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Hudson River Sloop CLEARWATER “Creating the Next Generation of Environmental Leaders”
For Immediate Release September 9, 2009
CLEARWATER FAULTS NRC SAFETY REPORT, HEARINGS ON INDIAN POINT
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY – Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, America’s environmental flagship organization, strongly criticized the decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) to hold a hearing tomorrow in Rockville, Maryland on the License Renewal Application and final Safety Evaluation Report (SER), as well as on changes in Fire Protection, for Units 2 and 3 of the Indian Point Energy Center’s nuclear power plant facility in Buchanan, NY. The hearings in Maryland are many miles and a five-hour-long drive away from the region affected. And although the NRC has recently accepted the Safety Evaluation Report as satisfactory, based on promises by Entergy (the owner and operator of the Indian Point facility) to fix a long list of shortcomings, Clearwater and other community groups do not believe that the NRC approval of the SER means that the nuclear power plant is actually safe. “The NRC’s acceptance of the SER doesn't guarantee public health and safety for the next 20 years, it merely means that the SER, as modified by the review process, fits within the rules they are playing by,” said Manna Jo Greene, Clearwater’s environmental director. “This plant is located in the most densely populated region of the United States, but important issues such as evacuation are not considered in either the Safety Evaluation or in the Environmental Report—two of the major documents in the re-licensing process. The lack of a viable evacuation plan for the region and especially the inability to evacuate the elderly, the incapacitated or the incarcerated in a timely manner is of great concern.” Greene also noted that people without cars will have to rely on an untested bus evacuation plan to escape the effects of a catastrophic nuclear incident or accident at Indian Point, and even those in their own cars would be undoubtedly stuck in gridlock within minutes of an accident. “The SER, a highly technical 900-page document, simply does not adequately address the ongoing safety issues of broken pipes, inadequate fire protection, malfunctioning sump pumps, newly discovered seismic activity, ongoing radioactive leaks into the groundwater under the plant and into the Hudson River, a transformer explosion and four recent unplanned shutdowns,” said Greene, “all of which do not bode well for the future of this aging facility, some of whose infrastructure may not be appropriately accessible to inspection and evaluation.” In many areas, including metal fatigue, the SER attempts to predict that if Entergy does what it has agreed to do, the NRC thinks things will be safe enough in the future. However, the inadequacy of this process was illustrated by events at the Oyster Creek Generating Station, a nuclear power plant facility in New Jersey, where the SER approved measures proven inadequate to prevent further corrosion of an already degraded containment system. In addition, at Oyster Creek, the measures that the SER approved failed to prevent three separate leaks from buried pipes occurring soon after license renewal. These procedures are being upgraded now just a few months after the license was renewed. “When the NRC allows licensees to get away with promising to deal with things later, it prevents the public from having a meaningful way to participate in decisions on safety,” said Greene. Clearwater and other local stakeholders have repeatedly expressed concern about narrowing the scope of the re-licensing process and the excessive granting of exemptions, including fire safety. By holding the NRC hearing in Maryland, rather than in the region surrounding the plant, the public’s ability to participate in the licensing process, as required by the Atomic Energy Act, is dramatically decreased. Ironically, tomorrow’s NRC hearing in Maryland will also focus on the SER of another nuclear power plant, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, where a partial core meltdown in March 1979 resulted in the release of radioactive gases. As part of a series of events intended to educate the public on Indian Point and other related environmental issues, Clearwater will be holding a special benefit concert this Friday, September 11 at the Tarrytown Music Hall. A number of local musicians including Dar Williams, Guy Davis, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion and Joe D’Urso will be performing to support the continuation of Clearwater’s efforts to protect the Hudson River and the well-being of the communities in its watershed. For tickets and more information on Clearwater’s benefit concert, visit www.clearwater.org or www.tarrytownmusichall.org. Contact: Tom Staudter Communications Director Hudson River Sloop Clearwater 845-454-7673 x112 914-419-5221 mobile
Manna Jo Greene Environmental Director Hudson River Sloop Clearwater 845-807-1270 mobile
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