New York’s governor had yet to decide whether she would sign a bill, passed Monday by the state legislature, that would punish anyone who discharges irradiated water into the Hudson River.
The bill, S06893, passed the General Assembly 101-44 on the first day of a special session of the bicameral legislature’s lower chamber, where Democrats dominate by a margin of 102-48. The measure would make it “unlawful to discharge any radiological substance into the Hudson River in connection with the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) had made no public statements about the bill as of Wednesday and declined through a spokesperson to comment about her position on the legislation.
Holtec International, which is decommissioning the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., about 50 miles upriver from downtown Manhattan on the Hudson, said Wednesday the bill is preempted by federal law.
“Radiological discharge is the sole purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and we hope the Governor’s office reviews, concurs, and vetoes the legislation based on the assessment that radiological discharge is federally preempted,” a Holtec spokesperson wrote in an email to the Exchange Monitor. “[S]cientific facts show that discharge to the River is the safest option for dealing with the processed and treated water, as supported by the Decommissioning Oversight Board’s independent third party expert and years of environmental monitoring and reporting.”
If signed into law, the bill would punish discharges into the Hudson with a $25,000 per-day fine for the first offense, $50,000 for the second and $150,000 for subsequent offenses.
Holtec acquired Indian Point from Entergy after the plant’s Unit 3 reactor shut down in 2022. Unit 2 ceased operations in 2020. Unit 1 closed down in 1974.
In a post shutdown decommissioning activities report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2019, Holtec estimated the decommissioning will cost more than $2 billion and take until the 2060s, with most work done by the early 2030s.
Editor’s note, 9:41 a.m. Eastern time. The story was updated with a response from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
