ML073030402
| ML073030402 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 10/02/2007 |
| From: | Yeadon A, Yeadon D - No Known Affiliation |
| To: | Rulemaking, Directives, and Editing Branch |
| References | |
| 72FR45075 00032 | |
| Download: ML073030402 (7) | |
Text
HULK,;L, ', UH t: !6; iv 5 oz25~;;6' 0 Za U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Category K NRC PUBLIC MEETING FEEDBACF Meeting Date: Meeting Title: 09/19/2007 Indian Point License Renewal -Environmental Scoping In order to better serve the public, we need to hear from the meeting participants.
Please take a few minutes to fill out this feedback form and return it to NRC.1. How did you hear about this meetina?E] NRC Web Page F-] RadioFTV D NRC Mailing List D Other ,EjrNewspaper No Somewhat (Please explain below)Yes 2. Were you able to find supporting information prior to the meeting?3. Did the meeting achieve its stated purpose?4. Has this meeting helped you with your understanding of the topic?5. Were the meeting starting time, duration, and location reasonably convenient?
- 6. Were you given sufficient opportunity to ask questions or express your views?7. Are you satisfied overall with the NRC staff who participated in the meeting?D-YD!-D F]D1 COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS:
Thank you for answering these questions.
Continue Comments on the reverse.OPTIONAL NameJ 4A 1 -l(Telephone No. E-N OMB NO, 3150-0197 Organization -J ,/cjp-J,"f
/Check here if you would like a member of NRC staff to contact you.Expires: 06/30/2009 Public Protection Notification:
If a means used to impose an information collection does not display a currently valid OMB control number, the NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a pursun is not required to respond to, the information collection.
Please fold on ,the dotted lines with Business Reply side out, tape the bottom, and mail back to the NRC AGAINST RENEWAL OF THE ENTERGY INDIAN POINT LICENSE BY NRC* SAFETY! The implications of a badly run, poorly equipped terrorist target being located 20 air miles from the greatest city in the world, and a vast and rapidly increasing suburban and regional population (combined total of over 20 million), are utterly catastrophic and also apparently illegal based on current NRC standards." According to the New York Times, this is one of the worst-managed, most dangerous and inefficient plants (in terms of capacity availability after repeated closures) in the USA and should be closed immediately." There has been so much written about potential terrorist attacks on Indian Point that we've virtually given them at least a dozen 'how to'blueprints!" According to*James Lee Witt (former director of FEMA) nuclear'evacuation plans' are utter nonsense (as the Katrina chaos clearly showed) and a recent NRC proposal to only evacuate a 'two mile wedge at IP and leave the rest of us 'sheltered in place' is outrageous, immoral and should be totally condemned.
- When even the smallest 'fix-it' tasks, such as the siren warning systems, the ground water contamination, nuclear waste storage and disposal, underground pipe corrosion, dumping of irradiated water (Strontium 90 and Tritium) etc. etc., cannot be resolved by Entergy, how can we area residents feel in the least bit confident of their ability to run this plant safely for another 20 years! (Or even another week!)* The constant Entergy refrain of "We admit we have a few problems, and we're working hard to resolve them," just won't work anymore.The company has been given more and more time to 'solve them'and all we get are tired excuses and new 'unforeseen' problems.o The elimination of the plant and the urgent need for alternative power resources could stimulate huge 'innovation and rapid response'funds thatwould revolutionize the whole generating sector in the region and the USA (and world) as a whole. The Indian Point site could be a positive focal point and catalyst for new and innovative energy sources.I Entergy must stop boasting about its 'generous subsidies' to community resources such as schools and hospitals when the company itself is already subsidized to the maximum by our public funds. What right does Entergy have to 'donate' our tax dollars to anybody and then claim 'philanthropic actions' when these subsidies are only supposed to be used to reduce energy costs for the taxpayers' benefit.* Eager promises in the 'early age' of nuclear power suggested a source 'too cheap to even meter.' Now Entergy and others claim it might be 'almost on a par' with coal and hydroelectric but still requires massive subsidies.
There is nothing cheap about nuclear energy!* Entergy's press releases and presentations feature local union members and other company employees as anecdotal spokes-people ("I've worked here for years and I'm still alive!").
These are blatantly unconvincing, manipulative and unethical strategies, and beneath rational contempt.* Disaster scenarios of 'energy blackouts' for the New York area as a result of Indian Point's 'retirement' ignore the fact that we already have surplus capacity, that efficient power-import grid systems already exist, and that 10 new power plants have been approved for New York State.* Ironically Entergy is ahead of its own game! The company has already filed a 'scoping' proposal with the NY Public Service Commission to construct an alternative natural gas power plant at Indian Point using the existing Algonguin natural gas pipeline.* As mentioned at the Cortlandt Manor meeting on 9119/07 -Entergy has become a master of evasive, 'double-think' attitudes and blatant'bullshitism' in its complacent, redundant and invariably misleadingfuntrue PR statements and publications (none of which seem to be able to deal directly and honestly with most of the points raised here and by local citizen protests).
- With a rapid increase in daily regional air flights and routes closer and closer to Indian Point, any chances of preventing a terrorist air attack are now virtually nil. (Most Indian Point plans seem to be to prevent only 'insider' ground attacks.)
