nuclear-news

As campaigning continued before the New York primary on 19 April, Bernie Sanders called the facility “a catastrophe waiting to happen”. Hillary Clinton said only that it needed more oversight.

A senior member of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the Guardian “the whole New York metropolitan area is potentially imperiled by an accident at Indian Point”.

Last week, the company that runs Indian Point revealed that 227 bolts holding the interior of a nuclear reactor at the site have “degraded” or gone missing. In February, the plant reported that a radioactive material, tritium, had leaked into groundwater.

The plant, about 40 miles north of midtown Manhattan on the eastern bank of the Hudson river, has a 40-year history of accidents, fires and complaints. Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered an investigation into February’s “unacceptable” leak. He has called for the plant to close.

“In my view, we cannot sit idly by and hope that the unthinkable will never happen,” Sanders said in a statement. “It makes no sense to me to continue to operate a decaying nuclear reactor within 25 miles of New York City where nearly 10 million people live.”

The Vermont senator elaborated on his stance, calling for the US to phase out nuclear plants along with more polluting resources such as fossil fuels.

“Nuclear power is and always has been a dangerous idea because there is no good way to store nuclear waste,” he said………

The disagreement between Sanders and Clinton mirrors their stances on fracking for natural gas. The senator has called for a ban, citing growing evidence that drilling causes earthquakes. The former secretary of state has called for intense regulation of the industry.

“I want the federal government to regulate much more toughly than we have in the past,” she said on Monday.

In 2014 Cuomo signed a law that banned fracking in New York.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/07/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-indian-point-nuclear-plant