U.S. Panel to Hear Opponents of Indian Point Nuclear Plant

By MATTHEW L. WALD October 11, 2012

The Indian Point nuclear plant is going on trial.

On Monday, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will open a hearing to determine whether opponents, among them the Cuomo administration, have valid arguments against a 20-year extension of operating licenses for the Westchester County site’s reactors.

Three administrative law judges from the commission will take up an unusually long list of issues at the hearing, which will take place at a hotel in Tarrytown, N.Y., on 12 days in October and December.

In granting license extensions for reactors around the country, 70 to date, the commission has usually agreed to hear arguments on only a few technical issues. But in the case of Indian Point, the judges will hear at least 14.

Some of the issues from parties in the case are mechanical. Has Entergy, the plant’s owner, properly accounted for the possibility of corrosion in old pipes? What is the condition of the plant’s electrical cables, some of which are submerged in water and cannot be easily inspected? Has the plant been adequately monitoring buried pipes, some of which have already leaked, that carry radioactive materials?

Others are more slippery, like calculating the potential human costs of a major release of radioactive materials from the plant, in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/science/earth/hearings-set-on-renewing-indian-point-reactors-licenses.html?ref=energy-environment