And even if such an attack was unable to penetrate to the core of the reactors, or the above ground waste-storage facilities, the ancillary damage to the plant and the potential release of nuclear discharges would endanger the 2 whole area and put the plant out of action for years (so let's close it down today and avoid a catastrophe waiting to happen!).Even though earthquakes of any significant magnitude are rare in this region, according to some seismologists
'We are long overdue" for such an event and Indian Point is utterly unprepared for that eventuality (even a mild quake of 4.5 magnitude could be a major threat to structural and other stabilities).
Despite all the threats of such economic dislocations as higher energy costs, business closures, blackouts and unemployment as a result of Indian Point retirement-imagine the costs of a successful attack or a Chernobyl type disaster.
Millions would be transformed in seconds to trillions of lost dollars and a land area the size of Rhode Island (containing some of the most valuable real estate and economic activities in the world) would be rendered uninhabitable for not just years-but centuries!
The statistics are mind-boggling!
The "Radiation Ingestion zone" of 50 miles radius-impact contains over 20 million people. The most vulnerable population is obviously in New York City if usual wind patterns draw the 'plume' southwards.
Near term death estimates are 44,000 from immediate radiation poisoning and over 500,000 later cancer deaths (Union of Concerned Scientists).
An attack on the spent fuel pool at IP-2 'would render about 95,000 square kilometers of land 'uninhabitable' for 300-900 years (equivalent to about 75% of New York State) according to a special report by The institute for Resources and Security Studies. The NRC estimates radiation-induced cancer as far as 500 miles from Indian Point. Then there is also the question of the water contamination of Croton and all the other regional reservoir facilities...
As Katrina and other Florida disasters in recent years have shown-insurance companies have great difficulty compensating adequately for natural disasters.
In the case of a man-made disaster their responsibility is unclear (certainly if there is 'an act of aggression or war' no compensation at all will be forthcoming).
Entergy's
'liability insurance' of $9.3 billion would not even begin to compensate for the vast property, economic, and-social losses, and the unquestionable health costs of mass-exposure (up to 20 million people) to ionizing radiation.
Indian Point retirement, if reinforced by the development of other local energy resources and non-nuclear power facilities, will create new employment far in excess of any decommissioning unemployment.
In addition, the use of current enormous tax 3 subsidies for Indian Point will ensure continued increases of employment in innovative related projects." Every time another glitch occurs at Indian Point (with alarming regularity) property values particularly to the east around Yorktown are impacted.
Maybe it's time homeowners started to demand some of Indian Point's subsidies for ongoing home-value compensations!" Indian Point is the only plant in the USA to ever have received a 'Red Rating' for releasing radioactive toxins in the air and river in 2000.Also, according to Riverkeeper, the number of unplanned shutdowns at Indian Point is six times higher than at any of the nation's other 103 nuclear plants." NRC admits that a new nuclear power plant would never be permitted at the Buchanan site because it far exceeds 'NRC's current population density guidelines'!
And yet NRC is seriously considering license-renewal for Indian Point!* The key danger at Indian Point is not so much the reactor ... but the 1500 tons of high level radioactive waste stored in above ground pools-a mega nuclear waste dump 'more hazardous than Yucca Mountain' (the Nevada national 'nuclear storage facility' that may never be built/used)
- Huge opposition to re-licensing by non-partisan politicians and all three congressional representatives from the evacuation zone should reinforce public protests.* Riverkeeper claims the deaths of 'billions of Hudson River fish' as a result of Indian Point discharges and cites excessive high levels of strontium 90 in fish flesh.* Despite massive subsidies and other inducements
'there has-not been a single order for a new nuclear power plant in the USA for three decades." (New York State Public Service Commission).
That should certainly warn us about the inadvisability of re-licensing!
- According to a 'special evaluation by the Inspector General of the NRC' in 2002, NRC surveys have showed that almost half of all NRC employees thought their careers would suffer if they raised safety concerns and nearly one third felt they had actually already suffered harassment andlor intimidation.
According to a NRC study: 'The NCR has become aware of incidents where individuals were treated negatively by management for raising 4 problematic issues at Indian Point.. .some workers expressed reluctance to raise issues under certain circumstances."" According to the Christian Science Monitor, the ever-increasing incidence of global warming effects in terms of unusually high heat waves, hurricanes, flooding, and severe storms can disable nuclear reactors far more rapidly and dangerously than conventional coal/oillgas plants." According to Peter Bradford, Former NRC Commissioner, "A nuclear revival is financially risky. The likelihood of new nuclear units being, built is very unlikely.
Nuclear power is not competitive today-it will still be more expensive and offset much fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a portfolio of renewable and energy-efficiency options."" According to Jerry Kremer, Chairman of NYAREA-"it would require more than 1300 wind turbines to replace Indian Point." So-let's start building them! It's been done elsewhere in other locations around the world. One of the biggest turbine 'farms' in the USA is near Palm Springs, California.
So-let's go!IN FAVOR OF RENEWAL" The inconvenience and initial higher energy costs of alternative power from the grid and eventually other new power sources (although Entergy's own consultants estimate a mere 5% increase in local costs if Indian Point is closed!).* It is possible that safer, more cost-efficient, less vulnerable and'greener' non-carbon dioxide-generating types of nuclear power generation (including, one day, the elusive fission process!)
may eventually be developed.
France and Japan are way ahead in this area. Unfortunately-Indian Point is not. It is a worn out, corrosive, outdated, inefficient disaster just waiting to happen!Sorry-but that's about it in terms of 'favorable' factors. f 5