37 sirens flunk emergency test at Indian Point

Original article: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091213/NEWS/912139996

By Adam Bosch
Posted: December 13, 2009 – 2:00 AM

BUCHANAN — A total of 37 emergency sirens failed last week during a test of the emergency notification system at the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

The result constitutes a 21.5 percent failure for the system.
The test Wednesday was triggered using a battery backup method. The battery and cell trigger system worked with 100 percent success later in the day.

Officials at Indian Point and inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were meeting last week to determine why the battery backup method had failed.

Breaking With a Dirty Past

By Roger Witherspoon

The Obama Administration is struggling to decide whether to keep or scrap the key Bush era policy used to stifle new environmental regulations and limit enforcement of existing laws. And despite the professed openness of this administration and its break with a business-oriented, anti-environment past, the new Environmental Protection Agency has so far refused to alter or discuss the issue or any inter-agency analysis of its far flung impacts.

The lack of action means that more than 500 power plants located on rivers, lakes and estuaries around the nation will continue to kill – by EPA estimates – hundreds of billions of fish annually and dump their rotting mass into public waterways despite provisions of the Clean Water Act designed to prevent such aquatic degradation.

At issue is the use of cost benefit analysis to govern the development or implementation of environmental regulations across a broad spectrum of government agencies. There is nothing particularly new or nefarious about CBA: it is a tool which has been used by many agencies and the private sector for decades. Patricia Roberts Harris, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during the Jimmy Carter administration, used it in deciding too few people benefitted from heart transplants – which then cost about $150,000 – for Medicaid to fund such operations. In those days, 15 kidney transplants could be had for the same amount.

Every safety regulation, such as the level of medical equipment mandated on airplanes, involves weighing the number of lives saved against the cost of mini-emergency rooms on every flight. But the use of CBA was an option providing guiding information, not a mandate with road blocking qualities.

Under President Bush, however, all proposed regulations had to be subject to CBA and if there were any costs to business, it either had to be scrapped, or justified to the Office of Management and Budget. Since approval was unlikely in an administration openly hostile to regulations in general and environmental rules in particular, agencies such as the EPA chose to drop the regulation, suggest voluntary programs, or propose substitutes which may not be as comprehensive. The EPA shied away from mandating regulations even if the costs were relatively small, or existing laws seemed to dictate the expense.

The issue was publicly dumped into the lap of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson April 1 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, upheld the right of the agency to use CBA to allow the Indian Point nuclear power plants to continue killing more than two billion fish in New York’s Hudson River annually rather than impose the cost of retrofitting a less destructive cooling system for its massive electric generators.

The conflict between the environmental group Riverkeeper and Entergy Corp., the nation’s second largest nuclear energy company ( Entergy Corp. V. Riverkeeper, Inc. ) grew out of decisions first at the state level by Republican Gov. George Pataki and, subsequently, the EPA, to ignore requirements of the 1972 Clean Water Act  they felt were not in Entergy’s best financial interest. Under terms of the Act, discharge permits into the nation’s waterways are to be reviewed every five years and companies are required to use the “Best Technology Available” to minimize the impact of their discharges on the local aquatic system. But retrofitting a power plant for an environmentally benign cooling system costs money – which is where BTA came in second to the administration’s use of CBA.

At issue is the use of “once-through” cooling systems for power plants, in which massive amounts of water are sucked into the plant, run through heat exchangers to cool the generators, and then dumped back into the public water. In the process, literally billions of fish – particularly the small fry and eggs – are sucked into conduits up to 40 feet wide and, essentially, baked to death during the heat exchange.

When the heated water is dumped back into the waterway it creates a thermal barrier which fatally shocks passing fish.  In this case, the twin nuclear reactors at Indian Point occupy one side of a three-mile-wide bend in the Hudson River just south of West point. Across from these are two, smaller, coal fired power plants: Roseton, and Bowline.

The plants’ effect on the river is due to the enormous volumes of water they use. Indian Point, Roseton and Bowline are the first-, sixth- and seventh-largest users of water in the state, respectively, taking in 1.69 trillion gallons annually, according to an assessment by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. That is twice the volume of water in the entire 153-mile Hudson River estuary from the Battery in southern Manhattan to the city of Troy, and 3.5 times the amount of water used annually by 9 million residents in New York City and its northern suburbs of Westchester and Putnam counties.

According to the state’s environmental impact assessment, the plants generate a three-mile thermal barrier across the Hudson by pumping a total of 220 trillion BTUs of waste heat to the river. That amount of heat is equal to the heat that would be generated by the daily detonation of a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb – the type that leveled Hiroshima – approximately every two hours, every day of the year. The State DEC counted more than two billion fish killed annually, either when they are cooked in the plant or shocked by the thermal barrier in the river.

While a majority of the conservative Supreme Court decreed it is permissible for the EPA to use cost benefit analysis when determining compliance with the Clean Water Act, the dissent written by Justice John Paul Stevens and backed by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter is instructive.

In their view, Stevens wrote, “Unless costs are so high that the best technology is not ‘available,’ Congress has decided that they are outweighed by the benefits of minimizing adverse environmental impact. Section 316(b) neither expressly nor implicitly authorizes the EPA to use cost-benefit analysis when setting regulatory standards; fairly read, it prohibits such use.”

