The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) announced last week that they have rejected a new contention submitted by Clearwater against the re-licensing of Indian Point. In March Clearwater argued against the license renewal by Indian Point’s owner, Entergy, until a water safety study is done. Clearwater was acting on the pending application by United Water New York to build a desalination plant that will, if built, extract water from the Hudson River and provide municipal drinking water to Rockland County. The desalination plant would be located across the Hudson River, 3.5 miles downstream from the power plant. Clearwater’s concern is that the treatment plant is not equipped to effectively filter out radioactive isotopes that Indian Point regularly discharges into the Hudson River along with contaminants in Indian Point’s groundwater which are suspected of finding their way to the river as well.
The ASLB, three-judge panel said Clearwater’s arguments didn’t present new information and that “the issue involving the desalination plant will be encompassed by another contention from Clearwater that was admitted to the proceeding.”
The ASLB, who works in tandem with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), has been reviewing arguments, or contentions, against issuing a new operating license to Entergy who applied in 2007 to extend their license to keep Units 2 and 3 running 20 more years to 2033 and 2035.
Manna Jo Greene, environmental director at Clearwater said she wasn’t disappointed with the ASLB decision since it indicated that concerns about the water treatment plant would be looked at under a previous contention submitted by both the environmental group Riverkeeper and Clearwater.
“It’s really a case of bad news and good news,” said Greene. “They are saying the proper place to look at how contaminated, radioactive water leaking under the plant and into the Hudson River would impact a water desalination plant is being addressed in an earlier contention. They left the door open.”
Earlier in the review process the board denied a request from Entergy to reconsider turning down a contention regarding impacts groundwater contamination from leaks at Indian Point and the possible effects on drinking water, especially if the source is the Hudson River.
Entergy spokesperson Jerry Nappi said the recent ASLB ruling speaks for itself.
“This issue was already referenced in an earlier filing, and further, this contention will be encompassed by another contention that has already been admitted. Entergy looks forward to a thorough review by the ASLB and is working to provide them with any information they need in advance of future hearings.”
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the judges saw nothing "new and significant" in Clearwater’s contention. “As part of their consideration of that contention, the judges believe the issue of impacts on the river will also be addressed.”
Entergy’s license renewal application has elicited 154 contentions opposing the continued operation of the plant. According to the NRC it’s the largest number of contentions for a license renewal proceeding to date. Out of 154 contentions the ASLB has accepted 15 including contentions submitted by New York State Department of Conservation, the Attorney General’s office, Riverkeeper and Clearwater.
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Good Morning
The portion of the earlier contention referred to by ASLB is the "unknown" component ( if any) of groundwater leakage into the Hudson. No test has turned up tritium or strontium in the Hudson, near Indian Point. This sentence will seem very surprising to antinuclear activists, who have consistently spun up statements of fact, to more closely support their agendas. Entergy has stated there is some possibility of tritium reaching the Hudson, but that is not a test result, nor is that particular Entergy spokesperson a clairvoyant, empowered to know the unknowable. Entergy said what it said to defuse any "investigative" pressures, and that's all.
ASLB is not concerned with any measured, allowable releases from IPEC, because quantifiable amounts can lead to verifiable results, concerning the safety of the public. However , any unknown,or speculative releases are problematical, because the usual computations can't be done on an unknown amount. That's the kernel of ASLB's ruling.
Be that as it may, if testing continues to detect nothing coming out of IPEC, the Clearwater contention is baseless, prima facia.
It is always interesting to compare IPEC's clean, self-contained PWR process with the more porous BWR or CANDU processes in use elsewhere. Detectable radiation DOES reside onsite at BWR plants, and must be measured at the fence several times daily. In comparison, in IPEC's PWR, no ambient radiation can be found anywhere on site,or nearby, unless one enters the radiologically protected area ( basically,at the reactor itself).
With Canada's CANDU reactors routinely releasing hundreds of times the allowable tritium of any American plants, a benchmark of sorts has been reached in Canada, providing empirical proof that perhaps a thousand times the US allowable level of Tritium in drinking water can be tolerated by a nearby populace, with no harm coming to them. I'm not suggesting IPEC go ahead and dump tritium, I'm just pointing out that every single CANDU plant DOES, and nobody comes to any harm from it.
Knowing THAT, it becomes obvious Clearwater's contention is more "Anti IPEC" than "Pro Public Safety".... ( but perhaps they were not aware of the Canadian situation).
I'm not sure how this got to be plural (contentions)-- there was only one contention (impact of radioactively contaminated groundwater under the plant which is leaking into the Hudson on a new potential drinking water source in Rockland County) that was denied as 'not new,' but was allowed to be heard under the contention on leaks, which was already accepted.
Regarding Feed Burner's comment, the bedrock under Indian Point is known to be fractured. Two hydrogeologists have indicated that the bedrock under the plant is fractured and there are likely one or more plumes moving radioactively contaminated groundwater toward Hudson River; also Sr-90, Cs-137 have been found in fish and crabs near the plant. What we are asking is that the hydrogeology and transport of radioactive isotopes be studied. NRC staff and Entergy have repeatedly denied that there is any drinking water route of exposure because no one takes their drinking water from the contaminated groundwater under the plant (true) or from the Hudson (false, but further upstream until Rockland desal was proposed -- in a river that flows both ways).
Manna
I mentioned only the single contention.
The ring of existing test wells surrounding IPEC provides the "study" basis requested. No other method will produce any result. The smallness of the isotopes found in the test wells versus the huge magnitude of flowing water in the estuary is something not ordinarily mentioned by the contentioneers ( if I may coin the word).
Even if isotopes were entering the Hudson at IPEC ( this is not proven), the overwhelming dilution occurring immediately makes detection impossible. It will make detection impossible for the foreseeable future. I've studied the test regimes published by official sources, and most recommend kilos of test material for complete accuracy, while the amounts expected to be released are way, way down in the microscopic range.
Even if I adopt the Clearwater expectations as a basis for action, I will be faced with a massively un-doable test regime to implement a telling test. I can imagine several hundred submerged collection stations in concentric circles surrounding the plant, and reaching up & down stream for miles to gather comparison samples ( in case any contamination is coming from elsewhere). I predict that even with such a massive expenditure ( to be payed for by United Water ?) all test results will be inconclusive, because of the actual smallness of testable effluent, and the actual hugeness, and thus dilution power of the Hudson. Do not forget that Entergy has reduced the source term by 90%, and is reducing it further, even as we write.
This politically motivated "concern" about radiation in such microscopic amounts is not credible, especially in the face of the Canadian standards, which allow massively more tritium than the US EPA does, and the proof of this is that no one is getting sick on Lake Ontario.
I assess the contention to be a well timed, but basically duplicit harrassment tactic, to excite Clearwater's political base, in a time of financial need for the organization.
I consider United Water's proposal to offer up the PCB-laden, and sewage-laced Hudson murk as potable water, to be an insult to all of us.
By the way, any findings of isotopes in fish were marginal, and I contend they were due to operator error. View http://white-nuclearsnowflake.blogspot.com/2007/03/knollsfish-theorem.html
My apologies.
View also:
http://whitenuclearsnow-flake.blogspot.com/2007/01/ghost-in-fishes.html
OPTIONAL READING ASSIGNMENT
Both Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have stated in open public meetings that triated water from the leaks at Indian Point has made its way into the Hudson River.
There is also the amount that is released under the discharge permit which is generally labeled "below regulatory concern" in the parlance of the NRC.
In any responsible waste management program dillution is not the answer to pollution. Eliminating the source is.
Marilyn Elie
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