The ongoing radioactive leak investigation took a disturbing turn in November with the news that the laboratory hired by Entergy to test the groundwater had submitted “biased” sampling results showing strontium-90 at much lower levels than was actually found by both NRC and New York state analyses. Samples of groundwater taken in August 2006 were split between Teledyne Labs of Knoxville, Tennessee, NRC and New York state laboratories. Teledyne reported strontium-90 levels from 1-6 Pico curies per liter, below the EPA drinking water limit, while state and federal lab results showed the same groundwater containing 5-30 Pico curies per liter. Entergy suspended its contract with Teledyne pending the results of an investigation into the discrepancy, while the NRC downplayed the different results as “an anomaly.”

Entergy has failed to find the specific source of the leak from the IP2 spent fuel pool or to determine its duration, after more than a year of investigation and dozens of groundwater test wells. They also remain unsure about how the IP1 pool leak is bypassing a collection drain system built to collect the leakage over ten years ago. IP1 is the supposed source of the strontium-90 leakage, which continues to flow into the Hudson River through the bedrock under the nuclear plant and into the river sediment. Entergy has begun formulating plans to draw the groundwater tainted with tritium from near the IP2 pool, dilute it and discharge it to the Hudson River in an effort to lessen the amount of contaminated water leaching under the plant and into the environment. However, their plan for the far more toxic IP1 strontium leak is to drain the spent fuel pools in 2008 and transfer the fuel to dry cask storage, thereby removing the leak source. They have also begun removing some strontium-90 from the pool water, although the amount of this pollutant that remains still far exceeds the drinking water limit. Riverkeeper continues to pressure the New York state DEC to take a more active role in the leak investigation, given the fact that the leak is known to be contaminating the state’s groundwater and the Hudson River.