.

Another potential solution proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission involves using the reactor’s emergency core cooling system during a shutdown. But cooling water can be inserted only after the pressure in the reactor is reduced, which causes the water to boil. Letting the water boil can lead to core damage.

Buried pipes are emerging as an endemic problem as reactors age, although so far most of the attention has been to the substance that is leaked — not to a pipe’s role in ensuring the reactor’s safe operation over all.

Reactor water includes tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that can occur naturally but is also made in reactors. Leaks of water with tritium have been discovered in underground piping at the Byron, Braidwood and Dresden twin-reactor plants in Illinois, and at a three-unit plant in Arizona, Palo Verde. Indian Point also leaked water with tritium from its spent fuel pool in 2005.

While experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in interviews that additional pipe leaks like the one found in February would not pose a big challenge to reactor operators, they acknowledged that it was something new.

“We were not aware of a problem before with underground pipe,” Mr. Gray said. “Now that we have one, it’s got our focused attention.”

“We’re not done,” he said.

###

For Immediate Release                                            Contact: daniel reilly

May 1, 2009                                                                                    202-225-2836

http://markey.house.gov

Markey, Hall Question Pipe Leak at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant

In letter to NRC, lawmakers call system for inspecting pipes at plants nationwide “profoundly inadequate.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee and Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.) sent a letter yesterday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission questioning the process for inspecting buried pipes critically important to the cooling systems at our nation’s nuclear power plants.

On February 16, a 1.5 inch hole was discovered in a buried cooling water pipe, which had already leaked 100,000 gallons, at the Indian Point nuclear reactor.  According to media reports, the broken pipe had not been inspected since 1973, when the reactor was built.

 “This leak demonstrates that the system for detecting such leaks is profoundly inadequate and requires an urgent update,” said Chairman Markey. “We need to make sure these critical safety systems are inspected before its too late.”

“The NRC has a duty to protect the public and serve as a watchdog. With eight percent of the U.S. population living within 50 miles of Indian Point, any breakdown there would be catastrophic,” said Rep. Hall. “The recent incident indicates a serious potential for disaster that must be understood and sufficiently monitored to prevent problems. The aging buried infrastructure at Indian Point cannot be ignored by the NRC and should be a major consideration in Indian Point's re-licensing process."

The broken pipe was part of the primary backup cooling system, which must cool the reactor during any unexpected shutdown.  Such unexpected shutdowns occur on average once a year at all nuclear power plants.  The backup cooling system was taken offline for several days while the leaking section of the buried pipe was dug up and replaced.

Underscoring the significance of the backup cooling system, only three weeks after the discovery of the broken pipe forced the backup cooling system offline, the reactor experienced an unexpected shutdown and the backup system was used to cool the reactor.  If this had happened only three weeks earlier, when the backup system was offline, the reactor operators would have been forced to attempt to cool the core with regular city water, which is considered by experts to be less suitable for cooling the reactor.

Full text of the letter can be found below:

 April 30, 2009 

The Honorable Dale E. Klein

Chairman

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Washington, DC 20555 

Dear Chairman Klein:

We write in regard to the recent discovery of a major leak in a buried pipe associated with the Auxiliary Feed Water (AFW) system at the Indian Point nuclear power reactor.  Since water delivered to and from nuclear power reactors through buried pipes is expected to play a large role in avoiding a catastrophic meltdown in the event of a terrorist attack or accident, we are concerned that this leak may demonstrate a systemic failure of the licensee (Entergy), and the Commission, to inspect critical buried pipes in a manner sufficient to guarantee the public health and safety.

The AFW system plays a critical safety role in reactor operation.  During periods of reactor shutdown, such as a reactor trip, during which the primary feedwater system is inoperable, the AFW system is responsible for reactor core cooling.  Should the AFW system not function properly during such an event, the same municipal water system which runs through homeowners’ pipes would become the last line of defense for reactor core cooling.  However, municipal water systems are not designed or operated to meet critical public health and safety requirements, and should not be relied upon for such. 

According to NRC documents recently obtained by our offices as well as discussions with individuals familiar with the event, on February 16, 2009, Entergy determined that a buried section of the Unit 2 condensate storage tank (CST) return line was leaking water at a rate of approximately 18 gallons per minute.  Upon unearthing the affected pipe, it was discovered that a 1.5 inch diameter corrosion hole was the source of the leak.  According to media reports, 100,000 gallons had leaked. Entergy then declared the CST inoperable.  This declaration meant that the only source of dedicated safety-related cooling water was unavailable, and the Indian Point reactors were totally dependent on city water not designed to be used for core cooling in the event of an emergency.

Such a scenario is unfortunately not merely theoretical.  On April 3, 2009, only weeks after the loss of the AFW system because of the corrosion leak, Indian Point Unit 2 shut down unexpectedly.  Fortunately, the AFW system functioned correctly and cooling was maintained to the reactor.  However, had the AFW inoperability and the unexpected reactor shutdown occurred simultaneously, or should have the AFW system suffered a new pipe failure during the reactor shutdown, only city water would have been left to cool the reactor.  The AFW system is a critical safety component of the Indian Point reactors, as well as other nuclear reactors.  City water is not a reliable substitute and must not be relied upon to prevent reactor core damage. 

