Holtec International illegally dumped irradiated wastewater from the Indian Point Nuclear Energy into the Hudson River, violating New York law, the state said Thursday in court papers.
“Holtec has been discharging radioactive substances into the Hudson River after August 18, 2023, the effective date of the Discharge Law,” reads a letter to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from Philip Bein, senior counsel for the New York State Attorney General’s office in Albany, N.Y.
For evidence, Bein cited Holtec’s latest annual Indian Point Radioactive Effluent Release Report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is dated April 23. The report “demonstrates” that Holtec made an “apparent violation” of New York law, Bein wrote in his letter.
“”Indian Point continues to remain compliant regarding our water discharge permits and provided the required annual effluent data to the NRC,” a Holtec spokesperson wrote Thursday in an email. “No discharges of water related to decommissioning activities have occurred in accordance with the enactment of the State law last year. Discharge of stormwater and groundwater not in connection with the decommissioning of Indian Point are allowable and regulated.”
New York law forbids only discharge of irradiated water created by decommissioning, not irradiated water created during plant operations. The latter was routinely dumped into the Hudson during Indian Point’s almost-50-year operating life.
According to Holtec’s 2023 Indian Point effluent report, there were liquid discharges from the plant’s Unit 1 and 2 reactors as recently as the third quarter of 2023, which ran through Sept. 30. Unit 1 shut down in 1974, Unit 2 in 2020.
Bein’s letter is the latest filing in a lawsuit brought by Holtec about six months after New York outlawed discharge of irradiated wastewater from decommissioning into the Hudson River. The company says the state law is preempted by federal law.
New York says its law does not run afoul of federal law and that the state’s interests now outweigh NRC’s concerns because the plant has entered decommissioning. Under the state law, Holtec faces escalating fines for every subsequent discharge of irradiated wastewater into the Hudson.
The three-reactor Indian Point plant in Buchanen, N.Y., is about 50 miles upriver from downtown Manhattan. Holtec bought the plant from Entergy in 2022 after its Unit 3 reactor shut down in 2021.
