Riverkeeper Calls on NRC to Reject Entergy's Application for 20-Year Extension

Will NRC Do the Right Thing?

6-4-07 Riverkeeper Calls on NRC to Reject Entergy's Application for 20-Year Extension
FROM: RIVERKEEPERContact: Renee Cho, Riverkeeper914-478-4501 x 239 For Immediate Release 6-4-2007
RIVERKEEPER CALLS ON NRC TO REJECT ENTERGY’S APPLICATION FOR TWENTY-YEAR LICENSE EXTENSION OF INDIAN POINT***Entergy Application Ignores Annual Killing of Over 1 Billion Hudson River Fish***Entergy’s Environmental Report Ignores Critical Facts about Indian Point Radioactive Leaks(Tarrytown, NY) Today Riverkeeper formally called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reject Entergy Nuclear Northeast’s relicensing application for the two nuclear reactors at the Indian Point nuclear power facility located in Buchanan, New York. The application, submitted on April 30, 2007, is currently under review by the NRC. Federal regulations under the Atomic Energy Act require that the application be “complete and accurate in all material respects.” Riverkeeper staff attorneys have identified numerous inaccuracies and omissions in Entergy’s bid for twenty-year license extensions, including a failure to address impacts on the Hudson River fisheries and a deeply flawed analysis of the radioactive leak discovered in August 2005 that is contaminating the groundwater. “It’s quite apparent why a multi-billion dollar corporation would want to cover-up the tremendous impacts its operations have on the environment when seeking an additional twenty-years of solid profits from two polluting reactors,” stated Lisa Rainwater, Indian Point Campaign director. “However, no reason exists for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to accept an application fraught with errors and half-truths. Entergy’s failure to address Indian Point’s ongoing destruction of the Hudson River fisheries and a radioactive leak that is poisoning the groundwater renders the application incomplete. The application must be rejected. Period.” Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the applicant is required to prepare an Environmental Report to address the impacts and any adverse effects on the environment, and the reasonable alternatives available. The applicant’s assessment of future environmental impacts must be objective, and include even “adverse information.” In the application, Entergy maintains that the continued use of once-through cooling systems for Indian Point will “ensure that entrainment [of Hudson River fish, eggs, and larvae] will remain small,” despite overwhelming evidence from Federal and State reports documenting the tremendous environmental impacts of this out-dated technology. In 2003 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a draft permit that recognized Entergy’s current method of withdrawing 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water per day was in violation of the Clean Water Act and stipulated that a closed-cycle cooling system would need to be installed, should the plant receive a twenty-year license extension, in order to mitigate an additional twenty years of fishkills. “Entergy essentially ignores that each year Indian Point causes the mortality of more than a billion fish,” noted Victor Tafur, Riverkeeper staff attorney. “They fail to evaluate current specific information prepared by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) regarding the facility’s impacts on aquatic resources. The NRC needs to take this into account during the relicensing process.” NEPA also requires that applicants address “New and Significant Information” in the Environmental Report. Since at least August 2005, radioactive leaks from spent fuel pools for all three Indian Point reactors have contributed to a massive contamination of the underlying groundwater. To-date neither the NRC nor Entergy has been able to conclusively determine the sources of the leaks, the longevity of the leaks, nor the full contamination of the site. Entergy’s analysis of the potential environmental impacts of these leaks in the application’s Environmental Report are unsupported by the facts and at odds with the current positions of both New York State and NRC Staff involved in the ongoing groundwater leak investigation. In addition, the Environmental Report fails to address potential contamination of Hudson River fish from strontium-90, one of the radioactive isotopes identified in samples taken at the plant and detected in four of twelve Hudson River fish in a preliminary analysis.Riverkeeper staff attorney Phillip Musegaas concluded, “Entergy’s license renewal application for Indian Point is a textbook example of cherry-picking facts and data to support Entergy’s astonishing assertion that the operation of Indian Point does not cause severe environmental impacts. Whoever drafted it conveniently forgot to include the most current data from New York State and the NRC regarding the impacts of once through cooling and the unresolved problems of Indian Point’s leaking spent fuel pools. The NRC must send this back to Entergy with a message: Stop wasting our time and give us an application that describes the true impacts of Indian Point on the environment.”Riverkeeper’s letter to the NRC can be viewed at: http://riverkeeper.org/dyn-content/documents/951466448464c9ba.pdfThe publicly available version of Entergy’s license renewal application, including the Environmental Report, can be found at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/indian-point.html, last accessed May 30, 2007.