For Immediate Release: December 3, 2007
Contact: Renee Cho, Riverkeeper
914-478-4501 x 239
rcho@riverkeeper.org

Riverkeeper and New York State Join Forces
To Oppose 20-Year License Extension for Indian Point

(Tarrytown, NY) On November 30, 2007, Riverkeeper and New York State (represented by the New York State Attorney General’s office and the Department of Environmental Conservation) filed intervention papers with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to formally oppose Entergy Nuclear Northeast’s application for the Indian Point nuclear power plant’s 20-year license extension. The intervention marks a major development in Riverkeeper’s six-year battle to force the retirement of the problem-ridden facility, located in Westchester County, New York – just 24 miles north of New York City.

Riverkeeper and New York State contend that Entergy’s relicensing application fails to address a wide range of critical safety, security and environmental problems posed by the operation of the Indian Point plant. They include:

• Vulnerability to a terrorist attack
  
• Unworkable emergency evacuation plan
  
• History of chronic safety violations and unplanned shutdowns
  
• Outdated cooling water intake systems that kill billions of Hudson River fish and other aquatic life annually.
  
• Radioactive leaks contaminating area groundwater and the Hudson River


Alex Matthiessen, president of Riverkeeper, stated, “With an evacuation plan declared ‘unworkable and unfixable,’ inadequate protections against a terrorist attack, and an abysmal safety record, Indian Point represents an unacceptable risk to public health and safety. With radiation leaking into the Hudson and outdated technology that kills over a billion fish each year, Indian Point is also a menace to our natural environment. Contrary to Entergy’s deceptive claims, Indian Point’s power can be easily replaced with clean and renewable generation, energy efficiency and conservation. There is absolutely no justification for continuing to expose our communities to the environmental and safety risks that Indian Point presents. It is time to commit ourselves to shutting it down.”

To date, the NRC has relicensed all 44 nuclear reactors that have applied for extensions. But with the worst safety record of any U.S. nuclear plant, the largest population within 50 miles of any nuclear plant, and its location 24 miles north of the most important cultural and economic metropolis in the United States, Indian Point is a unique case. In joining forces with New York State’s Attorney General and Department of Environmental Conservation, Riverkeeper enters the final phase of its battle to force the retirement of Indian Point.

Riverkeeper has assembled an impressive team, comprised of experienced and innovative attorneys and experts, to intervene in the relicensing proceeding. The team is led by Diane Curran, a highly regarded attorney with 20 years of experience representing state government and community groups on matters related to nuclear safety and security before the NRC. Ms. Curran, working with Riverkeeper attorney Phillip Musegaas, will be relying on some of the country’s foremost authorities on nuclear engineering, safety, and security to make the case against Indian Point’s relicensing.

Indian Point’s relicensing application contains numerous inaccuracies and omissions the NRC would like to ignore. Through intervention, Riverkeeper and the State seek to force the NRC to fully evaluate the risks of the plant’s continued operation and to deny Entergy a license extension if the company cannot correct each and every one of the significant problems we have identified – before its current license term expires in 2013. Riverkeeper is confident that when the true risks of Indian Point are revealed to the public in this proceeding, the only rational choice will be retirement and decommissioning when the current licenses expire.

Summary of Riverkeeper’s Key Contentions in the Indian Point Relicensing Proceeding.

Entergy’s relicensing application is inadequate and should be rejected because it fails to:


• Assess the risks and potential environmental impacts of a terrorist attack or accident in the spent fuel pools that could result in a spent fuel fire and catastrophic release of radiation.
  
  o Entergy also refuses to consider a simple mitigation measure, lowering the density of spent fuel in the fuel pools by moving old fuel to dry cask storage.
  
  
• Accurately assess the environmental impacts of the spent fuel pool leaks of tritium, strontium-90 and cesium-137 on the groundwater and Hudson River ecosystem.
  
  
• Accurately assess the adverse impacts of Indian Point’s cooling water intake system on Hudson River fisheries caused by entrainment, impingement and heat shock (thermal discharge).
  
  
• Provide plans for managing the degradation of critical plant components caused by “metal fatigue” and “corrosion” that could compromise the safe operation of the plant if not properly inspected and repaired.
  
  
• Conduct an accurate cost-benefit analysis of plant upgrades that could lower the risk of a “Severe Accident,” by deliberately underestimating the true costs in human life and property damage that would result if such an accident occurs.
  
  o An accurate estimate of public health and economic impacts could change the cost-benefit analysis so that mitigation measures that were previously too expensive would now be cost-effective, and would prevent or lower the risk of some severe accidents.


To view Riverkeeper’s "Request for Hearing and Petition to Intervene" in its entirety, and obtain a press kit, please visit: http://riverkeeperpressroom.gmtmedia.org

Riverkeeper is an independent member-supported environmental organization that has led the campaign to retire Indian Point. Riverkeeper’s mission is to protect the Hudson River, the New York City drinking water supply, and the public’s right to clean water and healthy communities.

For more information, please visit www.riverkeeper.org

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