On-Hudson.com

Indian Point License Renewal Debate Underway In Earnest

Reprinted From : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a.Y7MW1H7PTM&refer=muse

Hudson River Lovers Fight to Shutter Aging Nuclear Power Plant 

Commentary by Mike Di Paola

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, New York is showing its age. Patches of rust scar its gray concrete domes, and a derelict smokestack looms over the decades-old facility, which still commands a choice view of the Hudson River.

“There are very toxic, highly irradiated tanks partially buried on site,” says attorney Phillip Musegaas, who serves as Hudson River Program Director for Riverkeeper, the nonprofit guardian of the Hudson River and protector of 2,000 square miles of watershed that feed New York City’s water supply.

Plant owner Entergy Corp. is hoping to renew licenses for the two remaining reactor units here, which are set to expire by 2015. There has always been some opposition to Indian Point. Now, the forces aligned against it -- from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation to State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo -- might be too formidable to withstand.

Musegaas began preparing legal challenges to the license renewals in 2006, not long after it was revealed that radioactive contaminants strontium-90 and tritium were leaking into the Hudson from those very tanks. The leak was traced back to reactor Unit 1, which had been shut down in the 1970s. In November, Entergy said it had cleaned up the mess.

“We think these contaminants are getting into the soil and vegetation,” says Musegaas, “and are bio-accumulating in fish,” meaning that these noxious substances collect and concentrate as they travel up the food chain.

Dead Fish

Then there’s the plant’s cooling system, which uses river water as a coolant -- to the peril of millions of fish, fish eggs and larvae that get sucked into the system.

“They use 2.2 billion gallons of water a day,” says Riverkeeper’s boat captain John Lipscomb. “All the life in that water gets cooked. It’s a massive impact.”

The company dismisses such scary talk. “Any impact we have on the environment and the river is minimal,” says Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi.

“No plant in the history of the industry has ever gone back to retrofit cooling towers,” he adds.

The cost of such a retrofit -- an estimated $1.5 billion -- would be out of the question, according to Nappi.

Believe it or not, Riverkeeper does not oppose nuclear power, per se. It only wants to ensure that nuclear facilities are safe and that their operation does not endanger the water supply. There’s nothing kooky about this position.

“People buy the argument that we need the power too much, we need the electricity,” says Musegaas. “It’s treated as an evil and a risk that we have to live with.”

Indian Point generates 2,140 megawatts of electricity, nearly a quarter of the juice delivered to the metropolitan area.

Time to Shut Down?

A 2006 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the Indian Point units could be retired when their current operating licenses expire “without causing a major disruption of power capacity in southeastern New York” -- assuming that a combination of new power and conservation can take up the slack.

Governor David Paterson also suggests it’s time to shut the place down, if new energy sources can be found.

“The Governor feels that the NRC should not renew the plant’s license unless Entergy addresses long-standing environmental and safety concerns,” says spokesman Morgan Hook.

Even if Indian Point shuts down, the job isn’t over. “That’s going to be a contaminated site,” say Musegaas. “We’re concerned that Entergy doesn’t have the money to clean it up.”

The company did just announce it would spend $100 million on various cosmetic improvements, such as enhancing public access for tours and landscaping to make the site less of an eyesore.

For more information on Riverkeeper, go to http://www.riverkeeper.org. Entergy makes its case at http://www.safesecurevital.org.

(Mike Di Paola writes about preservation and the environment for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc.rr.com.

Entergy & RiverKeeper Face Off In Supreme Court Today Over Clean Water Act

Reprinted From : http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081202/QUAD/812020320&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

Top court to consider nuke plant's impact on river life

Cooling system is focus of suit

BY GREG CLARY

The Indian Point nuclear plant's impact on the Hudson River will be central to a case heading for the country's highest court today - and a final decision could affect operations at 550 power plants across the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court's nine justices are set to hear Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc., a battle over whether the Clean Water Act allows federal regulators to weigh costs, as well as benefits, when protecting the environment.

New Orleans-based Entergy, which is the plant's owner, and the energy industry think costs should be considered.

Environmentalists do not.

At issue for Indian Point is a technology the plant uses to take in Hudson River water, use it to cool its operations and return warmer water to the ecosystem.