We are shocked that a 1.5 inch diameter hole, leaking at a rate of 18 gallons per minute, could develop without detection.  We are concerned that the current inspection regime for vital buried pipes, which reportedly consists of physical inspections being conducted only in those rare instances when pipes are dug out for other purposes, is profoundly inadequate to ensure the public health and safety. 

It is clear that physically inspecting buried piping systems poses unique challenges due to limited accessibility.  However, the limited accessibility and associated costs of inspecting buried pipes and systems does not render them immune from corrosion or damage, nor does it obviate the need for a comprehensive inspection regime of such systems to ensure operability.  We would note that many industries have successfully developed technologies and programs to monitor and inspect difficult-to-access piping.

Please provide answers to the following questions regarding the recent major leak at Indian Point and buried pipe inspections:

· What is the role of AFW as a safety system at Indian Point, or any other commercial pressurized water reactor?  During what events is AFW intended to be relied upon?  Other than AFW, what other dedicated safety-related systems exist to cool the core during an unexpected reactor shut-down?

· Has the Commission performed an analysis of the consequences of a total failure of the AFW system at Indian Point, or any other commercial power reactor, that includes an analysis of what might occur if the regular feedwater supply is also interrupted by a routine power outage, terrorist attack or accident?  If so, what would be the consequences of such a failure?  If not, why not?

· Indian Point Unit 2 shut down unexpectedly on April 3, 2009.  During this unplanned shutdown, apparently caused by a failed pipe in the main feedwater control system, was AFW used at any time to cool the reactor?  What would have been the consequences of a concurrent failure of the AFW system at the time of the April 3, 2009, shutdown?

· What was the root cause of the pipe corrosion at Indian Point?  What other pipes are buried at Indian Point?  Has the discovery of the 1.5 inch corrosion hole prompted the licensee to inspect other buried pipes for similar corrosion?  If so, what has been found?  If not, why not?  Has the discovery of the 1.5 inch corrosion hole prompted the Commission to inspect other buried pipes at other reactor sites for similar corrosion?  If so, what has been found?  If not, why not?

· What are the Indian Point licensee’s requirements under the current licensing basis to inspect buried pipe?  What programs does the licensee have in place to assure the emergency cooling systems meet the design requirements of 10 CFR 50 Appendix A (GDC 44, 45, 46)?  What programs does the licensee have in place to assure the operability of underground piping systems as required by 10 CFR 50 Appendix B (Criterion X, XI and XVI), 10 CFR 50.55(a) and ASME Section XI?

· When was the last licensee inspection of buried pipe at Indian Point, and what were the results of the inspections?  If there has not been a recent inspection, how would the licensee not be in violation of 10 CFR 50 Appendix B (Criterion X, XI and XVI), and 10 CFR 50.55(a)?

· When was the last Commission inspection of buried pipes at Indian Point, and what were the results of the inspections?

· How can the general public be assured that all buried pipes will retain structural integrity in the event of an earthquake or other external event?

· Does the Commission require licensees to conduct inspections of buried pipe for cooling water generally?  If so, are any licensees failing to conduct such inspections?  If there have not been recent inspections, how would licensees not be in violation of 10 CFR 50 Appendix B (Criterion X, XI and XVI), and 10 CFR 50.55(a)?

· Please provide a list of licensee inspections of buried pipe in the last ten years, and their results, including the number, size and locations of detected leaks, failures, and incidents of corrosion.  Please also provide a list of Commission inspections of buried pipes in the last ten years, and their results. 

· Has the Commission ever considered requiring licensees to develop technologies and methods to inspect difficult-to-access buried pipes?  If so, why are such requirements not in place?  If not, why not?

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.  Should you have any questions, please contact Will Huntington of Rep. Markey’s staff at 202-225-2836 or Jim Bradley of Rep. Hall’s staff at 202-225-5441.

                                                                        Sincerely,

            ______________________                                                    ______________________

Edward J. Markey                                                                    John J. Hall

Chairman                                                                                  Member of Congress

Subcommittee on Energy and

The Environment

 ###

Will de-sal plant filter out radioactivity?

http://abbyluby.blogspot.com/2009/04/will-de-sal-plant-filter-out.html

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009

Will de-sal plant filter out radioactivity?

Questions to ask: 

Will a desalination water plant make Hudson River water drinkable?

If a water treatment plant is built on the banks of the Hudson River right across from the Indian Point Nuclear Power plants, will water holding radioactive isotopes regularly discharged from the power plant into the river, be made drinkable?

The environmental group, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater doesn’t think a de-sal plant can filter out Indian Point’s radioactive discharges. The desalination plant is expected to be built by United Water New York in Haverstraw, Rockland County, and the application is being reviewed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Clearwater is arguing that Indian Point’s owner, Entergy, shouldn’t have their license renewed until a water safety study is done. Entergy has applied to extend the operating license for reactor units 2 and 3 for 20 more years. The application is in the final stages of being reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB).

“They need to look at the transport of radioactive isotopes in the Hudson River and they haven’t done that,” said Manna Jo Greene, environmental director at Clearwater about Entergy’s license renewal application. “Can the isotopes move across the river? Can they be removed using reverse osmosis?”

Reverse osmosis is an expensive filtering process which extracts out radioactive Strontium-90, which is a particulate. Extracting tritium is more difficult because it is a radioactive form of hydrogen.

The desalination plant will draw up to 10 million gallons of river water daily and could take in up to 20 million gallons per day for 12 hours during the low tide.

