NRC begins Indian Point relicensing procedure

NRC begins Indian Point relicensing procedure

Cortlandt – About 300 people packed a banquet hall in Cortland Manor for the public start of the license renewal process for the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant. The evening information session was one of two held Wednesday, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If there was one thing unique compared to past NRC sessions held in the area, the crowd seemed to have a bit more balance.
The majority of speakers were, as usual, critical of the 30-year-old plant in Buchanan, but there was no shortage of support, from Village of Buchanan Mayor Daniel O’Neil, to former Assemblyman Jerry Kremer, now with the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, and an unabashed Indian Point supporter.
“What you’re talking about is a facility that should be kept going because the region needs it badly.”
That was a claim made by a large contingent of organized labor.
A quickly-drafted news release from the Coalition of Labor for Energy and Jobs noted the massive power outages from the Wednesday afternoon storms, arguing power shortages would be much more frequent without the 2,000 megawatts Indian Point pumps into the downstate power grid.
During a news conference before the formal NRC session, Bob Seeger, business agent with the Millwrights and Machinery Erectors, Local 740, said it about more than just jobs.
“None of us are going to send our members into a place that’s not safe.”
During the NRC session itself, Marilyn Elie, a co-founder of Westchester Citizens Awareness Network, suggested the union members could get quality jobs, and safer ones, by working for alternative energy.
Peter Harckham, of Katonah, was a student at Dickinson College, in 1979, and was among more than 100,000 evacuated from the area around Three Mile Island.
Harckham argued the tentative Indian Point renewal review has some significant omissions. “You can’t effectively have a strategic planning review when you take half of that process off the table. I respectfully disagree with your assessment that it is a duplication, and would ask you to put emergency planning and security back into the license renewal.”
Another speaker raised the issue of leakage. Division of Licensing Environmental Branch Chairwoman Rani Franovich responded, saying they have not decided exactly what will be examined in their review of Indian Point. “We’re not at that juncture yet where we decided what it is they need to demonstrate to us.”
The license renewal review typically takes 22 months, if the NRC decides a formal public hearing is not needed. Thirty months would be the timeline if there is a hearing.