Rally: Indian Point Tritium Leaks

Media Advisory – 2/23/16

What – Rally: Indian Point Tritium Leaks – Close Indian Point

Question – “Mayor de Blasio – Is Our Water Safe?”

When – Thursday, March 3, 2016,         12:00 Noon – 1:00 PM

Where – Chambers & Centre St; NE of City Hall; #4, #5, #6, E, A, #1-3 Trains

Sponsoring Organization – Shut Down Indian Point Now   www.sdipn.net / 347-640-3660 / www.facebook.com/sdipn / @sdipn

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Indian Point’s 100% Replacement Energy in Place Now – to Power the Bronx and All of New York City

 [The following opinion article is a rebuttal to one posted by Frank Fraley that posted on February 4, 2016 in the Norwood News. ]

(Op-Ed) Indian Point’s 100% Replacement Energy in Place Now – to Power the Bronx and All of New York City

By CATHERINE SKOPIC

We applaud Governor Andrew Cuomo’s support for the closure of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. As he has clearly stated there is no evacuation plan and it is too close to New York City. No need to worry. New York City does not need Indian Point to keep our lights on.

New York State energy regulators have already evaluated any potential reliability issues that could occur when Indian Point is closed and created a plan to ensure they are addressed: the Indian Point Replacement Contingency Plan is already being implemented by Con Edison and the New York Power Authority.*(Nuclear Information and Resource Service http://www.nirs.org)

The winds of change are blowing

Wind power, an alternative, clean, green energy source is having a very good week.

On Monday, the #3 Reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan NY shutdown after IP personnel reported seeing arcing on a transmission line tower. A mandatory event report was sent to the NRC as required (see report – click on event #51606). The incident was dutifully covered by the local press, although they all seemed to be reprinting the same AP report, with the same lack of any real information or any probing questions. However, this headline in Bloomberg Business caught our attention: “Wind Rescues New York Power After Nuclear Plant Shutdown” (see article). You would have been hard pressed to find it by googling., which might have been due to a lack of keywords or tags. None-the-less, there it was.

Indian Point shutdown raises new safety concerns

[Comments on this article by Tim Judson, Exec. Director of NIRS: “This is the best article on the IP2 event so far. Two points are worth correcting: this is the sixth incident at Indian Point this year, not the second. There have been four other equipment failures at IP3, resulting in shutdowns. Also, Entergy has only owned IP since 2001. The prior incidents mentioned in the article occurred when ConEd owned IP1&2 and the NY Power Authority owned IP3.]”

December 10, 2015 | Filed under: News | Posted by: The Villager

The Indian Point nuclear plant is less than 40 miles from New York City.

BY PAUL DERIENZO  |  Another troubling mishap at the Indian Point nuclear power plant last Saturday prompted a shutdown, or “trip,” of one of the two reactor units and the dispatch of inspectors from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office made the announcement that the reactor was “forced to shut down,” but New Orleans-based Entergy, which owns the plant, said there was no release of radiation or chemicals from the incident. The company said magnets holding control rods failed when power was lost, allowing the rods to sink into the reactor vessel, as designed, which shut down the nuclear reaction. Control rods are a feature of nuclear reactors that allow the nuclear reaction to be adjusted or shut down.

Is the Bronx Burning?: A Community Forum:

NUCLEAR POWER, AND THE INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Are they PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?

Saturday, Nov. 21, 2015
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

St. Ann’s Episcopal Church
295 St. Ann’s Avenue (at E.140th St.)
Bronx, New York 10454

Indian Point is located less than 25 miles from us, just a 30 minute drive from the Bronx. It’s an aging facility, long past its expected expiration date. There have been a number of accidents and breakdowns over the years, all of which had the potential for disaster, placing all our lives in grave danger. It’s a ticking time bomb…AND… we no longer need it to supply our electricity.

Shut Down Indian Point Now! invites you to attend a grassroots community forum where we will explore the following questions:

• Can we afford to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant
• Can we afford not to shut down Indian Point?
• Do we need to move towards 100% clean, green renewable energy, with livable-wage, green renewable jobs for Bronx residents, with all deliberate speed (but no later than 2030!)?
• If 100% clean, green renewable energy is the objective, is nuclear energy part of the solution…or part of the problem?

(HINT: What does clean, renewable energy have to do with asthma rates in the South Bronx? With livable-wage jobs in the South Bronx? With housing for poor and working people in the Bronx?)

