Indian Point Leaks Increase Dramatically: In response to a hugely elevated spike in the ongoing leaks at Indian Point Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Sierra Club, IPSEC and many others will be calling for this aging nuclear plant to be closed immediately so that officials can investigate where the leaks are coming from and be properly addressed. The fuel pools containing spent, but still highly radioactive fuel rods, are so overcrowded that Entergy and the NRC have never been able to visualize the bottom of the pools to assess their integrity by visual inspection, so they have relied on monitoring wells as a second line of defense. The fuel pools are not the double lined containment systems that are required for solid waste, let alone hazardous waste or radioactive isotopes. They are essentially big swimming pools that the leak into groundwater and seep in the fractured bedrock under the plant and then into the Hudson River. Despite dilution some of these isotopes end up in the desalination pilot plant in which is still operating in Haverstraw Bay, and other municipalities take their drinking water from the Hudson. While Peekskill takes it drinking water from a clean reservoit and any wells are at a higher elevation that Indian Point, these radioactive isotopes should not be allowed to continue to contaminate the groundwater and the river. To undertake a thorough inspection and repair, the plant would need to be shut down and the older fuel rods moved into dry cask storage. That would unburden the dangerously overcrowded fuel fuel pools, and with the plant closed, people will see first hand that Indian Point’s energy is not needed — and understand that the rapid transition to a truly green energy economy, which is well underway, is.