The majority of contentions against Entergy’s re-licensing application were filed last year with the ASLB who have accepted contentions filed by the DEC, Riverkeeper, Clearwater and Attorney General’s office.

This latest contention filed by Clearwater would come under “new and significant” information. Neil Sheehan of the NRC said the plans for the desalination plant have been known for quite some time. “It was discussed in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the application. In any case, the ASLB judges would need to consider the motion to submit a new contention and rule on it.”

Question to ask: When will the ASLB judges rule on Clearwater’s contention?

Sheehan’s answer: “The judges rule when they're ready; there is no exact time frame.”

###

Chris Peterson and his wife are looking over two decades of medical records. That's how long he's been battling thyroid cancer. Although uncertain how he got the disease he thinks the cause has something to do with the Indian Point nuclear plant located less than 6 miles from where he once lived on the outskirts of New York City.

Chris Peterson/Thyroid Cancer Patient

“I think Indian Point should be closed down… so that there can be a study."

Peterson wants that study to examine why Indian Point's surrounding counties have some of the highest thyroid cancer rates in the state.

Some critics of the plant believe there is a link between cancer and the plant's release of radioactive iodine.

SOT Joe Mangano/Radiation and Public Health Project

"I am strongly confident that Indian Point emissions have played a major role in raising thyroid cancer near the plant."

MILLER STAND UP BRIDGE:

Behind me is one of the nuclear reactors at Indian Point. Just about everything that happens here is regulated by the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency says the plant does not pose a health risk to people who live nearby.

TRACK:

While excessive exposure to radioactive iodine can cause thyroid cancer, the NRC says Indian Point is safe.

SOT Patricia Milligan/NRC

Patricia Milligan

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

"This plant is doing exactly what it should be doing, the doses that are being released are very low and a very minor fraction of the limit."

The New York State Department of Health which released the data showing the spike in thyroid cancer says while the cause could be radioactive iodine, there are other factors to consider including "greater awarness and detection."

With Indian Point's license to operate a reactor coming up for renewal in four years, many nearby thyroid cancer patients like Chris Peterson want to make sure the controversy isn't over. 

In Buchanan , NY DLM FOX NEWS.

###

April 11, 2009

Letter to the Editor

The Record

Recently William Tucker wrote an op ed piece for the Record calling for the closure of nuclear reactors at Indian Point. In March Mr. Tucker and I were both on teams that participated in an Oxford style debate at the King's Daughters Public Library in Garnerville New York.  The motion for the debate was “This House urges the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject the license renewal application for Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Nos. 2 and 3.” Mr. Tucker's spoke for re licensing the plant, I advocated against it . At the end of an Oxford style debate the house votes whether or not to support the motion. I am pleased to report that we carried the day and the house voted against re licensing by more than a two to one margin. Needless to say, seeing his opinion piece calling for closing Indian Point shortly after our debate was quite a surprise.  My first thought was that he had indeed "seen the light"  and that our team's superior debating style coupled with our accurate information had wrought an amazing transformation.  Unfortunately, a closer reading revealed that this was not the case.

It is apparent that Mr. Tucker remains mired in the industry jargon that sets up a false choice between nuclear and coal.  This is a pathetic straw man that nuclear proponents bring up time and time again.  Let's be clear.  No one in the environmental movement has ever, or will ever, agree to more coal plants.  Rational dialog would be well served by retiring this bogus argument permanently. Perhaps industry spokesmen are finally catching on since Mr. Tucker trotted out a different straw man at the debate which he repeated in his article.  In a nutshell, he insists that neither wind nor solar will work because they take up too much space.  Like many who favor splitting the atom to boil water to generate electricity, the author has a bias toward mammoth, slow to build, hugely expensive, subsidized and centralized means of production.  That is exactly what makes nuclear power such a dinosaur.  Those days are over. We are now on the brink of distributed generation where new buildings and homes can generate on their own electricity and put power back into the grid when they have an excess. Existing roof tops and parking lots can be utilized for production.  Who would not welcome some shade in the desert of a mall parking lot when looking for a place to leave their car.  Park under a simple structure that has a solar panel on top and we all gain.  Google already has this on their campus and they have gone one step better.  Their cars pug into the solar panel overhead and recharge while waiting for the next driver.  Distributed generation puts smaller, cleaner sources of electricity closer to where it is needed. It can protect us from massive outages because there are so many more sources of electricity.  Coupled with the new smart grid technology it will be easy to move electricity further and faster than ever before.  It also smooths out the differences between intermittent and base line generation. The wind is always blowing somewhere.

It is also time to put to rest the myth that solar can be used only in the summer during peak electricity needs. While this is a good thing, it is equally true that new solar panels work efficiently on much less sunlight. People in our region live in them year round and save a bundle on their utility bills.  Couple this with geothermal heating and you have a very small carbon footprint and a lot more money in your pocket. The public library in Ossining, NY installed a geothermal heating system because it saves so many taxpayer dollars in the long run.  This is only one example of what we can do as a community.

