Save the Hudson River from Holtec’s Radioactive Wastewater Dumping!

April 24, 2024
Indian Point hearing

[Photo from a past Indian Point NRC public meeting, which helped achieve the shutdowns for good at Unit 2 in 2020, and Unit 3 in 2021.]

Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds, to speak at New York State Department of Public Service Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board’s Thursday, April 25, 2024 Meeting, 6-8:30pm, re: Holtec’s scheme to dump tritium (radioactive hydrogen) into the Hudson River

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Fill out this form to attend virtually:
Learn more about the meeting here:
Here is the message from the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board (IP DOB):
Any person wishing to deliver a statement during the 30-minute public statement portion of the meeting, either in person or virtually, must pre-register by 12:00 p.m. on April 24, 2024. Any person who plans to attend the meeting but does not wish to deliver a statement is kindly asked, but not required, to pre-register to inform meeting hosts of seating capacity needs.
Here is more info. from the IP DOB
Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board’s April 25, 2024 Meeting.

On the date and time of the joint meeting, participants and members of the public may attend the meeting in person or virtually as follows:

LOCATION: Cortlandt Town Hall
1 Heady Street
Cortlandt, NY 10567

TO PARTICIPATE VIRTUALLY:
Electronic Access:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82658293736?pwd=aHNJTnZNWTR5SzBqMnNuSHRaamVpZz09 or
go to www.zoom.us/join and enter the meeting information below.
Webinar ID:        82658293736
Passcode:           566790

Phone-Only Access: 1-929-205-6099
Passcode:           566790

 
 
To learn more about Fairewinds and its chief engineer Arnie Gundersen, visit their website:
 
For those who live close enough, check out this message (dated 4pm ET, April 20) from Marilyn Elie with WESCAN, IPSEC, and SDIPN (Westchester Citizens Action Network, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, and Shut Down Indian Ponit Now):
Hello Friends,
Join us on April 25, 4:45, Rally at Cortlandt Town Hall, 1 Heady Street, Cortlandt Manor.  Keep up the public pressure!!
Expert Arnie Gundersen will be there live with the truth about discharge of tritiated water into the Hudson.
Stay after the Rally for the DOB  meeting for as long as you can.  You can also sign up to attend virtually on the Decommissioning Oversight Board’s website.
Holtec has finally made good on their threat to go to court about NY’s law banning such discharges.  Details below in the information from Santosh…
In Solidarity,
Marilyn Elie

From: “Santosh Nandabalan, Food & Water Watch” <[email protected]>

Last year, we stopped radioactive waste from being dumped into the Hudson River. But just today, Holtec International, the company in charge of decommisioning the Indian Point nuclear plant, announced it’s suing the State of New York instead exploring options to safely contain this waste on-site.

Rally with us outside of Cortlandt Town Hall next Thursday, April 25, to call out Holtec on its lawsuit and make sure we truly keep this radioactive waste on-site and out of our air and water!
http://click.messages.fwaction.org/?qs=87a7168f97ffe609225a4c25969b22cbddbbebaa421ebcb26e7dc756ad01fa568e86c5e3f6c24d926938dc7fb0967ec4b67b03f27763bc38

It’s clear that Holtec is acting in bad faith, putting their own profits before the people of New York. The entire Hudson Valley region relies on the River as a major economic resource for tourism and recreation — dumping toxic waste into those waters or elsewhere just isn’t right.

What: Rally for On-Site Storage of Radioactive Wastewater at Indian Point
When: Thursday, April 25, at 4:45 p.m.
Where: Outside Cortlandt Town Hall, 1 Heady Street, Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567

RSVP
http://click.messages.fwaction.org/?qs=87a7168f97ffe609225a4c25969b22cbddbbebaa421ebcb26e7dc756ad01fa568e86c5e3f6c24d926938dc7fb0967ec4b67b03f27763bc38

After the rally, there will be a oversight board meeting featuring nuclear engineer and decommissioning expert Arnie Gundersen. Join us inside for the meeting to learn one way we can achieve safe on-site storage of this wastewater and show agency representatives that we’ll hold our leaders accountable for a safe decommissioning of Indian Point.

Nuclear energy has a waste problem, and Indian Point has over a million gallons of radioactive wastewater currently held at the facility. Burning that waste, evaporating it, or simply transporting it elsewhere to be dumped are all dangerous options and they should be off the table. The only viable option at the moment is to safely contain the nuclear waste on-site while it decays and becomes less radioactive.

Holtec can sue New York, but they can’t win just because they don’t like being told what to do. We need to come out strong on Thursday to let Holtec and state leaders know we won’t stand for this radioactive waste in our Hudson River or anywhere that threatens the economic and environmental well-being of us all!

Hope to see you there!

Santosh

Santosh Nandabalan
Senior Organizer
Food & Water Watch

[Emphases added]
 
 
You can also learn more about these issues the day before, Wednesday, April 24, beginning at 10am ET, by listening to the “Eco-Logic” radio show on WBAI, New York City’s Pacific Radio station:

ECO-LOGIC Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:00am EST

radio & internet www.ecoradio.org

WBAI, 99.5FM & https://wbai.org/listen-live/

This week’s episode is focused on nuclear waste, decommissioning, and the decommissioning oversight board hearing the next day, seeking to educate listeners and activate them on this issue.

The guests will include Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear; Nancy Vann, Safe Energy Rights Group; and Tina Volz-Bongar, Indian Point and Holtec watchdog.

Also, see a backgrounder written by Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps in July 2010 (and updated in 2012), about highly radioactive waste pool leaks, including at Indian Point (so a significant source of tritium contaminating soil and groundwater, at risk of polluting the Hudson River, bio-concentrating in the fisheries, etc. if not cleaned up). This backgrounder was requested by anti-nuclear activists at Fukushima Daiichi, before the catastrophe began in March 2011!

https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/pool-leaks-fact-sheet-updated-10-19-2012.pdf

In its 2014 Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel GEIS (Generic Environmental Impact Statement), NRC documented 13 leaking pools in the U.S. See Appendix E – Analysis of Spent Fuel Pool Leaks at: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1419/ML14196A105.pdf.

Also, see Dr. Arjun Makhijani of IEER’s 2023 book, Exploring Tritium Dangers: Health and Ecosystem Risks of Internally Incorporated Radionuclides:  https://ieer.org/resource/books/exploring-tritim-dangers/

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