In January 2017, Riverkeeper won one of its longest battles, which spanned five decades, when it joined New York State and Entergy, the owner of Indian point, in a historic agreement to close the aging and unsafe nuclear power plant by April 2021.

Indian Point’s Unit 2 reactor, which went into service in August 1974, ceased operating at the end of April 2020, and the final reactor, Unit 3, shut down in April 2021.

Riverkeeper is building on our decades of advocacy around Indian Point to ensure that the decommissioning of the facility is completed safely and with the best interests of the local communities and environment in mind. Riverkeeper is working hard to ensure the prompt, safe decommissioning of Indian Point.

In anticipation of the shutdown, Riverkeeper has prioritized efforts to ensure New York will have clean, renewable replacement energy after losing the 2,060 MW generated by Indian Point, and there’s good news on that front, too. The New York Independent System Operator, which coordinates the distribution of our electricity supply, confirmed that New York would have enough replacement power to supplant Indian Point’s output once it closed. Since the closure agreement was signed, enough clean energy and energy efficiency has come onto the grid to replace the first unit.

Holtec International purchased Indian Point from Entergy on May 28, 2021 and is responsible for the decommissioning of the former nuclear power plant. Decommissioning the plant includes removing equipment and structures containing nuclear contaminants and safely storing spent nuclear fuel onsite. At a cost of approximately $2.3 billion, Holtec estimated the bulk of decommissioning work at Indian Point will be completed by 2033, and is now trying to delay the completion date.

On August 18th, Governor Hochul signed the Save the Hudson bill, which prohibits discharges of any radiological substance into the Hudson River in connection with the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant. This law makes it illegal for Holtec to discharge radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River. The wastewater contains tritium, a radioactive isotope with links to cancer. Riverkeeper is closely monitoring the State’s implementation of and Holtec’s challenge to this groundbreaking law to ensure it is carried out as intended.

Riverkeeper holds the “representative of the environmental community” seat on the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board, and provides expertise on issues related to water quality as well as impacts to wildlife and surrounding ecosystems.

As of October 16, 2023 all spent fuel at Indian Point nuclear power plant has been moved to dry cask storage, which means the risk of a catastrophic nuclear accident is now greatly reduced. Since we’re depending on the casks to keep us safe, Riverkeeper’s goal is to increase monitoring. The current “aging management protocol” only evaluates the single most vulnerable cask, which is impossible to identify, every five years.

We continue to call for the secure storage of all contaminated wastewater on the Indian Point site for at least a period of 12 years. This would allow for one half-life to elapse and reduce the radioactivity of the spent fuel pool water, and protect the economic interests of the state while alternative disposal methods are thoroughly evaluated.

Moreover, Riverkeeper is committed to ensuring the full containment and remediation of the contaminated groundwater under the site, and that Holtect manages the public funds from the decommissioning trust fund appropriately.