Riverkeeper Team
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Tina Posterli, 914-478-4501 x 239, tposterli@riverkeeper.org
Riverkeeper calls for review of seismic risk and faulty evacuation planning to be included in Indian Point public relicensing hearings
Ossining, NY – March 24, 2011 – Just one day after promising Governor Cuomo that a review of earthquake risk at Indian Point will be given top priority; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced this wasn’t the case. “This won’t start until 2012," said NRC’s Elizabeth Hayden. Hayden further stated that the reason the NRC wasn't in a rush to get the data is "because this is really not a serious concern."
“How can we trust the NRC to protect our health and safety when they tell Governor Cuomo’s administration one thing, then turn around and say that the plant that’s just been deemed our country’s most dangerous nuclear power plant based on the agency’s own data, is safe? What kind of study will people like that actually do?” said Paul Gallay, Executive Director and Hudson Riverkeeper.
Riverkeeper is calling for the NRC to include earthquake risk assessment and evacuation plan evaluation into the Indian Point public relicensing hearings scheduled to take place in fall 2011. Currently, the NRC has denied the submission of these critical risks as part of the public hearings. When Andrew Cuomo raised the earthquake risk with NRC as Attorney General in 2007 and called for its inclusion into relicensing proceedings, the agency said it could not be part of the hearings, because the AG’s office had not identified a solution or cost to fix the problem.
“By burying its head in the sand and refusing to consider critical new information on earthquake risk and the inability to evacuate 20 million New Yorkers from around Indian Point, the NRC is demonstrating once again that keeping the plant running is more important than protecting the health and safety of the public living near it.”
Read New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s letter to the NRC.