The reason  Congress did not authorize such use is because the factors considered are arbitrarily chosen. “The process is particularly controversial in the environmental context in which a regulation’s financial costs are often more obvious and easier to quantify than its environmental benefits” Stevens observed. “And cost-benefit analysis often, if not always, yields a result that does not maximize environmental protection.”

In this case, the EPA estimated that some 3.4 billion fish and shellfish were killed each year – a figure 75% higher than the estimate of the state’s environmental agency – but then struggled to put a value on the fish.

“To compensate,” stated Stevens, “the EPA took a shortcut: Instead of monetizing all aquatic life, the Agency counted only those species that are commercially or recreationally harvested, a tiny slice (1.8 percent to be precise) of all impacted fish and shellfish. This narrow focus in turn skewed the Agency’s calculation of benefits.

“When the EPA attempted to value all aquatic life, the benefits measured $735 million. But when the EPA decided to give zero value to the 98.2 percent of fish not commercially or recreationally harvested, the benefits calculation dropped dramatically—to $83 million. The Agency acknowledged that its failure to monetize the other 98.2 percent of affected species ‘could result in serious misallocation of resources,’ because its ‘comparison of complete costs and incomplete benefits does not provide an accurate picture of net benefits to society’.”

One reason for the disparity in numbers is that the Hudson River is contaminated with PCBs and has been designated the nation’s largest Superfund Site. Commercial fishing has been banned from the river for more than a decade.

These vastly different numbers are significant since the EPA estimated that it would cost Entergy about $300 million to retrofit a closed-cycle cooling system at Indian Point which would eliminate the thermal barrier and reduce the annual fish carnage by about 98%. That is far more than the value of the commercial or recreational harvest, though far less than the straight value of the destroyed aquatic life.

Following the Supreme Court decision, the Obama administration could have announced a change in policy in which CBA is but a tool, not a requirement or a standard. Instead the EPA, in response to a query, issued a terse statement that “the subject is under review.” They refused, however, to explain what that meant: who is conducting a review, under what time frame, in conjunction with what other agencies, and to what end?

Spokesmen for the White House and OMB declined to comment at all.

Which is both unfortunate and baffling. This administration took office proclaiming that the days when politics and business interests trumped the law and environmental protections were over. EPA Administrator Jackson has stated frequently that enforcing the Clean Water Act is a priority – hence the new attention to the destructive coal mining practice of mountain top removal.

But if cost benefit analysis remains the operative word in this administration, then the best intentions of officials charged with protecting the nation’s environment will remain little more than wishes.

© Christine

   #mce_temp_url#

Officials at the Indian Point nuclear power plant – which has been called responsible for killing more than a billion fish each year – will have to figure out another way to cool its giant heated steam turbines, a state court has ruled.

The plant sucks in and returns more than 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water daily – 2 million gallons per minute – in a system that pulls in and kills fish, eggs, larvae and plant life.

The hot water flushed back into the river is fatal to some 1.2 billion fish every year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The cooling system doesn’t use radioactive water from the reactor core.

Last week, acting state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly turned down plant owner Entergy’s bid to overturn a year-old DEC decision that faulted Indian Point’s water intake system for killing the fish.

The judge said Entergy’s appeal was premature, stating: “Petitioner’s claims are not ripe for review by the Court at this time.”

The ruling now gives the DEC the green light to push for a new cooling system that would reduce fish-killing water usage by 95% at the Westchester County plant.

Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the court’s decision determines how the utility company will “ultimately obtain a water-use permit that makes the most sense environmentally and economically for the area around Indian Point.”

Entergy has balked at the $1.4billion price tag for the new cooling system. Nappi said the plant already has spent more than $100 million to protect fish by installing special screens to reduce the number of fish pulled inside.

The DEC estimates a new cooling system would cost $740 million, and $145 million a year to run – or 5% to 6% of Entergy’s annual gross revenue.

Entergy makes more than $2 million a day – and more than $700 million a year – from electricity produced at Indian Point.

The court ruling was a victory for the DEC and the environmental group Riverkeeper, which have been waging court battles with Entergy for years over the fish kill. Riverkeeper’s chief prosecutor is Robert Kennedy Jr.

Indian Point, 24 miles outside the city, is applying to renew its operating license and keep running until 2035. If the license is renewed, Riverkeeper and the DEC say, the power plant would be forced to build a cooling system if it wants to stay open.

Hearings on the new draft water-use permit for the plant, which would mandate closed-cycle cooling, are tentatively scheduled for next year.

Nappi said Entergy is weighing an appeal of the court ruling.
BY Abby Luby
Daily News

Nuclear reactor malfunctions, shuts down at Indian Point.

From The Journal News,http://lohud.com/article/20090515/UPDATE/90515003/-1/SPORTS

Valve problem shuts Indian Point

May 15, 2009

A reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan has been shut down because of a valve problem.

Entergy Nuclear says Indian Point 3 was safely turned off at 1:53 a.m. Friday with no release of radiation.

The issue centered on a valve that controls the flow of water into a steam generator.

“Indian Point Unit 3’s operators manually tripped the reactor after the main feedwater regulating valve for the 33 (one 3 designating Unit 3, the other 3 the third steam generator for 33) steam generator experienced a failure (failed open), resulting in rising coolant levels in the steam generator that could not be corrected,” wrote the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a statement.