It requires billions of gallons of water every day and dooms fish eggs and smaller species of fish that get caught in the plant's intake, according to environmentalists.

Entergy officials said 25 years and $50 million of government-supervised studies show otherwise.

"The once-through cooling intakes of Hudson River power plants, which withdraw five billion gallons of water each day, have had a devastating effect on the river's ecosystem," said Alex Matthiessen, Hudson Riverkeeper and president of the nonprofit. "The Clean Water Act clearly mandates the use of 'best technology available' without regard to cost-benefit comparisons and was intended to address precisely these types of impacts."

Matthiessen said the Su-preme Court has the opportunity to weigh in on an important environmental issue.

Across the country, 550 power plants use such cooling technology, and if the court decides costs must be left out of the equation, billions of dollars must be spent to retrofit existing facilities to meet federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

Four power plants on the Hudson River - Indian Point, Danskammer, Roseton and Bowline - use the "once-through" cooling, as it is called.

Indian Point officials have estimated replacing that technology with towers that use much less river water and circulating the water through a closed internal cooling system would cost the company more than $1 billion and require shutting down electricity generation for months, as well blasting bedrock to prepare the Buchanan site.

The renovation might also include moving buried natural gas lines, which company officials said would be another potential problem for the environment.

"The Clean Water Act isn't specific to cooling towers. It doesn't prescribe or proscribe," Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said at Indian Point. "What we believe the court and the federal agency carrying out the act should do is take a common-sense ap-proach that includes weighing the costs and the benefits."

Riverkeeper and its supporters have won their case in the lower courts.

Cost-Benefit Issue Is Focus

Entergy appealed to the Supreme Court after losing in the district courts, but the court - which hears only about one appeal from every 100 made - opted to examine only the cost-benefit question.

Even after the presentations each side will make today, justices are not likely to issue a ruling until spring, lawyers said. The Supreme Court session ends in June.

The Supreme Court decision will have significant implications for power plants across the country, but the stakes are particularly high for Indian Point.

Entergy, the plant's owner, is already fighting with New York state over permits to release warmer water into the Hudson; the state is concerned about the system's effect on the river's fish population.

The environmental impact on the Hudson River could end up as a key element in Indian Point's efforts to extend its license to create electricity at the site for another 20 years, to 2035.

Should the court side with Riverkeeper and its supporters, the company would have to put in closed-cycle cooling and, at the very least, amend its application before its first license expires in 2013. It could also choose not to continue its operations at the site.

RiverKeeper Vs Entergy To Be Argued Before US Supreme Court December 2 2008 "EPA Authority To Determine Best Technology Available For Cooling Water Intake Structures"

Article Reprinted From : http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/November08/26/Rivkp_vs_Entergy-26Nov08.html

Supreme Court to hear arguments in Riverkeeper v. Entergy case

Indian Point WASHINGTON – Environmental organization Riverkeeper, Inc. will argue its case over the need for cooling towers at Indian Point and other power plants before the US Supreme Court on December 2. The case will determine whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to compare costs with benefits in determining the “best technology available” for the cooling water intake structures of existing power plants including the Indian Point nuclear plants. Phillip Musegaas is the Hudson River program director for Riverkeeper. “What we are focused on here is the impact to the river and there is no doubt scientifically that the minimization of impact from utilizing cooling towers as opposed to continuing to use once through cooling, that’s a fact; that’s a 95 percent reduction,” he said. Entergy spokesman James Steets said cooling towers at Indian Point don’t make sense. “This is a large expenditure that could actually lead to the closure of the plant,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to require cooling towers when after 25 years of studying the river, spending $50 million on studies that have been overseen by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, we’ve been able to draw no correlation between the operation of, not just Indian Point, but the plants along the Hudson River, that include Indian Point, to Hudson River fish populations. We’ve seen no significant impact.” Riverkeeper will argue that every day, power plants in the United States withdraw over 214 billion gallons from U.S. water bodies to cool their facilities, and kill billions of fish and aquatic creatures in the process. That is due mostly, they say, to the use of “antiquated cooling systems” known as once-through cooling.

Entergy Nuclear (Indian Point) Disputes Department Of Environmental Conservation On Cooling Intake effect On Environment

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

Indian Point fights DEC in court over cooling towers

BY GREG CLARY
THE JOURNAL 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.