ENTERGY’S RADIOACTIVE RESERVOIR

ENTERGY’S RADIOACTIVE RESERVOIR

By Michael Steinberg

The story broke on October 9. New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation’s Indian Point nuclear plants, 24 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, have a radioactive lake underneath them. The UPI reported that the body of radioactive water that has leaked into the ground “has grown to approximately the size of the Central Park Reservoir, the New York Daily News said.”

The UPI story went on to report: “Dan Mayer, special projects director for Entergy, said the underground area has contaminated water between 50 and 60 feet deep, the Daily News said. Another area is about 30 feet wide and 350 feet long.”

Mayer also stated that the primary contaminants in the leaked water are strontium 90 and tritium [radioactive hydrogen], “both carcinogenic,” according to the UPI.

“Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), both said drinking water tested two miles from the plant was found contaminant free,” the UPI said.

However, an NRC report released earlier this October concluded that “the potential exists for unplanned and unmonitored releases of radioactive releases [from nuclear plants] to migrate offsite into the public domain.”

Another NRC document reported that Entergy found levels of tritium exceeding the EPA’s standard for drinking water in a sample taken from a groundwater monitoring well on the grounds of Indian Point on October 5, 2005.

The same document reported levels of tritium in mid October last year in “samples from 5 shallow wells” near Indian Point Unit 2’s “spent fuel pool’s south wall leak.”

Spent fuel pools hold nuclear fuel rods removed from reactors. The fuel rods are commercially spent, as far as use in generating electricity, but remain highly radioactive for generations.

Indian Point consists of the permanently closed down Unit 1 reactor, and the still operating Units 2 and 3. Entergy’s Mayer said in the UPI story that the company would begin to clean up the leaked lake at the end of the month—just in time for Halloween.

Entergy bought up the 30+ year old Indian Point nukes during a fire sale splurge in recent years that made it the largest nuke plant owner and operator in the Northeast, and the second largest in the US.

Entergy refused to lend any aid to its bankrupt subsidiary Entergy New Orleans after the Katrina disaster, except to extend it a $200 million line of credit. But it continued to expand its nuclear empire last summer, when it bought the aged Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan for the bargain price of $350 million last July.

Entergy is also spending millions more planning to build new nuclear plants at its River Bend nuclear site in Louisiana and its Grand Gulf nuclear plant in Mississippi. The Department of Energy is subsidizing that effort by providing matching funds.

Meanwhile Entergy New Orleans had to resort to pandering for federal bailout funds, in the form of scarce Community Development Block Grants handed out by the state of Louisiana in disaster relief. Entergy ended up with $200 million, though it initially wanted over $700 million. ENO plans to raise more revenue by gouging what customers it has left in the Crescent City with steep rate hikes.

ENO’s parent company, Entergy Corporation, reported profits of $282 million for the second quarter of this year. According to the August 9, 2006 New Orleans Times-Picayune, the corporation had achieved “million in profits for the third quarter in a row.”