Read the full story >

From the PUTNAM COUNTY NEWS and RECORDER in Cold Spring, NY on 5/20/09:

Entergy Contributes to Fire Hall

Entergy, which operates the Indian Point nuclear generating plant in Buchanan, NY, recently contributed $15,000 to the new North Highlands Fire Department fire hall on Fishkill Rd. The hall would be used for decontamination purposes in the event of an incident at Indian Point.

http://www.pcnr.com/news/2009/0520/general_stories/013.html

Indian Point barriers to be subject of Federal appeals court ruling

BY Abby Luby
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Wednesday, May 20th 2009, 5:35 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/20/2009-05-20_high_court_to_rule_on_barriers_okd_for_indian_point.html

Indian Point nuclear power plant

A matter of 24 minutes could affect the lives of 20 million people within 30 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Plant.

That’s the core of an argument awaiting a ruling from a federal appeals court in a case against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for allowing lower-quality fire barriers at the Westchester County plant 24 miles outside of the city.

The case also marks the first time the NRC is challenged to grant so-called exemptions that affect public safety without alerting the public.

The court case comes on the heels of an NRC public meeting Thursday night on safety at Indian Point.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 455 South Broadway in Tarrytown, with an informational open house starting at 5:30 p.m. The NRC will address ground-water contamination, radioactive spent fuel storage and emergency planning.

Last week, State Assistant Attorney General John Sipos and Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) told a three-judge panel in Manhattan Federal appeals court that the NRC’s decision drastically compromises the safety of workers at Indian Point and some 20 million others within 30 miles of the nuclear plant.

Last year, the NRC granted a request from Entergy, the plant owners, to use fire safety insulation material that resists fire for only 24 minutes – not enough time to catch and contain a fire with the current hourly inspection schedule, the plaintiffs said.

Sipos and Brodsky also argued in court there would be a danger of fires in electrical junction boxes that control safe, emergency shutdowns, if needed.

NRC attorney Robert Rader countered that NRC staff determined there was a “reasonable assurance” fire-protection measures approved by the exemptions would control any credible blaze at the plant.

Rader said the NRC analyzed the requested exemptions in depth and found them adequately protective and were assured that the “underlying purpose of the fire protection rule had been met.”

The NRC said that using lower-quality fire barriers has been allowed at many other plants in the country, and the NRC has granted similar exemptions to certain fire safety standards over the last eight years.

The dispute also involves the NRC’s rules for granting exemptions without requiring public notification or participation.

Rader said the agency’s rules for granting exemptions are spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act as part of the “comprehensive regulatory framework” and the “ongoing review of nuclear power plants located in the United States.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/20/2009-05-20_high_court_to_rule_on_barriers_okd_for_indian_point.html#ixzz0G3Sa3JF5&B

“Finally! An autocratic agency with Byzantine regulations is being called to account by the State of New York and Representative Richard Brodsky.   Granting exemptions to existing licensing at the behest of Entergy without public hearings is a violation on the NRC’s charter to protect public health and safety.  The serious matter of fire safety cannot be brushed aside.   This issue strikes to the very heart of the way safety and the public’s right to know has been systematically ignored. Under any reasonable, transparent review process this would have been handled as part of an amendment licensing process and not through a obscure back door out of the public eye.“  – Marilyn Elie, Founding member of Westchester Citizens Awareness NetworkPublic Advocacy Groups and Attorney General to Argue Against Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Unsafe Fire Safety Exemption Granted to Indian Point before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

On Monday, May 11 oral arguments will take place at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Ceremonial Court Room, 9th floor, 500Pearl St., New York City at 10:00 a.m. in a case that has been brought against the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by several public interest groups including the Westchester Citiz en’s Awareness Network (WestCAN), the Rockland County Conservation Association, Inc. (RCCA), the Public Health and Sustainable Energy (PHASE), the Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter, and Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), and  New York State Attorney’s General Office has filed an amicus brief.  The groups challenge the NRC’s decision to exempt Indian Point Nuclear Facility Unit 3 from fire safety regulations that reduced fire safety standards from one hour to twenty-four minutes.

Under the NRC regulations, a nuclear power facility built prior to 1979 must enclose the cable and equipment necessary for a safe shutdown by using a fire barrier with a one-hour fire rating. According to the exemption Indian Point’s fire rating has been reduced to twenty-four minutes, a 76% reduction fire safety standard.

Since 1993, the NRC has known that the fire barrier utilized at Indian Point does not meet the one-hour duration.  According to the 1993 test, the fire barrier only lasts 23.2 minutes, however the NRC took no action until 2005.  The 2005 test confirmed that the fire barrier failed to perform for one hour and exceeded temperature limits within thirteen to forty-two minutes.

In 2006, the NRC issued a letter to certain nuclear plants requesting that they propose a resolution for the problems associated with the fire barrier.  In response, the owners of Indian Point nuclear facilities, Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., requested an exemption from the one hour fire safety standard.    On August 16, 2008, the request was revised requesting a reduction from one hour to twenty-four minutes for certain areas.  Thirty-four days later the NRC granted the exemption.

“The NRC must not prompt any exemptions to regulations which increase the likelihood of catastrophic risks.  The public has been made vulnerable by the NRC’s secretive reduction in fire safety without notice or opportunity for hearings.”  Annie Wilson for Sierra Club – Atlantic Chapter

The result of the NRC’s decision to grant the exemption from one hour to twenty-four minutes means that a single fire must be detected, fire brigade assembled and fully extinguished in less than twenty-four minutes.  Like most operating nuclear reactors, Indian Point Unit 3 contains miles of electrical cables that control and power safety systems, including valves, pumps, motors, and gauges designed to ensure the prompt shutdown of the nuclear reactor.  A fire at Indian Point that damaged those cables could disable the critical systems served by the cables preventing safe shut down and ultimately may lead to a major radiation release that could have a disastrous impact on the health and property of the people of New York.