Mr. Tucker's contention that environmentalist only favor generation projects that are "over the horizon" is nonsense. Environmental impact studies, proper siting and some common sense that assigns a value to viewscape and other intangibles that don't normally appear on the bottom line of corporate budgets are all important. Otherwise we will repeat the mistakes of the past. We operate under a capitalistic economic system and there is absolutely nothing wrong with turning a profit. However, this profit cannot be derived from the abuse of the common good by an industry that disposes of waste at no cost to themselves. Thermal pollution of the Hudson River by the Indian Point generators is a good example. The deleterious effect on the Hudson River is well documented and it is unfortunate that the recent Supreme Court decision on this matter upheld the use of cost benefit analysis as part of the Clean Water Act.  Hopefully, now that the matter is in the hands of a more enlightened EPA the company will nonetheless be required to go to closed cycle cooling to end the destruction of more than two billion fish a year - should the plant be re licensed.

Basically, Mr. Tucker has thrown down the gauntlet and said close Indian Point. He says it will make the industry more viable as it goes to new construction and raise the cost of electricity.  That way we will all see what life in our region is like without nuclear power. I am confident that the environmental community would do so in a heart beat.  Would that the decision was ours to make. Indian Point is a business. Businesses close all the time. It is imminently possible to plan for its orderly shut down and address all the many factors involved such as replacement electricity, jobs, and taxes. Our free market economy is full of entrepreneurs in the field of energy who will undoubtedly fill in any gaps and line their own pockets in the process. The site is ready made for a natural gas plant that could easily replace the megawatts. Both reactors were down just last week and it is worth noting that every one's lights stayed on, the subways ran and most people didn't even know the difference. Con Ed did what any distributor would do, they got their supplies elsewhere. Despite scare tactics by the industry, the truth is we have plenty of electricity and a strong grid to move it around.

Go ahead, Mr Tucker.  Call my bluff.  Shut it down.  Put an end to the production of high level radio active waste.  We would all be better off.

Marilyn Elie

Marilyn Elie is a co founder of Westchester Citizens Awareness Network.  WestCAN is a grassroots organization that works for the closure of Indian Point.

###

A nuclear advocate says no to Oyster Creek

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

BY WILLIAM TUCKER

NorthJersey.com

Try living in New Jersey without nuclear power.

RIGHT NOW there probably isn't a bigger advocate of nuclear power in the country than I am.

I've just published a book, "Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Long Energy Odyssey," and now spend my time touring the country trying to convince people nuclear is the best thing that could happen for the environment and debating those who want to see it banned from the planet.

Yet I've made another decision. I think we should close both Oyster Creek, which provides 12 percent of New Jersey's electricity, and Indian Point, which provides 25 percent of the electricity consumed in New York City and Westchester County. Both are currently applying for 20-year extensions of licenses first issued in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and both are meeting strong opposition from environmental groups. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to make a ruling on Oyster Creek on Thursday, and Indian Point's two reactor licenses will expire in 2013 and 2015.

Why do I think all three reactors should be closed? Because all are aging plants whose growing vulnerability risks strangling the current nuclear revival in its cradle. There are now applications for 26 new reactors before the NRC, and the industry is straining to get started on new construction. Existing reactors, after all, are already making $1 million a day. Their economics can only improve if coal is made more expensive by a national carbon regime. Safety and operating procedures at nuclear reactors have improved so much since Three Mile Island that they now run nearly two years at a time before shutting down briefly for refueling.

Calamity

Closing Oyster Creek and Indian Point, of course, would devastate the metropolitan area's economy. Of 5 million megawatt-hours of electricity generated in New Jersey last year, 675,000 came from Oyster Creek. The state would have to import huge amounts of electricity at prices probably double what it pays today. New Jersey would fire up every aging coal boiler in the state or endure regular brownouts. New York City and Westchester would suffer a similar fate without Indian Point. For years I've argued that the easiest way for both states to make up for the power loss would be for everybody to give up air conditioning, but that's not likely.

The dream of the anti-nuclear activists is that both nuclear and coal are going to be replaced by wind, solar and other things that are "renewable." That's because nobody has yet seen what these plants are going to look like. A 45-story windmill produces 1 megawatt of electricity. Windmills must be spaced several hundred feet apart so they don't interfere with each other. To replace Oyster Creek's 675,000 megawatts you'd have to cover about 300 square miles of the state with 45-story windmills. Even then, they'd only work when the wind blows, which is about one-third of the time.

Solar collectors face the same problem. In the metropolitan area you could only rely on them for summer peaking power since there are too many cloudy days. In California, however, there are big plans to build 500 megawatt solar installations in the Mojave Desert. That's why California Sen. Diane Feinstein announced last week she would propose a ban on solar installations in the Mojave – because nature groups have suddenly realized what these 25- to 30-square-mile facilities will do for the desert environment.

It's the same everywhere. Environmentalists will support any form of energy generation as long as it's over the horizon. Once it comes into view, however, they find it objectionable. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., perhaps the most vocal and visible opponent of nuclear power in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, is also opposing wind farms in Long Island Sound and off Cape Cod. Breakthroughs in extracting natural gas from shale deposits have opened the possibility that the Northeast can once again become a producing area. But Riverkeeper, the leading opponent of Indian Point, is already opposing that as well.

Hazards

Veterans of the nuclear industry I talk to say they are very concerned that relying on aging reactors like Oyster Creek and Indian Point is eventually going to lead to an accident, which will kill nuclear power in this country forever. What they want instead is new construction incorporating all the technological and safety improvements that have been made since we stopped building reactors in the 1980s. We should have built replacements a long time ago.

So it's time to call the opponents' bluff. Let's close both Oyster Creek and Indian Point and see what life without nuclear power is really like.

William Tucker is a former reporter and columnist for The Record. His work has appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly and The American Spectator.

