As environmental opponents of the Indian Point nuclear power plant hailed as a victory a recent state decision that bars the way to the plant”™s relicensing, supporters warned the Buchanan plant”™s closing would leave the metropolitan region without a critical source of its electrical supply and could add to its air pollution and power costs.
Beyond its role as a regional power supplier, Entergy Corp., as the owner of Indian Point Energy Center in the town of Cortlandt, also is a source of significant revenue for Westchester municipalities and a local school district and is one of the larger employers of residents in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. It employs about 1,250 plant and operations support workers in Buchanan and White Plains.
Entergy”™s Indian Point property is assessed at about $32.25 million. The company in 2010 pays taxes and payments in lieu of taxes to the town of Cortlandt that total nearly $23.6 million. Of the total, the Hendrik Hudson School District receives $19.15 million and about $2.86 million goes to Westchester County. The total does not include Entergy”™s separate annual payment agreement with the village of Buchanan, which was not available.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation recently denied Entergy Nuclear Northeast a water quality certificate the company sought as a required step in its bid to renew for 20 years its federal licenses for its two Indian Point nuclear-powered generating facilities. The current licenses for the reactors expire in September 2013 and December 2015.
The Indian Point facilities supply about 2,000 megawatts to Consolidated Edison Inc. and the New York Power Authority. The electricity is distributed on the Con Ed system to homes, businesses, municipal offices, subways and institutions in New York City and Westchester County.
In denying the permit, DEC officials said Indian Point”™s 35-year-old once-through cooling water intake system for the pressurized water reactors takes about 2.5 billion gallons of water daily from the Hudson River. That withdrawal in a year kills almost 1 billion fish and other aquatic organisms that are either drawn into the system, trapped by high-pressure large-volume flows at the intake or affected by discharges of heated water.
DEC officials said a closed-cycle cooling system that eliminates the current thermal discharges back into the Hudson is required at the plant, rather than the underwater wedge-wire screen system that Entergy proposed as a solution. Officials also cited the continuing leaks of radioactive waste into the groundwater and the Hudson River at Indian Point when ruling the plant fails to meet state water quality standards.
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At Riverkeeper, the environmental advocacy group in Tarrytown, the permit denial was called a “major victory” and “historic decision.” Riverkeeper President Alex Matthiessen said it represented a “critical turning point in Riverkeeper”™s dual campaign to halt Indian Point”™s environmental assault on the Hudson River and force the plant”™s early retirement due to the risks its continued operation poses to public health and safety.”
A long-time foe of the Indian Point nuclear plant, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky called the DEC decision “an extraordinary vindication” of environmental opponents of Entergy, which he called “the worst polluter in New York State.” The lawmaker from Westchester said the permit denial “brings the rush to re-license Indian Point to a dead stop.”
Those opponents”™ assessments, however, could be premature.
At Indian Point, Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the state”™s decision “is not final.” Entergy will request a hearing on the matter before a DEC administrative law judge, he said.
Nappi said the closed-cycle cooling system required by the state would cost at least $1 billion. The two 17-story cooling towers needed could not be in place until 2029 and would require years of rock-blasting to be properly sited, he said. Each tower “would take up the footprint of approximately what Yankee Stadium takes up,” Nappi said. “They”™re about the size of two Yankee Stadiums on the Hudson River.”
The Entergy spokesman said the towers would release an estimated 100 tons of particulate matter per year into the already polluted air over the metropolitan region.
At the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance in New York City, Chairman Arthur J. Kremer said Indian Point provides 30 percent of all power in the metropolitan area. “Indian Point is one of the biggest games in town,” he said. “In order to replace Indian Point, you have to build five fossil-fuel-burning facilities somewhere in the region. No one wants that” in a region that already has the worst air quality rating in the Northeast, he said.
Regarding the plant”™s relicensing, “This is really very early in the process,” Kremer said. “For people who are opponents of the facility to be declaring victory is premature. It”™s a process.”
“Reasonable people have to figure out where are we going to get the power” if Indian Point closes, Kremer said. While Entergy needs to be held to water quality standards and avoid the fish and fish egg kill, “There is a bigger picture here,” he said, “and I think reasonable minds have to get together and figure out how we”™re going to do it.”
At Consolidated Edison headquarters in New York, spokesman Michael Clendenin said if Indian Point closed, “The pricing undoubtedly would go up” for electricity in the city and Westchester County.
“You”™re taking about 2,000 megawatts off the grid,” where summer demand peaks at 13,500 megawatts, he said. “You have to bring more in from upstate and out of state, if it”™s there. It would be an extremely tight supply without that” Indian Point generation. “On a peak summer day, it would be very difficult to meet the load.”
In Pearl River, Al Samuels, president and CEO of the Rockland Business Association Inc., is concerned about that prospect of power shortages if Indian Point is forced to close. Without those megawatts, “New York City would be taking it from the rest of us,” he said.
Samuels said Rockland residents work at Indian Point. “There are jobs involved and as a result there is money spent in our community that comes from that community,” he said.
Without renewable base power to replace Indian Point”™s nuclear power, “We absolutely need that facility,” said Samuels. As a supplier of power to that economic engine, New York City, “It”™s absolutely critical to this state and this region,” he said.
Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council of Westchester, shared his view, calling Indian Point “a critical source of electricity for the county and the entire region.”
“The notion that the state has closed the door on finding a reasonable and cost-effective middle-ground solution is unacceptable and flies in the face of both the facts and reality,” Gordon said.
Westchester County Executive Robert J. Astorino soon will meet with Entergy officials to discuss the environmental issues raised by the state and related matters, said county spokeswoman Donna Greene. Astorino has backed away from the public position taken by former County Executive Andrew Spano, who consistently opposed the Indian Point relicensing.
“The energy produced by the Indian Point reactors is of course crucial to the residents and businesses of Westchester,” Greene said. “Having said that, public safety is even more important. We are closely monitoring the relicensing process to make sure that all public safety issues are adequately addressed.”
At the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will decide Entergy”™s license renewal, “Our process continues,” said spokeswoman Diane Screnci. The NRC expects to issue a final supplemental environmental impact statement for Indian Point by the end of May and will schedule a public hearing on the relicensing by the end of this year, she said.
“If we get to a point at which we”™re ready to make a decision and the (water quality) certificate is not in place, we can”™t renew the license,” Screnci said. She said there is no precedent at the NRC for bypassing a state”™s permit denial to approve a plant license.
