Indian Point starts up Unit 2 reactor, but faces federal court challenge

Indian Point Energy Center”™s Unit 2 reactor is back online following a three-month shutdown that included repairs to nearly 300 damaged bolts.

The restart, however, has been challenged in federal court by an environmental group that claims it could have disastrous consequences.

The reactor was started back up on June 16 after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission found no safety concerns, according to a press release from the nuclear plant”™s owner and operator, Entergy Corp.

Entergy replaced 278 bolts in the Buchanan nuclear plant that were found to have defects during a scheduled shutdown in March. The plant”™s operator said it spent $120 million in maintenance, inspections and equipment upgrades during the shutdown.

“More than 900,000 person-hours of work were performed over the last three months to prepare Indian Point for continuous, safe operation well into the future,” said Larry Coyle, site vice president and Entergy”™s top official at Indian Point.

But environmental groups aren”™t as assured of the reactor”™s safety. A coalition of environmental groups led by Friends of the Earth, an anti-nuclear group, filed a challenge June 16 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that calls on the court to compel the NRC to stop Entergy from restarting the reactor.

That followed a previous filing from Friends of the Earth in May to the NRC that asked commissioners to prevent the restart of Unit 2 and shutdown Indian Point”™s other reactor, Unit 3, to check for the same bolt issues. The NRC referred that filing for staff review, according to Friends of the Earth.

The environmental group wants the federal court to intervene to prevent the restart of Unit 2 until the NRC has ruled on its other filing.

The federal suit claims that the failure of the bolts could cause a separation of metal plates on the reactor core”™s interior, “depriving the core of necessary cooling water and potentially resulting in a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.”

The filing further claimed that the NRC has shown a “lapse in regulatory oversight” by allowing Entergy “free rein to decide whether and to what extent it should analyze the cause of the failure and to determine when, in Entergy”™s opinion, Unit 2 is safe to restart.”

A panel of federal appeals court judges turned down Friends of the Earth”™s request for an emergency shutdown of the reactor, but did compel Entergy to respond to the filing.

In its response, filed June 21, Entergy questioned the court”™s jurisdiction to rule on the NRC”™s order. But if the court were to consider Friends of the Earth”™s argument, Entergy wrote in the response, it should still deny the petition.

“Given NRC”™s expert finding that safety concerns do not prevent Indian Point 2 from operating, a shutdown would not materially enhance nuclear safety, but would cause potentially severe consequences for the reliability of the electric grid in the New York City area,” Entergy”™s attorneys wrote in the response.

In a response filed the same day as Entergy”™s, U.S. Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden said the Friends of the Earth lawsuit inappropriately asks the court to “substitute its judgment about nuclear safety for the NRC”™s technical expertise.”

“Ultimately, NRC has permitted Entergy to continue operating Unit 2 because it has a license to do so and because the agency, after looking into the issue as a result of its own oversight activities and considering the request that it take immediate enforcement action, has not identified a reason to suspend the license,” Cruden wrote.

The NRC completed its annual review of Indian Point in June and declared the plant safe, but several protesters and environmental groups questioned those findings at a public hearing in Tarrytown.

While several speakers there called for Indian Point”™s Unit 3 reactor to be shut down and checked for the same bolt issues, there are no immediate plans to do so. However, Entergy spokesperson Jerry Nappi said the inspection of Unit 3 would be moved up.

“The issue of baffle bolts that degrade over time is a known issue in the nuclear power industry, which is why we performed comprehensive inspections while Unit 2 was shut down for a planned refueling outage,” Nappi said in a statement. “Entergy replaced all identified degraded bolts at Unit 2, and moved up the date of the planned inspection of Unit 3”™s bolts from 2019 to early next year.”

Nappi said the lawsuit from the anti-nuclear group was “not a surprise.”

In a statement announcing its appeal to the federal court, Friends of the Earth called the reactor”™s restart “common sense denied.”

“If a machine breaks, you have to figure out what is wrong and then fix it,” said Damon Moglen of Friends of the Earth. “Instead, at Indian Point, Entergy has decided that the priority is to get the damaged reactor up and running by summer to protect their profits.”