From Clearwater.org:
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater's challenges to Indian Point Nuclear Plant's license renewal application on environmental and public health grounds will be heard during the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board's (ASLB) upcoming relicensing hearings.
Following several months of legal proceedings, the ASLB announced on July 31, 2008 that two of the six contentions filed by Clearwater, covering a range of challenges to Indian Point's application for another 20-year operating permit, have been accepted for further review.
Clearwater's Environmental Director Manna Jo Greene, and Stephen Filler, an attorney who serves on the Clearwater Board of Directors' Executive Committee, submitted Clearwater's petition to intervene, which featured our Environmental Justice concerns, last fall and presented oral argument before the ASLB panel in March.
"Clearwater continues to fight for the environment and for the health and safety of the people in this region, as it has since Indian Point was first commissioned in the 1960's. The panel accepted 15 contentions--the largest number ever considered--a clear indication of the many serious problems at Indian Point," said Stephen Filler.
Looks like signing all those petitions finally paid off!! More news soon.
2 comments:
Its great to organize, and be heard. Its great to get your way, and change society. What would be even more great, would be being in the right on the issue you've chosen to fight about.
Indian Point, in reality, is the clean air machine that has scrubbed the Hudson Valley for 35 years. Its absence, should it come anytime soon, would reveal the true level of pollution needed to maintain both the above ground, and the underground economies simultaneously inhabiting the region.
The gasoline/kerosene/fuel oil underground economy is huge, and totally unreachable by the arms of government which you petition for your changes.
Minus the nuclear-provided adequacy floor, this underground segment will balloon like Topsy, unravelling all your environmental dreams in quicktime march.
By why believe me?
Just view some video from Peking, and envision the Hud Valley under a similar haze.
When it comes, don't say you were not warned.
Have a nice day
A citizen who disagrees
Here is one reason why Indian Point should be shut down if they do not follow code or make the necessary repairs to their facility:
"Radioactive Material Found Near Plant"
By Greg Clary
Gannett News Service
BUCHANAN -- Radioactive strontium 90 has been found in trace amounts in a monitoring well next to Indian Point -- the first time the isotope has been detected in off-site groundwater since workers discovered a spent fuel pool leak three years ago.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to speak with county officials and others in an afternoon conference call today with Entergy, so the company could detail the preliminary test results it found during routine well sampling on the property, according to NRC documents obtained by The (Westchester) Journal News.
Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point, has been working to stop spent fuel pool leaks that have sent water containing strontium 90 and tritium into the Hudson River.
The test results show strontium levels that are less than 1/16th of federal allowable limits for drinking water, the well tested was not for drinking water.
NRC officials said it was the first time since the leaks showed up in 2005 on the Indian Point property that strontium 90 had showed up in off-site wells.
According to the documents, Entergy officials believe the sample showed the traces of strontium 90 because the most recent test are conducted with a more sensitive analysis, not because of increased levels of radioactivity.
NRC officials said they are fast-tracking a portion of the sample that they took during the test, to check the results as quickly as possible.
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"Animal studies showed that eating or drinking very large amounts of stable strontium can be lethal, but the public is not likely to encounter such high levels of strontium. In these unusually high amounts, so much strontium was taken into bone instead of calcium that growing bones were weakened. Strontium had more severe effects on bone growth in young animals than in adults." - ATSDR Public Health Statement: Strontium 90
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Why should citizens take the chance with contaminated water? I personally would not like any dose of radioactive isotopes in my glass. Furthermore, if Indian Point is not relicensed due to hazardous issues, there are plenty of clean energy alternatives to nuclear power (and to gasoline/kerosene/fuel oil as well). For example, solar power, wind farms, hydro-electric plants, bio-diesel, geothermal energy, hydrogen powered cars and cars which run on compressed air (a new idea in progress). All of these energy form produce little to no waste.
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