Petitioners will argue that the NRC improperly granted the “exemption”, lacked authority to grant exemptions, failed to allow required public participation, failed to give proper notice, failed to consider relevant evidence in making its decision, and violated National Environmental Policy Act.  Petitioners will further argue that the NRC created a potentially illegal loophole by permitting mischaracterization of the request as an “exemption” rather than an amendment, thereby violating the Atomic Energy Act.

“Entergy is sailing up the river in a boat loaded with non-compliance. They are supposed to protecting the public, not accommodating private industry.“  Maureen Ritter of PHASE (Public Health and Sustainable Energy)

The NRC’s decision drastically compromises the safety of the Indian Point nuclear facilities.  Upwards of twenty million people work, live, or travel within fifty miles of Indian Point.  This case marks the first time the NRC’s right to grant exemptions without notice and hearings has been challenged.

The case will be argued on Monday, May 11 before Honorable John M. Walker, Jr., Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, and Honorable John Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky will be arguing for the Petitioners.  Assistant Attorney General John Sipos, Esq. will be arguing on behalf of the New York State Attorney General’s Office.  A representative will be arguing on behalf of the NRC, as well as a representative from  Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.

“Fires are recognized as one of the most significant safety hazards at nuclear power plants, they are not uncommon. The NRC’s reckless willingness to dramatically reduce the safety margins to 24 minutes is an egress abdication of is responsibility.    The regulations that were exempted are critical safety regulations related to the electrical cables and where enacted in response to the Brown’s Ferry fire.   Brown’s Ferry fire started in the insulation of electrical cable trays, it raged for nearly 7 hours, burnt and reactors were out of control for almost two days.” Michel Lee, Board member of Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) and Chair on Council on Conservation & Intelligent Energy Policy (CCIP)

Harvey Wasserman

www.onlinejournal.com, April 24, 2009

A catastrophe like Chernobyl could happen here. It’s the radioactive core of the second biggest lie in US industrial history.

The atomic pushers say such a disaster is “impossible” at a US reactor. But Chernobyl’s explosion spewed radiation all over the world. And Sunday’s tragic 23rd anniversary reminds us that any reactor on this planet can kill innumerable people anywhere, at any time, by terror, error and more.

It further clarifies why yet another grab at billions of taxpayer dollars for new reactor construction must be stopped NOW!

The BIGGEST lie in US industrial history is that “nobody died at Three Mile Island.” Just before last month’s thirtieth anniversary of the central Pennsylvania meltdown, critical new evidence was completely ignored by the corporate media.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, a former industry executive, reported in Harrisburg that new findings show far more radiation may have been released than previously estimated. Epidemiologist Stephen Wing of the University of North Carolina joined in a study indicating human health was indeed compromised downwind.

To this day, neither TMI’s owners nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission knows how much radiation escaped, where it went or whom it impacted. The Gundersen/Wing findings cast new light on the question of building more reactors.

But they got a Stalinesque blackout from ALL corporate media, which parroted the official lie that “nobody was harmed” by the 1979 disaster.

This week comes official Radioactive Lie #2: “Chernobyl can’t happen here.”

Chernobyl Unit 4 exploded in the wee hours of April 26, 1986. It was of a different design than US reactors. But its lid was stronger than about a third of the domes covering plants here. The Soviets who ran it also said Chernobyl could not explode, and that in any event its lid would hold.

On October 5, 1966, the Fermi I fast breeder reactor nearly delivered a far worse explosion. Cooled by highly volatile liquid sodium, it teetered for a month on the brink of a radioactive eruption that could have cratered much of southeastern Michigan and permanently destroyed the biggest fresh water bodies on Earth. The accident was kept under Soviet-style wraps for years.

When TMI melted, a potentially explosive hydrogen bubble formed inside the dome. Officials denied there was a meltdown (there was) but were privately terrified the trapped gas could rupture the containment vessel. The escaping cloud would have contaminated millions along the east coast, from Boston to Washington.

Chernobyl’s cloud blanketed Europe with deadly isotopes. Some came down in California within 10 days, killing countless birds and possibly, in the long run, even more people. The radiation then crossed the entire northern United States, contaminating milk in New England. It returned later for a second pass.

Reactor backers say Chernobyl “only” killed 31 plant workers. But the Soviets denied the accident happened, then ran 800,000 drafted “jumpers” through the radioactive corpse for a futile clean-up. They have been dying in droves for two decades.

Chernobyl’s radiation rained down on a May Day parade among citizens of Kiev who were told nothing about the catastrophe 80 kilometers away. The heartbreaking deformities plaguing the children born thereafter are the starkest reminders of that horrific day. Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, has estimated the known death toll at 300,000. The financial costs have topped a half-trillion dollars. The sale of lambs is still banned 2,000 miles away in Wales and Scotland, where radioactive cesium still contaminates sheep farms and grazing land.

