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Hudson River Lovers Fight to Shutter Aging Nuclear Power Plant

Hudson River Lovers Fight to Shutter Aging Nuclear Power Plant by Mike Di Paola an. 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.”

Bloomberg.com: Arts and Culture

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

January 10, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized