Hudson River Fish Win a Round in Albany NYSDEC calls for closed-cycle cooling at Indian Point - but the devil’s in the details November 12, 2003 POUGHKEEPSIE, NY - Today the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a draft SPDES permit calling for a closed-cycle cooling at Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear generating facility in Buchanan, NY. The issuance of the permit came as a direct result of legal action initiated by Clearwater, Pete and Toshi Seeger, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and others. The last Indian Point permit expired in October, 1992. Issued in 1987, that permit allowed Indian Point to take over 2 billion gallons of cooling water per day directly from the Hudson River, pass it through the plant to absorb excess heat, and discharge it into the river at temperatures up to 19 degrees hotter than ambient water temperature. No aquatic life survives under these conditions. The combined effects of heat and shear resulted in nearly 100% mortality among the billions of larval and planktonic fish that pass through the screens of the powerplant each year. This mortality includes more than 13,000,000 American Shad—a commercially important “species of concern”—and 158,000,000 Striped Bass, potentially worth tens of millions in economic activity. Closed-cycle cooling would eliminate up to 95% of that mortality, in direct proportion to the amount of water taken from the river. Clearwater’s Executive Director Andy Mele said today, “This can only be viewed as a victory—a big one—but there are troubling elements that we will have to look at more closely.” “The draft permit stipulates that BTA need only be built if the plant gets its operating license extension from NRC. That could leave the river vulnerable to these population-scale impacts for another decade or more,” continued Mele. “And if Entergy’s extension is denied, they can run the plant into the ground, kill every fish in the river and walk away without spending a dime on cooling. Obviously we need to know the agency’s intentions.” The current operating licenses at Indian Point expire in 2013 (Unit 2) and 2015 (Unit 3). “Because 59 nuclear generating stations in the nation use outdated once-through cooling, this draft permit will send shock waves through the industry,” said Mele, “and we can expect a vigorous and very expensive challenge to the permit from Entergy. They will throw the best scientists money can buy at us, and we’ll be forced to build a defense on small donations from citizens.” DEC provided no further details on the specific types of closed-cycle cooling technology in its press release. “The costs Entergy will have to absorb could run more than $100 million,” said Mele. “But they’re in business and they had to expect that this could happen. They were just looking to extend the free ride as long as possible. They have more sophisticated cooling systems at many of their other facilities.”