The tidal wave of cancers, miscarriages, sterility and worse that still washes over the Ukraine and surrounding regions gets ever more horrifying as time passes. Because Chernobyl 4 was a new “state of the art” unit, its core spewed far less radiation than might come from older reactors at Indian Point, New York, or Oyster Creek, New Jersey, which has just been relicensed to run 20 years beyond its original design specifications.

Chernobyl’s design was peculiar to the Soviets. But to say only it could explode is to argue that hybrid cars can’t run people over, or that since there are no more World Trade towers, terrorists can no longer kill Americans.

On January 31, 1986, four months prior to Chernobyl’s explosion, an earthquake shook the Perry reactor east of Cleveland, which thankfully was not operating at the time. Now it is.

By accident inspectors stumbled onto a football-sized hole eaten by boric acid to within a fraction of an inch through the pressure vessel at Davis-Besse near Toledo. A worker using a candle set a $100 million fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Alabama. A cooling tower unexpectedly collapsed to the ground at Vermont Yankee. A basketball wrapped in tape was used to stop up a pipe at a reactor in Florida. This March 28, on TMI’s 30th anniversary, an unexplained tremor shut Unit Two at Fermi.

And, of course, the first jet that flew into the World Trade Center passed directly over the two decrepit reactors at Indian Point, as well as the three spent fuel pools and one dormant core shut for lack of an emergency cooling system. No reactor on this planet could withstand a similar terror attack.

Small wonder the reactor industry cannot get private financing or insurance and has no place to go with its radioactive waste. Or why its pushers are yet again demanding $50 billion in loan guarantees for new reactor construction, and still more to perpetrate the myth that nuclear fuel can be reprocessed (to help stop this madness, see www.beyondnuclear.org, www.nirs.org and www.nukefree.org).

Chernobyl remains history’s worst human-made disaster. Something slightly different but even worse could be happening as you read this. Building new reactors, and keeping old ones running, will guarantee it.

The only containment strong enough to make atomic energy truly safe is the political power YOU exert. Chernobyl “can’t happen here” only if the reactors are turned off before they kill again.

Harvey Wasserman edits nukefree.org. This article originally published by freepress.org.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

Photo 1 of 2  |  Zoom Photo +

The state has decided to eliminate fixed patrols at various locations that are at high risk for terrorist attacks. Robert Edmonds, left, and Wayne Grey of the New York Army National Guard patrol at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan last spring.Times Herald-Record/DOMINICK FIORILLE

BUCHANAN — The governor’s office is eliminating National Guard and Naval Militia patrols at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan.

A spokesman for Gov. David Paterson said the troops are not being removed to save money. “This is part of a broader re-evaluation of how best to use New York’s National Guard strength to protect the state,” said spokesman Morgan Hook.

Instead of fixed patrols at power plants, train stations or tourist sights, the state budget says it’s shifting toward “flexible, threat-based, rapid-response units.”

Earlier this year, the governor yanked roughly 95 National Guardsmen from nuclear power plants in upstate Oswego and Lake Ontario.

Daily patrols in high-traffic places like Grand Central Terminal or the subways in New York City, have also diminished over the last six months.

That doesn’t mean New York won’t have troops at the ready, explained Eric Durr, spokesman for the Division of Military and Naval Affairs. The concept is designed so “a potential attacker can’t predict” where troops are working, he said.

Durr had not yet heard of the governor’s plans and said nothing had changed yet at Indian Point.

Roughly 80 National Guardsmen and 15 Naval Militia members are currently assigned to the site at a cost of about $6.25 million, according to the state’s budget division.

The governor’s office declined to say when it planned to withdraw troops from the 2,000-megawatt facility.

Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns and operates Indian Point, maintains its own security force on site. That team is monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Entergy officials said they also were not privy to the governor’s plans. “That’s a decision the state’s going to make, and they’re going to make it with or without our input,” said company spokesman Jerry Nappi.

“Entergy certainly appreciates having the National Guard at our site,” he said, but “if their presence was to be reduced, there certainly would not be any degradation in our security forces.”

The power plant’s critics disagree, citing previous problems with in-house security falling asleep or testing positive for illegal substances.

“The private security forces have shown to be overworked and often undergunned and undermanned,” said Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River Program Director for Riverkeeper, an environmental watchdog group that’s fighting to close the plant.

“It’s a great concern to us that (the governor) would pull the National Guard and the Naval Militia,” Musegaas said.

ajames@th-record.com

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081101/NEWS/811010319/-1/NEWS

BUCHANAN – Indian Point is taking its case on cooling towers to court.

The nuclear plant’s owners are battling the state Department of Environmental Conservation to determine whether they must construct special towers to cool Hudson River water used to produce electricity.

The cost to build the concrete towers has been estimated as high as $1.5 billion.

Company officials say studies on fish in the river that they’ve done for more than two decades – under the supervision of the state agency – don’t make the environmental case for such a large-scale change.

“We don’t even know if it’s feasible to build these,” said Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns and operates Indian Point. “This is a project that would involve dynamiting next to the plant.”

Steets said the recent appeal to state Supreme Court disputed the DEC’s Aug. 14 ruling that there is no need to argue the question of adverse effect on fish species as environmental regulators look at renewing the nuclear plant’s permit to draw billions of gallons of Hudson River water to cool its operation.

Specifically, the state is concerned that intake structures for the cooling water destroy too many fish eggs and larvae as they are sucked in and hurt larger fish that are pulled against the screens or exterior of the intake system.