A Question & Answer discussion will follow the presentation

Confirmed speakers (list in formation):

• Tim Judson (Nuclear Information & Resource Service – NIRS)
• Alfred Meyer (Physicians for Social Responsibility – PSR)
• Catherine Skopic (Shut Down Indian Point Now! -SDIPN!)

Welcome by Rev. Martha Overall (St. Ann’s Episcopal Church)

Introduction by Carl Lundgren (Chair, Shut Down Indian Point Now! -SDIPN!)

Co-sponsors (list in formation):

• 350NYC
• Bronx Climate Change North
• Bronx Greens/Verdes del Bronx
• Food and Water Watch
• Green Ecosocialist Movement
• Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
• Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition
• Manhattan Green Party Local
• New York Friends of Clearwater
• Peace Action Staten Island
• South Bronx Community Congress
• United for Action

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DIRECTIONS:

Subway: #6 train to Brook Ave. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on your left; #2, 5 train to Prospect Ave. Transfer to Southbound BX17 bus and exit at the St. Ann’s Ave/E. 141st St. stop. Walk South on St. Ann’s Ave. a few yards. Church is on your right. Alternately: #2 train to W 135th St. Transfer to Eastbound Bx33 bus; exit at the Brook Ave./E. 138th St. stop. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on left.

Bus: Eastbound Bx33 bus; exit at the Brook Ave./E. 138th St. stop. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on your left. Southbound BX17 bus; exit at the St. Ann’s Ave./E. 141st St. stop. Walk South on St. Ann’s Ave. a few yards. Church is on your right.

How much electricity does Indian Point provide to our grid?

[Thanks to Marilyn Elie of The Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) for this information.]

This has been a contentious question, aided and abetted by faulty investigative journalism, and by lazy reporters who prefer to Google the question and take a figure from the NYT rather than do their own work.

1.  IP does not provide 2,000 MW of electricity to NYC/WC.
2. IP does not provide 25% of the electricity used in NYC/WC — despite a Sunday story a couple of years ago that said one out of four light bulbs in the  area was powered by IP.

IP provides 560 MW to the area, and sells the rest wherever it can — frequently through the Independent System Operator (ISO) New England, especially in the winter when New England gas is converted to heating usage.

Did We Almost Lose New York?

by Harvey Wasserman

Smoke seen rising from the Indian Point Energy Center on Saturday, May 9.       (Photo: Ricky Flores/AP)

For the third time in a decade a major fire/explosion has ripped apart a transformer at the Indian Point reactor complex.

News reports have taken great care to emphasize that the accident happened in the “non nuclear” segment of the plant.

Ironically, the disaster spewed oil into the Hudson River, infecting it with a toxic sheen that carried downstream for miles. Entergy, the nuke’s owner, denies there were PCBs in this transformer.

It also denies numerous studies showing serious radioactive health impacts on people throughout the region.

You can choose whether you want to believe the company in either case.

But PCBs were definitely spread by the last IP transformer fire. They re-poisoned a precious liquid lifeline where activists have spent decades dealing with PCBs previously dumped in by General Electric, which designed the reactors at Fukushima.

Meanwhile, as always, the nuclear industry hit the automatic play button to assure us all that that there was “no danger” to the public and “no harmful release” of radiation.

But what do we really know about what happened and could have happened this time around?

Explosion, Fire, Oil Spill at Indian Point Nuclear Power Facility

Around 6:00 pm Saturday evening, a transformer at the Indian Point nuclear power facility in Buchanan NY – just 25 miles from the NYC border – exploded and burst into flame. No injuries were reported but independent monitors recorded a spike in radioactive emissions of 2 -3 times the normal rate. Emergency crews initially put out the fire but it burst into flames again later on. The explosion ruptured the transformer causing a leak of the oil used to cool it, which went into a holding tank that then overflowed, discharging  thousands of gallons of the oil into the Hudson River. The explosion also initiated a shut down of the #3 reactor as a precaution. There’s no word yet when it will go back on line.  More information is provided in the articles and reports linked below.

An incident like this only adds to our argument for the complete shutdown and decommissioning of Indian Point.  A number of concerns and issues need to be restated at this time:

SDIPN at the 2015 Left Forum

SDIPN will be presenting a panel at this year’s Left Forum from May 29 – 31, hosted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The theme this year is “No Justice, No Peace: Confronting the Crises of Capitalism and Democracy.”

We’ll make the connection between the Black Lives Matter Movement and groups like SDIPN that are fighting for environmental justice by confronting the lies and distortions that  corporations like Entergy are distributing in communities of color in their effort to promote nuclear energy as a “clean and green” alternative to fossil fuels.

The date and time of our panel has not yet been announced. Check back for further information as we receive it.