###

March 11, 2009

Federal Review Board scrutinizes Indian Point leaks

By Abby Luby

BUCHANAN - An independent federal review board of nuclear energy experts are raising concerns about leaks at the Indian Point Nuclear Power plants.

Appearing before the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) last week in Rockville, Maryland was Entergy, the owner of Indian Point, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is reviewing the utility’s current license renewal application.

Questions asked were based on the NRC’s draft Safety Evaluation Report (SERS) for Indian Point, a lengthy report that is integral to the license renewal process. Entergy applied in April 2007 to extend their operating license for 20 years for Units 2 and 3.

Entergy executives said that a 40-gallon-per-minute leak regularly occurs at the Unit 2 reactor during refueling outages, the bi-yearly replacement of uranium fuel rods in the reactor core. During the mont-long process water leaks out and down the steel liner that surrounds the reactors in the containment building which is constructed with 4-6 feet thick concrete walls.

            “You have a defective condition that can worsen at any time?  For me that’s troublesome,” said Charles Brown, Jr., an ACRS board member with over 35 years of experience in reactor plant engineering.

The leaks come from welds made to install the steel liner when Unit 2 was built in 1972. Water leaking out contains highly corrosive boric acid (used in reactor cooling water) and could corrode the thick metal structural components inside the containment building.

In 2002, boric acid ate its way through 6 inches of the reactor head at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, temporarily closing the plant for 14 months.

“The leaks are coming out of more than one location,” said Fred Dacimo, Entergy’s top manager overseeing the company’s license renewal application for Indian Point. “There are cracks that come through the liner that butts up against the concrete wall and flows down the outside of the wall.”

Dacimo said  his company’s attempts to seal the major leaks with ceramic coating was proving ineffective.

“The process we’ve tried hasn’t been successful and it hasn’t solved the problem,” he said.

Dacimo contends that corrosions is not the problem.

 “Even if corrosion were a problem, the amount is so slow that it would not affect plant operation for the next 20 years,” he said. “We are going to live with this; it doesn’t present a long term challenge.”

Phillip Musegaas of the environmental group Riverkeeper, the only group commenting to the ACRS of those groups opposing the license renewal, asked the board to consider the safety implications of legacy leaks that have filled two large lakes of contaminated radioactive groundwater under the reactors.

 “There is a tritium plume from the Unit 2 spent fuel pool that is leaching into the Hudson River and another large plume contaminated with Strontium-90 and Cesium 137 from the Unit 1 spent fuel pool,” he said.

            The Unit 1 pool was completely drained last year but Musegaas said there was residual contamination in the groundwater and the water table. Two years ago Entergy’s geological studies showed that one contaminated lake was  roughly 50 to 60 feet deep and the other was 30 feet wide by 350 feet long.

The panel will make recommendations to the NRC about their safety report and Indian Point’s license renewal application.

“These recommendations are taken very seriously,” said NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan. “It’s a key piece of information to help with the final [re-licensing] decision.”

The ACRS recommendations are expected in September. The final NRC safety report is due in late July of this year.

###

Indian Point concerns raised

Committee discusses plant's future

By Alexa James

Times Herald-Record

March 05, 2009 12:55 PM

BUCHANAN — A federal team of nuclear industry experts has raised serious concerns about the aging infrastructure and operating plans of the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

Members of the federally-appointed Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards met in Rockville, Md., on Wednesday to discuss the future of the 2,200 megawatt facility. Its 40-year operating licenses will expire by 2015 unless the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deems it worthy for a 20-year renewal. This week's meeting was one slice of a long and arduous vetting process.

The get-together forced top brass from Entergy Nuclear Operations, the company that owns and operates Indian Point, and staff from the NRC, the federal body that oversees the site's operations, to testify before roughly a dozen members of the advisory committee.

The panel voiced concerns about several aging components at Indian Point, particularly ongoing boric acid leaks inside a reactor cavity.

According to NRC and Entergy reports, when the inside of reactor Unit 2 is flooded during refueling outages, a much as 40 gallons per minute of borated water escape through cracks in the cavity liner and trickle down the concrete wall.

"Attempts have been made over the last several outages to mitigate this condition, with limited success," the NRC report said, citing concern for "degradation of the underlying concrete and reinforcement rebar due to the leakage."

At Wednesday's meeting, Entergy staff promised to keep trying to fix the leak, but argued that it would be years before it had another opportunity to shut down the reactor and assess the problem. It's hoping the NRC will extend its operating license before then.

The advisory committee expressed reservations. The leak might not pose a threat now, but if there's no future solution, "that's trouble," said member John Sieber, who has 45 years of experience in the nuclear industry. The committee asked for additional information from Entergy and the NRC before making a recommendation.

Indian Point's application currently includes 20 "open items," or unresolved issues for consideration by the committee. That's not unusual. License renewals for nuclear reactors typically take about 30 months to complete, but at a plant as controversial as Indian Point, located just 30 miles north of Manhattan, a decision could take far longer.

Entergy submitted its application in April 2007. The State of New York and several environmental groups are waging high-profile cases against it.

Read documents from the meeting at recordonline.com/ip

###

Latest leak is more proof that Indian Point should close

By Gary Shaw • February 26, 2009

Federal and Indian Point officials last week announced - and quickly moved to repair - a broken pipe that was leaking radioactive water into a discharge canal that drains into the Hudson River. Federal regulators said that the tritium leak was not a safety risk to workers or the public. Here is a comment from an activist opposed to the relicensure of Indian Point.

