Indian Point is closed, but now what happens with that leftover radioactive waste?

[ Video from Holtec, the company that bought Indian Point in May of 2021. ]

Update March 2023:

On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 6:30pm, Senator Pete Harckham and Assemblymember Dana Levenberg, in coordination with Riverkeeper, will discuss their legislation that would put a stop to any planned discharge from Indian Point into the Hudson River.

The bill (S.5181/A.5338) would prohibit, “directly or indirectly, to throw, drain, run or otherwise discharge any radiological agent into the waters of the state.”

Holtec International, the firm responsible for decommissioning Indian Point, plans to discharge radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River as early as August of 2023, and possibly sooner.

A question and answer session will follow the panelists' presentations on March 16. Registration is required for this event.

Update February 2023:

During the nearly four-hour meeting on Thursday, February 2, a representative from Holtec, the company in charge of the decommissioning process, said the “best option” to dispose of the wastewater would be to dump it into the Hudson River. According to reports, the water will be treated and filtered with charcoal and resin to remove metals and chloride, but it will still contain low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Holtec will begin the wastewater discharges in August of 2023, and possibly sooner. The next meeting for the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board is scheduled for April 27 at 6pm online and in person at the Cortlandt Town Hall.

Indian Point, the nuclear power plant located on the banks of the Hudson River just south of Peekskill, permanently ceased operations in April of 2021. The closure was a huge victory for environmental groups like Riverkeeper, who claimed that Indian Point’s once-through water cooling system withdrew a whopping 2.42 billion gallons of water a day from the Hudson River, subsequently killing “over one billion fish and fish larvae each year.”

That water sourced from the river was ultimately turned into radioactive waste after it was pumped through Indian Point’s reactor vessels. And that wastewater is currently sitting in spent fuel pools onsite, which Riverkeeper says have been “leaking toxic, radioactive water into the ground since the 1990s,” until it is eventually moved to dry storage facilities, also located onsite.

But what are the options to completely dispose of this wastewater without further damage to our local ecosystem?

On Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 6pm, there was be a meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board to discuss how to best dispose of that radioactive wastewater before the anticipated de-fueling campaign of Unit 3 begins later in the month. The meeting will take place virtually and in-person at Cortlandt Town Hall, located on 1 Heady Street. Those interested in attending must register by 6pm on February 1, 2023.

At the meeting, in addition to input from community representatives, Dave Lochbaum, an independent technical expert on the Decommissioning Oversight Board will present an assessment of the feasible alternatives for disposal of this water including “evaporation; storage and delayed release; transport and release elsewhere; release into Hudson.”

According to Richard Webster of Riverkeeper, “at the last DOB meeting in December, representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy (DOE) specified that spent fuel that is currently in the spent fuel pools will be loaded into casks and moved to a dry storage pad. Both agencies agree that there currently is nowhere to ultimately dispose of spent fuel, but both discussed the possibility of interim storage as a way to move the fuel from reactor sites. Without having made further decisions on identifying locations for where the spent fuel could be moved, the DOE is designing spent fuel transportation systems, even though federal law currently prevents construction of federally-owned interim storage.”

For those who cannot attend this Thursday’s meeting or prefer not to make a statement during the meeting, comments may be submitted online to the New York State Department of Public Service (Matter number: 21-01188).

Alternatively, comments may be mailed to the Honorable Michelle L. Phillips, Secretary, Public Service Commission, Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York 12223-1350. All written comments will become part of the record and may be accessed on the Department of Public Service website by searching the matter number, as described above, and clicking on the “Public Comments” tab. Individuals may choose to submit comments by calling the PSC’s Opinion Line at 1-800-335-2120. This number is set up to receive in-state calls 24-hours a day.

Further reading: