The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held its annual public hearing on Indian Point Energy Center on Wednesday, and there was a lot to talk about.
More than 75 people signed up to weigh in on the nuclear power plant in Buchanan at the DoubleTree Hotel in Tarrytown. Some wrote their names on the speaker signup list indicating support of the nuclear plant, but the majority were opposed to the plant’s reactors relicensing and continued operation.
NRC regulators opened the meeting with a presentation announcing that Indian Point had passed its annual safety inspection and reiterating NRC”™s earlier findings that a natural gas pipeline under construction near Indian Point would not impact the plant”™s safe operation.
Neither announcement went over well. The first speaker at the hearing said the NRC has become a “lapdog” to Entergy Corp., the owner-operator of the nuclear plant.
“You no longer have any credibility,” said Judy Allen. “You have not been doing your job.”
Another speaker questioned the NRC”™s relationship with Entergy.
“You don”™t care about our lives, you don”™t care about our future,” said Susan Shapiro, who identified herself as a member of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. “All you care about is how you are going to grease the pockets of Entergy.”
Issues hanging over Indian Point just in the last year include: hundreds of faulty bolts discovered in its Unit 2 reactor in March; a series of protests questioning Entergy and the NRC”™s findings related to the Algonquin gas pipeline’s impact on the plant’s safety; and elevated levels of tritium found in groundwater beneath the plant in February.
Those issues have unfolded amid the ongoing federal process of relicensing both of the nuclear plant”™s reactors. Indian Point”™s Unit 2 reactor”™s license expired in 2013. Unit 3”™s expired in December 2015. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state officials have continually spoken against the relicensing of the plant during the process.
But the plant is operating safely, according to NRC regulators. The NRC held a webinar with reporters on June 6 to go over the findings of its yearly inspection.
“Our overall conclusion is that Indian Point operates safely and will continue to operate safely,” said David Lew, an NRC deputy administrator overseeing the northeast region. Lew did acknowledge, however, that Unit 3 exceeded the threshold of three unplanned shutdowns per 7,000 operating hours, meaning the NRC required supplemental inspections.
The environmental watchdog group Riverkeeper held a press conference before the public hearing and also posted an article on its website headlined “Indian Point”™s very, very bad year.”
“No matter what your position is on Indian Point, you have to acknowledge that things are getting worse,” Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said at the press conference.
Speaking at the opposition conference were Rockland County Legislature Chairman Alden Wolfe, Rockland Legislator Harriet Cornell and Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
“I hope that if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission supports the relicensing, there should be a requirement that all the members be forced to live right next to Indian Point,” Feiner said. “I doubt that they are going to do it, because I doubt that they are going to risk their family member”™s lives.”
At the hearing, several residents stood at the back of the ballroom and held signs protesting the Algonquin pipeline construction. The Algonquin Incremental Market pipeline is a $971 million project of Spectra Energy Partners LP that will carry natural gas north from Pennsylvania. It runs through four states, passing near Indian Point.
Many in the crowd groaned when the NRC announced its findings that the pipeline would not impact safety at Indian Point.
The NRC ultimately is not the governing body on the pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the project in March 2015, using a safety analysis from the NRC and Entergy to guide its findings. Construction is underway and the pipeline is expected to be completed by November.
Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the FERC ruling and U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have asked the FERC to pause construction on the project until it receives further review.
But the comments at the hearing weren”™t all against Indian Point. Several rows of people seated at the DoubleTree wore green t-shirts that said “Indian Point Powers New York.”
One floor above the Riverkeeper press conference, a coalition of business and labor groups, the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, held a press conference in support of Indian Point’s relicensing.
“The people who are on the stage behind me are people who are involved in creating jobs and retaining jobs and who very much appreciate the need for Indian Point to be relicensed,” said New York AREA Chairman Arthur Kremer.
“If we want to create more opportunities for businesses to come and grow in Westchester County, we need to be able to show them that their energy costs will go down, and that”™s what Indian Point does,” said John Ravitz, executive vice president and COO of the Business Council of Westchester.
Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Thomas also spoke in favor of the plan during the public hearing.
“Too often, minority communities must bear the burden of pollution and poor air quality,” said Thomas, who formerly served as executive director of New York AREA. “Closing Indian Point would make this situation even worse, as fossil fuel plants would be necessary to produce the electricity required to keep New York City”™s lights on.”
The state Public Service Commission is holding public hearings on a plan from Cuomo to move away from fossil fuel plants. Cuomo”™s proposed Clean Energy Standard would mandate New York produce 50 percent of its energy from clean and renewable sources.
That plan includes funding to keep financially ailing nuclear plants upstate open, but leaves Indian Point out. Cuomo has continually said Indian Point”™s location in the New York metro area makes it dangerous.
“Clearly, this facility poses too great a risk to the millions of people who live and work nearby,” the governor said in May.
Entergy officials have said it would not be possible to meet New York”™s clean air goals without the continued operation of the plant.
More than $1 billion has been invested in safety upgrades to the plant, according to Entergy. The faulty bolts discovered in the Unit 2 reactor have been replaced and the reactor is expected to be back online by mid-June, an Entergy spokesperson said. A planned inspection of the Unit 3 bolts has been moved up three years to the first quarter of 2017 as well.
