walrus51

Well, they are back at it again.

Eliot Engel is my Congressman, and he mostly does a good job.  He wrote an op-ed piece which was published March 23 in the Journal News which draws on almost all of the emotional arguments that exist to implore the NRC to close down Indian Point.

I have said before, “I don’t like Indian Point.”  If it were being proposed today, I would be working full time to oppose it.

That said, what Rep. Engel fails to disclose is that operating or shuttered, the site contains a huge amount of “spent nuclear fuel rods” and whether the reactors are operating or shut down, that nuclear waste will stay on site. 

He also fails to tell us that the facility contains 3 reactors, and that Indian Point 1, which began operations in 1962 and was closed down in 1974, has never been fully decommissioned.

In fact, according to the NRC, “IP-1 operated commercially from August 1962 until October 31, 1974. The plant was shutdown because the emergency core cooling system did not meet regulatory requirements. By January 1976, all spent fuel was removed from the reactor vessel, and is in dry storage at the Indian Point Energy Center ISFSI in 5 casks.”

The NRC offers 3 options when a reactor is to be permanently shut down.  IP-1 is currently in “SAFSTOR” mode, and is not scheduled to be fully decommissioned until 2026.

In short, before we ask Entergy to leave New York State, we ought to be asking, “How can we ensure that when the IP-2 and IP-3 reactors are closed down, the company follows the NRC protocol for “DECON” (for both of these and for IP-1), so that the site is made “more safe”? 

We need a great deal more information, Rep. Engel. 

I hope you will do more research, get us all the facts, and not let us down.