The state says those actions destabilize the habitat, but Entergy’s experts say most of the eggs and larvae would not survive regardless of whether they were caught in those flows because the odds of a single one surviving to maturity are so slim.

“The (DEC ruling) says adverse impact on the fish can’t be argued because it’s a given,” Steets said. “We don’t believe that. Anything you do on the river is going to have impact, but we’ve spent 50 million dollars to assess those impacts for nearly 30 years and done everything we’ve been asked.”

Yancey Roy, a DEC spokesman, declined to comment on the matter.

What may prove a bigger issue for the courts and the parties to decide is how much environmental impact building the towers would have.

Anti-nuclear activists in the early years of Indian Point argued successfully against the cooling towers, and by the time the large cement towers are presented to the public this time around, they likely will be evaluated on issues such as whether building them would too severely limit Indian Point’s ability to produce necessary electricity as well as require the relocation of a natural gas line on site.

Environmentalists and the state want the closed cooling towers to recycle water and lessen the need for the river to be part of the plant’s operation.

Additionally, putting water that has been warmed by use back into the Hudson results in what is called thermal pollution.

According to the state’s permit requirements, the system that is required “shall reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact.”

The DEC recently issued a permit to Entergy’s FitzPatrick station, a nuclear plant on the southeastern Lake Ontario shore where no closed-cycle cooling has been required, company officials said.

Some of this will have to wait until at least March, when the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take up a case examining whether the Clean Water Act can effectively force a change to the best technology available without regard to environmental effects.

Until then, the 1987 release permit the DEC granted Indian Point remains in effect.

Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566.

http://lohud.com/article/20081030/NEWS01/810300459/-1/newsfront

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WHITE PLAINS — Westchester County will take its case against the Indian Point nuclear power plant to federal appeals court on Friday, arguing that the criteria being used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate the plant’s relicensing application is inadequate.

The operating licenses on Indian Point’s two active reactors expire by 2015. Entergy Nuclear, the New Orleans-based company that owns Indian Point, is in the process of renewing those licenses for another 20 years.

“In this day and age — and with all the problems Indian Point has had — it is not right to grant a relicense just because it met standards three decades ago,” said Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, in a statement Tuesday.

The county’s legal team will appear before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. The county is appealing the denial of a petition the Spano administration filed in 2005 before the NRC.

The federal agency said existing nuclear industry oversights are sufficient.

Other state energy advocates agree. The New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance dubbed Westchester’s suit a waste of time and taxpayer dollars: “Spano’s actions are unfortunate and likely to be ineffective and are a distraction to meeting the broader energy challenges at hand,” said Chairman Jerry Kremer.

The NRC relicensing process does include an intervention opportunity — similar to a court proceeding — that allows opponents to argue against a nuclear plant’s relicensing. The NRC admitted an unprecedented 15 contentions against Indian Point into its proceedings. Those contentions were filed by the state and environmental groups Riverkeeper and Clearwater.

ajames@th-record.com

From North County News (http://www.northcountynews.com/news/ncn_news2.asp)

