A federal judge Thursday formally dismissed a suit over the sale of Indian Point Energy Center following the approval of a joint settlement last week, according to new court filings.
The approval of last week’s motion to dismiss filed by New York State, alongside environmental watchdog Riverkeeper and the towns of Cortlandt and Buchanan, N.Y., means their petitions against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are now withdrawn, according to a clerk’s order filed Thursday in the D.C. circuit court of appeals.
The dismissal came after Holtec International finalized its purchase of Indian Point from Entergy last Friday. The nuclear services company officially took ownership of the Buchanan, N.Y.-based power plant after the New York Public Service Commission unanimously approved a proposed joint settlement agreement between the state, Holtec and Entergy May 19.
According to the settlement agreement, Holtec pledged greater financial transparency and community engagement during decommissioning in exchange for the withdrawal of New York’s suit.
After decommissioning Indian Point, the site will be “fit for commercial/industrial use” save for the dry storage pad housing the former plant’s spent fuel inventory, the company said in a press release last Friday. Holtec hopes to ship Indian Point’s spent fuel to the company’s proposed consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico — a project still under federal licensing review.
Indian Point marks Holtec’s third active decommissioning project. The Camden, N.J.-based company is also dismantling Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey and Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Massachusetts.
The suit’s dismissal closes the book on several months of legal challenges to the decommissioning of Indian Point. New York attorney general Letitia James filed the initial complaint Jan. 22.
Meanwhile, Holtec plans to begin decommissioning the power plant “with immediate effect,” the company said in a press release April 30, the same day Indian Point shut down for good after taking its Unit 3 reactor offline. The plant’s Unit 2 reactor went in late 2020, and Unit 1 shut down back in 1974. It opened for business in 1962.
