2007

On January 19, the Westchester County Environment and Energy Committee unanimously passed a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to reintroduce and pass legislation requiring an Independent Safety Assessment at Indian Point. Introduced by Chair Tom Abinanti, the resolution appeared on the County Board’s agenda on February 12 and passed unanimously. So far, municipal resolutions in support of the ISA have been passed in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Orange Counties. Rockland County Board of Legislators passed the resolution in December; Putnam County Board of Legislators unanimously passed the resolution on February 6.

On February 12, Congressman John Hall (D-NY), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) reintroduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require an Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The legislation requires an in-depth review of Indian Point’s vital safety and mechanical systems, the spent fuel pools, and radiological emergency evacuation plans. Riverkeeper has been advocating for an Independent Safety Assessment in light of ongoing and increasing safety problems at the plant.

The legislation calls for an Independent Safety Assessment like the one conducted at Maine Yankee after a series of problems raised serious safety questions about that nuclear plant in the mid 1990s. Indian Point, which unlike Maine Yankee is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, has had a similar rash of safety and mechanical problems during its thirty-plus years of operation. Moreover, plant employees have alleged that the plant’s owner and operator, Entergy, has created a “chilled environment” that hinders workers from raising safety concerns. And several recent reports have concluded that the NRC is failing its mandate to thoroughly protect public health and safety.

Recently, under public and political pressure for a Maine Yankee-style Independent Safety Assessment at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, the NRC revised the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) in order to include a biennial engineering assessment inspection known as the Component Design Bases Inspection (CDBI). While this new inspection did uncover a series of safety problems at Vermont Yankee, it is not considered a replacement for the Independent Safety Assessment. The differences between the two review protocols are stark. The Maine Yankee assessment incorporated over 17,000 hours of inspection by a team of twenty-five experts with no prior affiliation with Maine Yankee. In comparison, the NRC’s current CDBI incorporates approximately 700 inspection hours with NRC inspectors and contracted engineers. The State of Maine played an active role in the inspection process, while the CDBI only allows State officials to observe the review process.

On February 15, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton introduced similar legislation in the U.S. Senate and called on Entergy to agree to an Independent Safety Assessment of Indian Point.


2006
On March 2, 2006 Riverkeeper released documents showing that the NYS DEC and DOH withheld test sample results for nearly three months that showed strontium-90 in a well 100 feet from the Hudson River. As a result Riverkeeper calls on New York State’s Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Conservation to release all groundwater sampling results gathered thus far in their investigation of the leak of radioactive water from Indian Point. According to documents obtained by Riverkeeper under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law both State agencies were aware in early December 2005 that Strontium-90, an extremely hazardous radioactive isotope, had been detected in a sample from Monitoring Well-111 nearly three months before the DOH notified elected officials of its presence at the site.

On March 3, 2006 a letter was sent to the Environmental Protection Agency by U.S. Representatives Eliot Engel, Maurice Hinchey, and Nita Lowey calling on the federal agency to conduct a full investigation into the strontium and tritium radioactive leak and other environmentally destructive methods employed at Indian Point: “These discoveries are only the latest in a list of environmental assaults on the region by the Indian Point Power Plant. The plant’s destructive practices pose a significant threat to the area reservoirs and drinking water, and have killed billions of fish and aquatic life through unsafe cooling techniques each year in the Hudson River.”

On March 7, 2006 a bi-partisan coalition of New York and Connecticut members of Congress introduced legislation that would require the NRC to do a comprehensive safety assessment of Indian Point and would require the NRC and FEMA to provide detailed information on how they have approved Indian Point’s emergency evacuation plans three years running, despite the Witt Report’s conclusion that the plans are inadequate to protect the people from an “unacceptable dose of radiation” This important action, led by Congressman Maurice Hinchey who is joined by Congressmen Christopher Shays and Eliot Engel and Congresswomen Nita Lowey and Sue Kelly, comes on the heels of myriad problems at Indian Point involving a radioactive spent fuel pool leak that appears to be releasing tritium and strontium into the Hudson River. The legislation is also supported by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

On March 9, 2006 Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that she received a commitment from Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Nils Diaz that he will order an independent safety review of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The verbal commitment was made at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. In a press statement, Senator Clinton indicated that she expects from the Chairman a written confirmation that “will incorporate the elements included in the legislation introduced by my House colleagues.” It remains unclear if Chairman Diaz was committing to a true Independent Safety Assessment (ISA), as outlined in legislation currently before the House of Representatives, or was referring to a new pilot inspection program the NRC recently launched. Indian Point was recently chosen as one of four plants in the U.S. which will undergo a special inspection but not nearly to the degree afforded by a comprehensive vertical and horizontal slice review with independent consultants. Senator Clinton's commitment to ensuring that the NRC conduct an ISA of five key safety systems at the plant as well as the emergency evacuation plans is crucial in holding the NRC accountable to elected officials and the public.

On March 21, 2006 the NRC and Entergy announced that Strontium-90 had been discovered in wells near the Hudson River at levels 3 times higher than EPA allowable levels. Another dangerous radioactive isotope, Nickle 63, was also found. All indications show that these radioactive isotopes from a spent fuel pool leak -- which was discovered in August 2005 and has yet to be identified or remedied -- are now polluting the Hudson River.

On March 22, 2006 Congressman Eliot Engel met with NRC Chairman Nils Diaz to express his concerns over the numerous safety problems at Indian Point, including the radioactive leak from Indian Point spent fuel pool 2. Congressman Engel also addressed a panel comprised of NRC officials and members of the Nuclear Energy Institute (the lobbying arm of the nuclear industry) about ongoing radioactive leaks at Indian Point. (See Press Release on the Sidebar.)

In March 2006 Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that she had received a commitment from NRC Chairman Nils Diaz that he will order an independent safety review of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The verbal commitment was made at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. As Riverkeeper feared, however, Chairman Diaz withdrew his commitment to a Maine Yankee-style review of Indian Point, maintaining “The Maine Yankee Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) was a unique, one-time review, and the Commission does not believe that an effort to replicate a “Maine Yankee” ISA is warranted. In a strongly-worded letter back to the Commissioner dated April 3, Senator Clinton vowed to introduce a Senate bill that would require the NRC to conduct the ISA “because I am not convinced that your proposed engineering assessment meets the needs of the community.”

On April 3, Senator Clinton took the NRC to task for refusing to heed her request for a Maine-Yankee styled Independent Safety Assessment at Indian Point. After receiving a letter from NRC Chairman Nils Diaz on March 28 noting that “The Maine Yankee Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) was a unique, one-time review, and the Commission does not believe that an effort to replicate a ‘Maine Yankee’ ISA is warranted,” Senator Clinton introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate (S 2488).

On April 26, 2006 NYS Comptroller Alan Hevesi issued a letter to Entergy's Chairman of the Board, Robert Luft, requesting that Entergy submit to the Independent Safety Assessment, as described in the U.S. House and Senate bills. The New York State Common Retirement Fund holds approximately $58 million in Entergy shares. Comptroller Hevesi also issued a letter to the NRC, urging that the federal agency conduct an Independent Safety Assessment as outlined in the federal legislation. You can read the letters on the right side of this page.

On July 18, 2006 Congressmen Maurice Hinchey, Eliot Engel, Christopher Shays and Congresswomen Sue Kelly and Nita Lowey sent a letter to Congressman Ralph M. Hall, Chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. The letter requested that Chairman Hall work to bring the Indian Point Independent Safety Assessment legislation (H.R. 4891) out of committee in order that it can be voted on by the full House before the end of the 109th Congress. The bill has been in the committee since March 2006. You can read the letter on the right side of this page.