Indian Point – the film – draws a crowd in Manhattan

The documentary film “Indian Point” had its debut this month at the Tribeca Film Festival in a packed Beatrice Theatre at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

The movie explores the contentions surrounding Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan and scrutinizes the controversial nuclear plant on the Hudson River through a post-Fukushima Daiichi lens ”” a nuclear power plant in Japan that exploded and leaked radioactive material following an earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011.

Sidebar: Report details emergency preparedness near Indian Point

But Ivy Meeropol, who wrote and directed the film, said she began researching the more than 50-year-old nuclear power plant before the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan.

“I would go by on the train all the time,” she said at a question-and-answer session after the premiere. “I was very interested and then Fukushima happened and it cemented the idea that this was an important story now.”

The film makes a concerted effort to unravel the complex layers surrounding Indian Point and the nation”™s nuclear industry, using a variety of sources who provide multiple perspectives on various controversies.

At the national level, Gregory B. Jaczko, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is portrayed as someone who challenged the federal agency after the incident in Japan.

The movie chronicles Jaczko”™s nearly three-year tenure as chairman, painting him as a dissenting voice among the agency”™s commissioners and someone who sought stricter standards for the commission. He ultimately resigned under pressure after complaints surfaced about his management style.

The film features a married couple with long knowledge of Indian Point, journalist Roger Witherspoon, who has been covering energy for 40 years at the Journal News and other publications, and Marilyn Elie, an environmental activist opposed to Indian Point. The audience mostly sees Witherspoon and Elie talk to the camera separately in their respective roles, but there are some interviews together where the two discuss how they navigate the issues as a couple.

Witherspoon speaks at length about the intricacies of the plant”™s internal structure and its political history in the community, as well as raising the looming issue of what to do with used fuel that produces high-level radioactive waste.

While the federal government is long overdue in determining a use or permanent home for the spent fuel, plants like Indian Point have begun storing it in pools and dry casks onsite.

Elie represents the face of volunteer activists. She is seen organizing protests and attending public meetings where she and others voice their concerns on the record in front of federal, state and local officials.

In a way, their relationship epitomizes the deep divisions over Indian Point ”” a point further evidenced by contrasting interviews between the plant”™s employees and members of the environmental watchdog organization Riverkeeper.

Interviews with Phillip Musegaas, an attorney and former program director for Riverkeeper, and clips of activists chiming in at various public hearings serve to highlight the points that using nuclear power is an outdated technology and that Indian Point”™s shutdown is wanted by members of the community and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The opponents”™ efforts have helped delay Indian Point”™s 20-year federal license renewals for its two operating reactors, a process the plant”™s owner, Entergy Corp., began in 2007.

The federal license renewals are contingent on Indian Point first securing a water quality certificate from the state Department of Conservation. The dispute between Entergy and the state agency on that subject also is addressed in the film.

At issue is the plant”™s daily use of 2.5 billion gallons of water from the Hudson for its cooling system, a process that sucks in millions of fish and larvae, especially in the summer months during spawning season. Alternative cooling methods have been proposed and challenged at numerous public hearings, including shutting down the plant during the fish migration season, using a wedge-wire screen to keep fish out, and constructing two cooling towers.

The next public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 14, when the state will determine whether to throw out the mandatory shutdown option. As the regulatory process continues at the state level, Indian Point”™s Unit 2 reactor has been running on an extended license since its expiration in 2013, and Unit 3”™s license will be extended after it expires at the end of this year.

At the other end of the movie”™s spectrum of opponents and supporters are long-time Indian Point employees Brian Vangor, a senior control room operator who has worked at the plant for 35 years, and Jim Steets, a now-retired director of communications for Entergy.

Vangor is one of many who consider Indian Point home. He and other employees interviewed in the film discuss the scrutiny they face from the community and federal regulators and how they make every effort to live up to the expected standards. After all, they said in the film, it is their lives at stake and their families who live in the area as well.

Steets, during the post-film discussion, summed up the overarching view of many Indian Point defenders, that “the more you (know) about Indian Point, the better you feel about it.”

Jerry Nappi, an Entergy spokesman at Indian Point, said the plant”™s participation in the film is part of the company”™s commitment to transparency.

“We”™re pleased that some of our people who work at the plant had an opportunity to talk about their commitment to safety and the high standards by which they operate the plant,” he said.