Debate heats up over how to dispose of Indian Point radioactive water

Published Apr 26, 2024 at 4:31 p.m. ET

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Published Apr 26, 2024 at 4:31 p.m. ET

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Experts, government officials and advocates discussed what do with the radioactive water inside of the decommissioned Indian Point nuclear power plant about 40 miles north of Manhattan on Thursday night, but a new lawsuit brought by the company overseeing the facility shows it still has a plan to dump the waste into the Hudson River.

The legal challenge Holtec International brought against New York state last week hung over the meeting of what's known as the decommissioning oversight board. Holtec argues that Gov. Kathy Hochul unlawfully superseded federal oversight of nuclear power plants by signing a state law banning the dumping of radioactive waste into the Hudson.

“The failure of New York state to respect federal law, and follow the facts and science of the issue, left us no other means for remedy,” Holtec spokesperson Patrick O’Brien wrote in an email. “The passage of the bill has already delayed the planned completion of the decommissioning of Indian Point an additional eight years, which hurts the local community’s desire to see the project completed and the property returned as an asset for economic development in the region.”

About 40 protesters gathered outside ahead of the meeting at the Cortlandt Town Hall in Westchester County, holding signs that read “no radioactive waste in our air and water” and “store nuke waste on site.”

Officials on the oversight board avoided discussing the suit, citing pending litigation. They instead discussed alternative methods of disposing of 1.3 million gallons of the water, some of which was used to cool spent fuel rods.

The water in the plant contains traces of radioactive tritium. Tritium occurs naturally in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, but most of the tritium on the planet's surface is manmade and largely derives from nuclear weapons testing or reactors. Tritium is also used in self-luminescent technology, including exit signs, glowing paints and watches. Tritiated water looks, tastes and smells like ordinary river water, but is 10% heavier.

When Indian Point was in operation, the plant routinely discharged the tritium water into the Hudson. The plant closed in 2021 and Holtec took over, launching a plan to decommission the plant over 12 years at a cost of $2.3 billion.

But many residents around the plant expressed alarm last year at Holtec’s plan to dump more tritium water into the river as part of the decommissioning process. They worried about the move’s potential effect on tourism and real estate values.

Protesters rallied outside the Cortlandt town hall in Westchester County, ahead of a meeting of the board overseeing the decommissioning of the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

“Throw it in the water is just … using the Hudson River as a public garbage can,” said Tracy Brown, president of the nonprofit environmental group Riverkeeper. “We've just all done too much work to clean up and improve this waterway to continue with that business as usual. It's just not acceptable.”

At the meeting, nuclear industry expert Arnie Gundersen presented an alternative for handling the tritiated water. He recommended building three tanks surrounded by a berm to hold the tritiated water in a part of the facility that is strong enough to withstand an earthquake. Such a method had been used at the decommissioned Zion nuclear plant near Chicago.

“It’s unreasonable and unnecessary to release that water into the Hudson River,” Gundersen said. “My goal is to protect the Hudson’s economics, its tourist industry, its agricultural viability and its population.”

Gundersen added that heavy scrap metal from the plant could sell for as much as $100 million.

Bridget Frymire of the state Public Service Commission presented a second option for disposing of the radioactive water. She said it could be hauled to certified facilities via truck and rail for further treatment, as was done at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The radioactive water there was taken to facilities that treat tritiated water and then evaporate it, or solidify it for use as landfill.

Local advocates support storing the water at the plant until its 12-year half-life, or the time it takes for the tritium to decay to half of its original amount. They noted that Holtec’s plan would result in the radioactive water being discharged into parts of the Hudson that are already a federal Superfund site. General Electric released more than 1 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Hudson River over a 30-year period.

Gundersen said there isn’t enough information about the human and environmental impacts of combining the existing pollution from PCBs with tritiated water. He dismissed federal standards for assessing safe levels of tritium as arbitrary and not based on science.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesperson for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, downplayed the risk of discharging the water into the Hudson in a statement. “The amount of tritium released in Indian Point batch discharges, once diluted in the river, would be virtually nondetectable,” he said.

Raya Salter, an environmental lawyer on New York's Climate Action Council, said the state’s strongest arguments in the lawsuit center on the potential economic impact of discharging the water. But, she said, "states generally face an uphill battle when it comes to federal pre-emption cases involving nuclear regulation."

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Rosemary is health & science reporter. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 646-544-9524.

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