Once again, Indian Point unexpectedly springs a leak and releases more radioactive material into the environment and directly into the Hudson River. This leak of tritiated water, at a rate of 18 gallons per minute, highlights a serious issue in the relicensing process that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has refused to answer.

In public meetings, NRC officials have been asked to state what standards the miles of underground pipes at Indian Point will be required to meet, and what specific measurements will be made to show that the pipes will maintain their integrity until the year 2035, the end of the 20-year extension sought by the plants' owner. The NRC has not made those standards or metrics known. Clearly, any standards they have used have not worked so far.

If this pipe rupture occurred at a time when the entire region is watching, because of recent history and current relicensing debates, what should we expect over an additional 20 years? Jim Steets, longtime spokesman for the plant, is quoted in this newspaper saying, "There is no way to prevent everything. You just have to be prepared to make repairs." What happens if the next leak is on the nuclear reactor side, instead of the non-reactor side, which is still releasing radiation? Remember that the last set of leaks, including the presence of Strontium 90, were discovered by luck when an excavation work discovered wetness outside the spent fuel pools.

At the latest public meeting held at Colonial Terrace, one of the first slides shown listed the "NRC's Mission: Protect public health and safety, Promote common defense and security, Protect the environment." The NRC has not addressed how it will have adequate proof that other buried pipes won't corrode like the one that did last week. Can the NRC tell us how many more pipes lack protective measures or are close to rupturing? If Entergy and the NRC did not see this leak coming, how will they justify that the rest of the miles of piping will stand up for another 25 years?

The NRC is essentially telling us that we will have to accept additional radioactivity in our environment. If simply having monitoring wells so that leaks get discovered is the agency's idea of protecting the environment, then I think their standards are inadequate. If the agency says that as long as the leaks don't go directly into known drinking-water sources, they are not threats to the environment, then their standards are inadequate.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a report just a few years ago stating that no amount of exposure to ionizing radiation can be considered harmless, and all exposure increases the likelihood of cancer and birth defects. A small-scale study of milk from nursing mothers and from lactating goats within 50 miles of Indian Point found Strontium 90 in virtually all samples, and the closer the sample was to Indian Point, the higher the concentration of Strontium. These results are consistent with the study of baby teeth conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project.

We should also recognize that relicensing is for 20 years, but law requires spent fuel nuclear wastes to be kept quarantined from human contact for 10,000 years. Indian Point is already stacking casks of nuclear wastes on a concrete platform and there is already about 20 times as much radioactive material at Indian Point than the amount that was released in the Chernobyl meltdown. If the company and the agency cannot anticipate and prevent a rupture in 35-year-old pipes, how comfortable do you feel with nuclear bowling pins stacked on the banks of the Hudson until the year 12035? The first step has to be stopping the creation of more radioactive waste.

Placement of this plant was wrong to begin with, that is why in public testimony in 1979, Robert Ryan, then an NRC director, called Indian Point "one of the most inappropriate locations in existence" for a nuclear plant. He also said that he thought having a nuclear plant 35 miles from midtown Manhattan and 20 miles from the Bronx was "insane." It is equally insane to relicense it.

The writer, who lives in Croton on Hudson, is a member of the steering committees of Croton Close Indian Point and Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.

###

February 19, 2009

Indian Point leaking radioactive tritium

Greg Clary
The Journal News

BUCHANAN - Indian Point 2 is again leaking radioactive water and company officials may have to shut down the nuclear reactor to repair a broken pipe.

The 8-inch pipe is leaking tritium and water about 8 feet below the ground. Workers at the plant have been excavating since water showed up early Monday morning, federal regulators and plant officials told the Journal News.

The leak comes from a pipe that runs from a tank holding condensation collected from steam generators used to turn the turbines that make electricity.

Since that is part of the non-nuclear side of the plant, concentrations of tritium are about a tenth of the amount allowed by federal guidelines for drinking water.

Company officials say they're hopeful of isolating the pipe and making the repairs in the next three days, without having to take the 1000-megawatt unit offline.

The tritiated water is going into the Indian Point's discharge canal, which drains into the Hudson River under federal permit.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said there is no risk to area drinking water.

###

State attorney challenges report on Indian Point


2/12/2009


By JIM FITZGERALD 
The Associated Press



http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/business-2/1234492177132560.xml&storylist=simetro

CORTLANDT MANOR, N.Y. (AP) — A lawyer for New York state said Thursday that an environmental report that supports extending licenses for the Indian Point nuclear power plants is inadequate, incomplete and reaches the wrong conclusion.


The report "just accepts significant environmental impacts as unavoidable," John Parker, regional attorney for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a public hearing on the document. "We do not accept this premise."


Indian Point's owner, Entergy Nuclear, is trying to win license extensions that would allow the Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 reactors, about 35 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, to operate until 2033 and 2035. The DEC has emerged as a significant challenger.


An environmental impact statement drafted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's staff concluded that whatever effects the plants have on the environment are acceptable, given the reactors' energy production.


Parker noted that those effects include the "significant impact" of killing millions of fish and fish eggs each year by sucking them up from the river into the plants' cooling systems.


The DEC has jurisdiction over Indian Point's use of river water, and its own impact statement — which can and likely will be challenged — says that if Entergy wins the new licenses, it must save fish by building costly cooling towers that use 95 percent less water.


Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said the company agrees with the NRC report that "there are no environmental issues so significant that we shouldn't proceed with the relicensing process."


The environmental group Riverkeeper also spoke in support of the Hudson River fish. Program Director Phillip Musegaas said at least six species are in decline, "and Indian Point contributes to that decline because of its cooling system."


Several other objections to Indian Point's relicensing were voiced at the hearing. Most were familiar concerns, including the danger of waste fuel, the feasibility of evacuating a densely populated area in the event of a problem at the plants, and the possibility of a terrorist threat, which is not being considered in the relicensing process.


Many supporters of Indian Point also spoke, including dozens of people from poor New York City neighborhoods who said they were members of Safe Healthy Affordable Reliable Energy, or SHARE. Deputy Director Gregory Joseph said the group feared energy prices would rise and air would be fouled by conventional power plants if Indian Point closed.


He said Entergy was the group's primary funder.


Among the opponents of extending the licenses was a group called the Radiation and Public Health Project. It said new data showed that the four counties surrounding Indian Point have some of the state's highest rates of thyroid cancer, which can be caused by radiation.


State Health Department spokesman Jeffrey Hammond confirmed that the rates are high, but he noted that diet, heredity, and greater awareness among doctors could be responsible. Steets said Indian point releases only tiny amounts of the iodine gas that can cause thyroid cancer.


Comments made at the hearing are to be considered as the final report is written. It is due in February 2010.


© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

###

NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY

Human Breast Milk and Goat Milk Analysis
 Reveals Elevated Levels of Radioactivity
 Near Indian Point Nuclear Power Station

Contact:
 Nancy Burton 203-938-3952 cell 203-545-9252 NancyBurtonCT@aol.com
 Margo Schepart 914-325-4620  MargoFrances@yahoo.com

The Mothers Milk Project will reveal to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at a public meeting on February 12 that milk sampled from humans and goats near the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station shows elevated levels of strontium-90, a fission product known to cause bone cancer, leukemia and diseases of the immune system.

Photo opportunity: Cindy-Lu, a goat whose milk has consistently shown elevated levels of strontium-90 over a multi-month sampling period, will be present with her 4-day-old baby goats, Luna and Dude.

Of 30 milk samples from breastfeeding mothers and goats within 50 miles of Indian Point, nearly all reveal levels of strontium-90 with the highest results occurring closest to the nuclear plant located on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York.

Of great concern are the sample results revealing the presence both of strontium-90 and a related fission product strontium-89. As strontium-89 has a short half life, its presence in the milk of lactating mothers alongside strontium-90 provides strong evidence that the radioactivity was recently produced from a nearby source, likely Indian Point. 

Representatives of the Mothers Milk Project will present their preliminary findings  to the NRC at its meeting on Indian Point license renewal at 1:30 on Thursday, February 12, 2009, at Colonial Terrace, Grand Ballroom, 119 Oregon Road, Cortlandt Manor, New York.

###

January 28, 2009

More Information needed on Indian Point’s cable system

By Abby Luby

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants more information from Entergy,

owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plants, about various cable systems at the

facility.

In a Safety Evaluation Report just issued, the NRC said it was concerned about

cables that were submerged under water.

“We have opened up manholes and have seen water that’s impacting these

cables,” said Neil Sheehan, spokesperson for the NRC. “We want to know how Entergy

will address moisture impacting cables especially if they are part of any of the safety

systems.”

The report was part of other informational requests needed by the NRC to renew

the operating license for Indian Point.

Nuclear power plants need expansive cable networks to operate. Cables are the

necessary infrastructure that transmits electricity to and from the plant, and are integral to

security and communications.

In February of 2007 the NRC asked Entergy to report on failures of certain

underground cables.

“We focused in on a specific issue with underground cables,” said Sheehan.

adding that all nuclear power plants in the U.S. were asked about their underground

cables.

The NRC request was prompted by two incidents in 2003 where buried cables for

key systems had failed to function; one was at the Oyster Creek nuclear facility in New

Jersey, the other at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. At Oyster Creek buried

cables for an emergency diesel generator failed because the insulation rotted from being

submerged in water. At Palisades a buried cable failed because of premature aging.

Entergy responded to the NRC in May, 2007 citing the failure of only two buried

cables – one in 1994 and the other in 2005. One cable was 19 years old and had

“experienced catastrophic failure during operation.” The other was 30 years old whose

condition was classified as “degraded.”

More than a year later, in October 2008, NRC project manager John Boska sent a

letter to Entergy acknowledging their response, saying the issue was closed and “no

further action is requested at this time.”

Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington D.C.

watchdog group for the nuclear industry, said the NRC’s questions about underground

cables were too narrow.

“The proper question would have been whether any one has cables routed in

environments harsher than assumed in aging analyses,” said Lochbaum. “That could

include cables buried underground as well as cables routed inside buildings where

temperatures might be higher than assumed.”

Cable systems that sprawl under 239 acres where Indian Point sits is hard to quantify

said Indian Point’s on-site NRC inspector Paul Cataldo. “It’s hard to say how much cable

there is. We look at it in terms of voltage.”

High voltage transmission cables at Indian Point carry up to 138,000 volts. Some

of these are electrical feeder cables that supply electricity from the grid for the plant’s

day-to-day operation. Cables transmitting electricity to the power grid carry about

345,000 volts.

“Picture your electrical box at home,” said Cataldo. “Electricity comes in and out

of the plant with junctions and breakers that operate certain equipment like gears, pumps

and valves.”

The inability to monitor cable systems at Indian Point is a major issue with New

York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who filed a 206-page contention document

last February opposing Entergy’s re-licensing application to keep the plants running for

an additional 20 years. Indian Point Unit 2 and 3 operating licenses expires in 2013 and

2015 respectively.

The attorney general attacked Entergy’s plan to check cables’ insulation once

every 10 years and for checking for water accumulation where cables are housed every

two years. According to Cuomo, Entergy’s license renewal application omitted “a copy

of the actual aging management plan for inaccessible Medium Voltage Cables.”

In their application Entergy said they will come up with a monitoring program

just before they get their license renewed. Cuomo found that unacceptable and cited agerelated

problems of degraded cables that “could threaten the capability to safely shut

down the reactor and maintain it in a safe shutdown condition” and “lead to the loss of

required plant functions.”

Sheehan said the license renewal application looks at aging management [of

cables] more broadly.

“We will be asking what Entergy is doing to protect cables for an additional 20

years.”

Entergy’s application stated that a management program monitoring certain types

of cables wasn’t required, prompting the NRC, in a May letter, to ask Entergy for an

explanation for not requiring a monitoring program. They also asked what types of cable

testing the utility company has been running.

Although Entergy spokesperson Jerry Nappi declined to comment on Entergy’s

current cable monitoring plan, NRC’s Cataldo did say that cable inspections are

performed periodically.

“The cables are in manholes and we go in and do physical checks. There are

connections to the control room where meters measure appropriate voltage and there is

surveillance of breakers.”

The issue of underground cables has consistently come up at local public

meetings for they are part of the license renewal process. Gary Shaw, a resident of Croton

said he has asked repeatedly how underground pipes, many of which house cables, are

examined.

“I have specifically asked the NRC how many linear feet of pipe are inaccessible.

What about the of 35-year old welds that have been exposed to corrosive salt water?

How are they going to determine their viability for another 20 years?”

###

January 23, 2009

NRC to Indian Point: We need more info

By Abby Luby

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) wants to know how Entergy will manage

aging components for another 20 years at Indian Point, one of the country’s oldest nuclear power

plants.

Indian Point units 2 and 3 were built in 1974 and 1976 and are currently operating on a

40 years license.

Last week the NRC requested more information in response to Entergy’s application to

extend the twin reactor’s current operating license which expires in 2013 and 2015.

Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation's Division of License

Renewal, sent Entergy a Safety Evaluation Report (SER) on January 15. The report cited

potential problems with various components at Indian Point.

“We want more information about what they are doing to ensure that components remain in

good working shape,” said NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan. “Our staff didn’t have enough

information they need on aging management programs [at Indian Point].”

The NRC’s concern is how Entergy will monitor tritium-contaminated water that was

discovered leaking from the 400,000-gallon spent fuel pool at Unit 2 in the fall of 2005.

Although Entergy has committed to monitor the groundwater for tritium (a radioactive isotope)

every three months, the NRC officials said they are worried about undetected damages to the

pool’s concrete and rebar areas.

“There are some areas they just can’t access to check for leaks in the spent fuel pool,”

said Sheehan. “Although Entergy has confirmed the pool isn’t leaking we still have questions

about what they are going to do long term.”

The NRC asked Entergy why it didn’t commit to more inspections for leaks during the

proposed extended years of operation. In their license application Entergy claimed that additional

inspections were not necessary. Sheehan said the NRC is concerned because Indian Point Unit 2

was built without a leak detection system underneath the spent fuel pool, a system that is

common at most reactor spent fuel pools.

Detecting cracks in pressurized spray heads was another NRC concern. The spray heads

are stainless steel and are an essential component that maintains the right pressure in the reactor

coolant system, a system needed to prevent a core meltdown. Often the heads get brittle and

crack, an aging problem which can be detected by ultrasonic methods.

“We asked the company how what state-of-the-art methods would be used to detect

cracks in the pressurized spray heads at Units 1 and 2,” said Sheehan.

The utility company has to answer several other requests. The NRC also wants to know

why Entergy neglected to spell out how data on aging components would be collected and

evaluated if their license was extended. Additionally, in case of fire, the NRC needs to know

how Entergy will check the feed water supply to the steam generators needed in case of a fire.

The license renewal application was also cited for being ambiguous and unclear when

making distinctions between components that showed effects of aging and components whose

aging signs were acceptable.

In an email to North County News, Entergy spokesperson Jerry Nappi said “The

publication of the NRC’s Safety Evaluation Report is another step forward toward license

renewal of Indian Point.”

Nappi said that since Entergy purchased Indian Point in 2001, it has invested hundreds of

millions of dollars in new equipment, security and training “to ensure that the plant continues to

safely provide electricity for New Yorkers well into the future.”

The deadline for Entergy to respond to the NRC is March 16.

“It’s incumbent upon Entergy to get these items fully addressed before we go ahead to

the final SER,” said Sheehan.

While final conclusions on Entergy’s license renewal application is expected in July,

2009, the NRC is moving ahead with the environmental impact statement section in the license

renewal process. The first of two public hearings on the EIS will be held February 12.Comments

on the draft EIS supplement will be accepted until March 11.

The SER is available at the NRC Web site at

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html