By Abby Luby

Photo courtesy of the NRC An example of a cooling tower – this one is about 70-feet tall; a mechanical draft cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. State wants new cooling system In a long-awaited landmark decision, New York State has formally ruled that the water cooling system at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants adversely affects aquatic life in the Hudson River and that the system has to be replaced. For the last 30 years local environmental groups have been appealing to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to enforce the Clean Water Act by ordering Indian Point to replace its outdated water cooling system. Studies have shown the system has been responsible for killing about 1.2 billion fish a year. That number includes fish eggs, as well as small and large fish. The water cooling system takes in and flushes out over 2.5 billion gallons of river water daily. Water going inside the plant absorbs the heat of the turbines that produce electricity and then the heated water returns to the river affecting aquatic life. The DEC ruling signals the first time the state has gone on record saying Indian Point’s current cooling system kills fish. The news pleased environmental groups such as Riverkeeper, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Scenic Hudson, who have long argued for a new water cooling system. “We’ve won the argument that the water cooling system has adverse affects,” said Phillip Museegas of Riverkeeper. “That’s a big one for us.” Hearings will now be held next spring to hear arguments to determine what cooling system is best for Indian Point. Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, which owns Indian Point, said the DEC decision was fair because it allows for the energy company’s input. “The process that was laid out gives us ample opportunity to make our case about the cooling methods which will make the most sense for Indian Point,” he said. In effect, the DEC ruling said Entergy can no longer argue that its system doesn’t impact fish, said DEC spokesperson Yancy Roy. “The decision means that the state is recommending Indian Point use closed cycle cooling,” Roy said. “But there are other mileposts to be met.” Now both sides can raise questions about feasibility, impacts and alternatives to closed cycle cooling. Indian Point currently uses a water cooling system known as “once-through” cooling, a relatively inexpensive system that helps generate power efficiently. The down side of once-through cooling is that the system traps larger fish against the intake screens. The smaller fish and larvae are sucked past the screens and into the cooling system. To date, 60 nuclear power plants of the 103 in the United States use once-through cooling systems. The environmentally friendly “closed-cycle” cooling re-circulates the water in a closed system, substantially reducing the large amount of water needed from the Hudson River. The system also cools the returning water, lessening the effects on aquatic life. The DEC has been extending Indian Point’s Clean Water Act permit using the once-through system since 1981. At that time a deal was made with then owner Con Ed that allowed the utility to operate without installing closed cycle cooling by agreeing not to construct a pump storage facility at Storm King, on the west side of the Hudson River. Con Ed’s permit expired in 1992 but the DEC continued to issue temporary operating permits. In 2003, the DEC granted another permit stipulating that Entergy, who purchased Indian Point in 2001, install closed cycle cooling. Entergy has been challenging that ruling for the last five years. Taking years to get a DEC ruling on the negative impacts on aquatic life seemed to be a convoluted process compounded by the industry deregulation of the 1990s, said Warren Reiss, general counsel for Scenic Hudson. “Privately owned utilities were fighting tooth and nail against installing closed cycle cooling,” Reiss said. “These utilities have huge resources and hire hordes of lawyers, engineers and biologists – the best money can buy. If closed cycle cooling costs them tens of millions of dollars to install, they are very happy to spend just $1 million a year on lawyers to avoid that. To date, they have been very successful.” Entergy has maintained that a new closed cycle cooling system would mean building huge cooling towers similar to the large concrete chimneys at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and would be cost prohibitive. “We’ve done a study of cost estimates and the system that would be most appropriate for Indian Point will cost about $1.5 billion,” said Steets. “The towers wouldn’t be quite as big as Three Mile Island, but they would be about 100 feet wide and 150 feet tall. That would triple the footprint of Indian Point.” Grassroot groups working to shutter Indian Point, such as Westchester Citizens Awareness Network (WESTCAN), have said the large, expensive cooling towers proposed by Entergy are propaganda. “They talk about the costliest and most obtrusive technology available,” said Marilyn Elie, co-founder of WESTCAN. “They say that it’s economically unfeasible when they really have no intention of using such a system. It’s a bait-and-switch tactic geared towards scaring the public.” Don Jackson, branch chief of Region One for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said there are many different types of cooling systems from which to choose. “It all depends on the needs of the plant,” he said. “Engineers from Indian Point will have to make a business decision on that.” The NRC doesn’t have an opinion on what kind of cooling system is chosen because it doesn’t usually impact the safe, day-to-day operation of the plant, Jackson added. The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant on the Connecticut River in Vermont is also owned by Entergy and employs a cooling system with banks of 20 towers that are 70-feet tall. Steets said that millions of dollars have already been spent upgrading the cooling system at Indian Point. The upgraded system now has variable speed pumps that limit the intake of water from the river and a fishery turn-screen that intercepts fish before being brought into the plant. “In the last 15 years, Entergy, and Con Ed have spent over $40 million upgrading the cooling system for units 1 and 2,” Steets said. “So does it really make sense to replace the cooling system that has just a marginal impact? That’s the question that needs to be resolved.” The DEC spring hearings will resemble a trial setting and will be open to the public. “We are cautiously optimistic that this will result in a final decision requiring Indian Point to implement closed cycle cooling,” said Reiss.

BUCHANAN – When Indian Point sounds its new sirens today, it won’t signal the all-clear that nuclear plant officials wanted for their troubled emergency-alert system.

Officially, the company missed its fourth deadline when the system wasn’t fully approved by federal regulators and operational by today

That could cost the plant’s owner, Entergy Nuclear, more than the $780,000 in fines the company has already paid for being late. But almost three years after the new system was promised, the end is finally in sight.

“I think we underestimated in certain circumstances what it was going to take to get the system operating, due to the complexity of the technology,” said Fred Dacimo, who recently took over responsibility for the siren project.

“FEMA has certainly held us to a very high standard,” he said. “It’s been a learning experience.”

That standard continued this week, with FEMA officials saying the agency had to review too much last-minute documentation to sign off and allow Entergy to meet its latest promised date.

“While we are aware that Entergy is anxious to have the system go in service, we note that their ‘deadline’ of Aug. 14, 2008, was proposed by them, not chosen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or FEMA,” Stephen Kempf, the agency’s regional administrator, wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to state emergency officials.

FEMA officials declined to commit to a date to sign off on the new system, saying there was too much material to review, and there may be issues coming up that will need to be resolved before any approval would be given.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, who pushed an amendment into the Energy Act of 2005 that required backup power for Indian Point’s alert system, said she was disappointed by the latest missed date but pleased that the new system will be the “best in the country.”

“I do think it is important that FEMA take the time they need to ensure that everything is in order before the new system is brought on line,” said Clinton, D-N.Y. “I applaud the hard work that Entergy, FEMA, the NRC and local officials have done to bring us to this point.”

The project’s ambitious schedule has cost Entergy not only money it paid out in fines, but public relations capital as the company has applied to renew its license to operate Indian Point through 2035, an extra 20 years.

When the company missed the original Jan. 30, 2007, deadline announced 15 months earlier, the NRC gave Entergy an extension because there were problems the agency said were beyond the company’s control such as getting local permits for putting in new sirens.

By April of last year, there was no second extension when the company wasn’t finished on time and it cost Entergy $130,000.

Opponents screamed that the company’s annual revenue from running the two working reactors at the plant was more than a half billion dollars a year and the fine was too insignificant to have any impact.

Four months later, another missed deadline bumped the fines up an additional $650,000, and Entergy promised to deliver one year later.

Along the way, there have been sound tests performed locally and in laboratories as far away as Georgia, a shifting set of expectations from emergency officials and a myriad of technological problems with local hilly terrain and balking computer systems.

