NY Dem takes aim at nuclear plant after oil spill
A long-time foe of a nuclear power plant in New York is taking aim at it again after an oil spill there over the weekend.
A Saturday night transformer explosion and fire at the the Indian Point power plant may have spilled oil into the Hudson River, according to the Journal News.
{mosads}The fire was eventually contained, and it didn’t pose a threat to the public, and the company that owns the facility reported the incident under the lowest possible federal emergency classification. But officials acknowledged that they will need to clean up oil that had spilled from the plant during the event.
“There is no doubt that oil was discharged into the Hudson River,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said, per the Journal News. “Exactly how much, we don’t know. That will be part of an ongoing investigation.”
In response, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) released a statement saying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not renew Indian Point’s license to run its nuclear reactors.
“We are extremely fortunate that a catastrophic scenario did not unfold, and I urge officials to conduct a swift and thorough investigation,” she said in a statement. “I remain deeply skeptical that Indian Point’s continued operation is in the best interests of families and businesses in our densely-populated region.”
Lowey has long opposed Indian Point, which is about 40 miles from New York City.
In 2011, she toured the facility with the chairman of the NRC and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who also opposes the plant, and she battled with Republicans over the plant at a congressional hearing in 2012. She has introduced two bills related to the plant this session, according to her office: one to create emergency preparedness grants for nuclear facilities and another to require more stringent NRC evaluations for re-licensing power plants.
One of Indian Point’s two reactors is due to be re-licenced this year.
Entergy, the company that operates Indian Point, said it is still investigating the incident and that there is “little to no evidence of any environmental impact observed in the river as a result of this event.”
“We have an obligation to be as precise as possible before estimating what may or may not have been released to the water,” Jerry Nappi, an Energy spokesman, said in a statement. “Entergy takes all potential environmental issues very seriously, which is why we took immediate action to put protections in place on the river following this event.”
—This story was updated at 12:47 p.m.
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