A New York town downstream from a shuttered nuclear power plant passed a resolution asking state lawmakers to make a proposed ban against discharging radioactive wastewater in the state stricter.
The five-member Greenburgh Town Board approved the resolution over the weekend. The town in Westchester County, N.Y., over the northern border of the city borough of the Bronx, is roughly 20 miles downstream of the Indian Point Energy Center, which Holtec Decommissioning International is decommissioning. Greenburgh had a population of about 95,000, according to the 2020 U.S. census.
Indian Point, which shut down for good in 2021, is located near the banks of the Hudson River in Buchanan, N.Y. Like other nuclear energy and nuclear waste projects across the country, the plant is the target this year of state-level legislation aimed at strictly regulating the operations of companies dealing with radioactive material.
There are two identical bills pending in New York’s bicameral legislature that would forbid “the discharge of any radiological agent into the waters of the state,” according to a summary posted online.
The bills are: S05181 in the state Senate, sponsored by state Sen. Pete Harckham (D-NY-S40) and A05338, sponsored by Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg (D-NY-A95). Harckham’s district includes Greenburg, Levenberg’s district includes Indian Point.
First-time violators would be fined $25,000 per day, the bill said, a figure that would increase to $50,000 and then $150,000 for subsequent offenses.
The anti-wastewater-discharge bills were referred to the environmental conservation committees in their respective chambers, where they had yet to receive a hearing as of Wednesday. The last scheduled day of the New York state legislative session was June 8.
Holtec faces similar pressure in Massachusetts, where some local officials have come out against discharging radioactive water from the decommissioning of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into Cape Cod Bay.