By most accounts, the new, $30-million siren network is a state-of-the-art notification system, able to blare from 172 different locations on Day One and still adapt to coming technology changes such as notifying residents by dialing their cell phones.

Once the new system goes online, the old system will be held in reserve as long as it’s needed and can be resurrected in about an hour in an emergency.

Company officials say that won’t be necessary because the new system covers more square miles, reaches more households and has backup power and greater redundancy than its predecessor.

Neither system is supposed to do more than alert the 300,000 people who live within 10 miles of the nuclear plant that there is an emergency and they should tune to local radio, television and Internet sources for more information.

In the midst of installing a $30 million emergency siren system, Indian Point officials employed a $50 battery-powered radio to make sure their signals were reaching every corner of the 10-mile evacuation zone.

Company officials agreed to distribute tone-alert radios to nearly 2,500 households across the four-county emergency area as an enhancement to the coverage the 172 new sirens would provide.

“Tone-alert radios are commonly used in nuclear plants across the country, so this is not a unique application at Indian Point,” said Michael Slobedien, an Entergy emergency planning official. “As an industry and as a company, we have a lot of experience with (them).”

NRC officials said tone-alert radios are in use in more than a third of the nation’s plants, and at one reactor in the South, where the surrounding population is sparse, they are the only method of warning.

The radios look like they belong to another era, almost as though they might broadcast summer baseball games as easily as a siren-like warning tone.

“Ours is quite loud,” said Andy Roush, acting fire chief at the Veterans Administration hospital in Montrose, where a tone-alert radio has been part of the communications center since the 1990s. “It comes on with that annoying, ear-piercing emergency tone. We just leave it plugged in all the time, but they send us a postcard to ask us to check it periodically.”

In more sparsely populated areas of the country, the radios are the primary notification system. Indian Point officials opted to supplement the new siren system to reach a few spots that had federal regulators questioning sound coverage.

Not all the residents who can get the radios will request them, company officials said, and some are trying to figure out if they should have them.

Bernice Fiorentino, after hearing about the radios through news reports, said she was interested in getting one if her home qualified.

“As long as it’s not too big,” Fiorentino said. “It would have to be in the most centralized room in the house so we could hear it easily. The joke of it is that even if it goes off, where will we go with these two-lane roads around here.”

Entergy officials said they worked with FEMA and satellite photographs to plot out the exact dwellings that needed the radios – mostly in sparsely populated areas. Out of the 171 questionnaires sent out within 5 miles of the plant, only a handful of residents have taken the company up on the offer.

The second phase – just under 2,400 households between 5 and 10 miles from the plant – will be notified in the next two months or so, officials said.

What happens next, according to the NRC, is that Entergy must get FEMA’s final approval and then put the new system into service.

Indian Point officials have said they can get the system running within 60 hours if the sirens are approved by FEMA by Aug. 22; otherwise it will take eight days after approval.

The federal emergency agency has not committed to a specific date.

“Entergy has a commitment that as soon as they get a final approval from FEMA, they will ready to go within eight days,” said Sheehan, adding that the NRC did not set the Aug. 14 date. “There have been numerous false starts on this, so we have not set up any specific deadline.”

Sheehan said the NRC will review the project after its been completed to determine if Entergy did everything it could to get the system up and running.

“Enforcement is still on the table,” he said. “We expected them to work with great expedience to resolve all these issues. We’re not at that point yet.”

Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566.

Is ANYONE awake?

FROM THE TIMES HERALD-RECORD

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080322/NEWS/80322004

March 22, 2008

BUCHANAN – Two Indian Point nuclear power plant security guards have been suspended for coming to work with cocaine in their systems, a spokesman for the plants’ owner said.

The workers’ apparent drug use didn’t compromise safety at the plant 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

The security guards’ suspensions came a month after a construction company supervisor tested positive for alcohol use and was barred from working at the plant.

The security guards – employed by New Orleans-based plant owner Entergy Nuclear – are on paid leave for two weeks. The company fires employees who fail drug tests twice, Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said.

One guard was tested for drugs after leaving her post unexpectedly and failing to respond when commanders radioed her Wednesday; she was found sick in a bathroom, Steets said.

The other guard was tested Thursday because he was returning from an absence of more than 29 days; he had been on military leave, according to plant officials.

Federal regulations say there can be no trace of alcohol or drugs in anyone working at a nuclear plant. Only 209 of the more than 70,000 tests of nuclear plant workers and contractors nationwide in 2006 came back positive, according to the NRC.

Steets said the security guards’ test results were unfortunate but showed that the plant was succeeding in efforts to make sure workers were fit for duty.

The NRC is “satisfied with how the company is handling the situation,” Sheehan said.

Another Indian Point security worker got into trouble in August, when the armed guard was found dozing at an inner-ring security gate. The NRC later determined the incident was of “very low security significance.”

The plant has about 1,300 employees.

Critics regularly express concern about the plant’s safety, but federal regulators have rejected calls to shut it down. Entergy has applied for new licenses that would let Indian Point keep running into the 2030s.

Feb. 9, 1916

Dear Mary,

How do you do. I wrote you a card some time ago. Did you ever get it. Well poor Mrs. Joe King is at rest. Poor woman. Do you have much snow down there. We haven’t any sleighing here–we are well. Hope you are well and happy. Here is Mr. Greene now. Hattie is teaching her second term of school–this is her 3rd week. Would love to hear from you.