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"A man died Monday as he was working under water at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., officials said. The unidentified diver was doing working on a wall that separates the Hudson River from a discharge canal when he stopped responding to communication checks, according to Entergy Nuclear, which owns the Indian Point Energy Center. A canal channels water back to the river after being used to cool a reactor or make steam. "The gentleman was doing some maintenance work under water, and when a co-worker up above asked him a question and he did not respond, he was pulled up immediately," said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for the Indian Point plant."

"The State Department of Environmental Conservation will certainly get an earful when proponents and opponents of Indian Point nuclear power plants address the agency at two public hearings in Cortlandt Manor this afternoon and evening. The DEC has refused to certify Entergy's once-through cooling of Hudson River water and that certification is necessary to receive Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve of 20 year extensions for the two power plant reactors. Several environmental groups have called for construction of large cooling towers, but Entergy says they will cost far more than the system they are advocating using "wedge-wire", take years to build, as well as disrupt the viewshed. Rockland Economic Development Corporation President Ronald Hicks urged the DEC to take another look."

"Riverkeeper has petitioned the state Department of Environmental Conservation urging the agency to uphold its decision not to grant certification to Entergy on the grounds that its Indian Point nuclear power plant does not meet state water quality standards. Entergy needs that certification as part of its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the plant's licenses for another 20 years. Riverkeeper's petition supports DEC's decision that continued operation of the power plant would violate state clean water standards and continued use of the once-through cooling system would lead to ongoing harmful impacts to the Hudson River's ecology and aquatic species, said staff attorney Deborah Brancato."

Federal regulators want Indian Point to address 17 safety issues before considering whether the plant's two nuclear reactors can operate for an extra 20 years. Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Indian Point, has applied to generate electricity though 2035, and is now going through a three-year review to determine how an extension will affect the environment and overall plant safety. Advertisement The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff are scrutinizing the underground radioactive water leaks at the Buchanan site, and examining the wear and tear inside the concrete containment buildings that cover the huge reactors.

The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, New York is showing its age. Patches of rust scar its gray concrete domes, and a derelict smokestack looms over the decades-old facility, which still commands a choice view of the Hudson River. "There are very toxic, highly irradiated tanks partially buried on site," says attorney Phillip Musegaas, who serves as Hudson River Program Director for Riverkeeper, the nonprofit guardian of the Hudson River and protector of 2,000 square miles of watershed that feed New York City's water supply. Plant owner Entergy Corp. is hop

The presidentially appointed commission that oversees the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected an appeal by the groups and a state assemblyman challenging the Indian Point license renewal application under the umbrella of WestCAN. The groups include the Westchester Citizens Awareness Network (WestCAN), Rockland County Conservation Association, Public Health and Sustainable Energy (PHASE), Sierra Club -- Atlantic Chapter and state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky. On July 31, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel handling the Indian Point license renewal hearing expelled WestCAN from the proceeding. It did so because the counsel for WestCAN repeatedly disregarded agency regulations and instructions from the panel. In its ruling Tuesday, the commission upheld the expulsion, noting that the actions by WestCAN's counsel have "seriously disrupted the Board's efforts to meet its responsibility to conduct a fair, orderly and efficient hearing, has interfered with the other participants' efforts to use their own litigation resources efficiently, and has made our own review of the appellate documents and the underlying record far more time-consuming than necessary."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will solicit public comments at two meetings on Thursday, Feb. 12, regarding its preliminary conclusion that environmental impacts would not preclude a 20-year extension of the operating license for the Indian Point nuclear power plant. A draft environmental impact statement on the proposed license renewal contains the information. The report, which was issued in December, will be discussed first at a meeting to be held at 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 12 at the Colonial Terrace event facility, 119 Oregon Road in Cortlandt Manor, N.Y. A second session will get under way at 7 p.m. on the same day at the same location.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) with Open Items for the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for Indian Point nuclear power plant, Units 2 and 3. Entergy submitted an application to the NRC in April 2007 to extend the Indian Point licenses by 20 years. The plant, operated by Entergy, is located in Buchanan (Westchester County), N.Y. The current 40-year operating licenses expire Sept. 28, 2013, for Unit 2, and Dec. 12, 2015, for Unit 3. The SER documents the results of the NRC staff's review of the license renewal application and site audit of Indian Point's aging management programs to address the safety of plant operations during the period of extended operation. Overall, the results show that Entergy has identified actions that have been or will be taken to manage the effects of aging in the appropriate systems, structures, and components of the plant and that their functions will be maintained during the period of extended operation. In a letter dated Jan. 15, Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation's Division of License Renewal, provided Entergy with the SER and requested responses to the open items by March 16. The SER is available on NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html.

The Indian Point nuclear plant's impact on the Hudson River will be central to a case heading for the country's highest court Tuesday - and a final decision could affect operations at 550 power plants across the United States. Advertisement The U.S. Supreme Court's nine justices are set to hear Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc., a battle over whether the Clean Water Act allows federal regulators to weigh costs, as well as benefits, when protecting the environment. New Orleans-based Entergy, which is the plant's owner, and the energy industry think costs should be considered. Environmentalists do not.

WASHINGTON -- The NRC has issued its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Indian Point nuclear power plant license renewal application. The staff's preliminary recommendation is that the presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC should accept the environmental impacts of license renewal for Indian Point 2 and 3. The recommendation is based on the analysis and findings in the agency's Generic Environmental Impact Statement for license renewal reviews; the environmental report submitted by Entergy as part of its application; consultation with other federal, state and local agencies; the NRC staff's independent review of environmental impacts; and consideration of public comments submitted.

Hudson River fish won't be left out of the debate over whether Indian Point should be allowed to operate an extra 20 years. Federal regulators agreed today that the aquatic health of the historic body of water must be included in any environmental review of the nuclear plant's application to continue operating until 2035. Advertisement "For Indian Point, (the staff) did find that for some of these (environmental) areas, the impacts would be small-to-moderate, or in the case of the aquatic species, small-to-large," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Nos. 2 and 3; Notice of Availability of the Draft Supplement 38 to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants and Public Meeting for the License Renewal of Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Nos. 2 and 3

Indian Point is taking its case on cooling towers to court. The nuclear plant's owners are battling the state Department of Environmental Conservation to determine whether they must construct special towers to cool Hudson River water used to produce electricity. Advertisement The cost to build the concrete towers has been estimated as high as $1.5 billion. Company officials say studies on fish in the river that they've done for more than two decades - under the supervision of the state agency - don't make the environmental case for such a large-scale change.

A Sept. 29 letter published in your paper ("Dumping strontium into river dangerous") needs correcting. When Entergy purchased the Indian Point nuclear power plants several years ago, it made a commitment to remove all the used fuel from the old Unit 1 reactor (which was shut down in 1974 by then-owner Consolidated Edison). Strontium-90, a radioactive nuclide, has been identified in groundwater samples near the plant, and this was unacceptable to Entergy. The removal of this fuel now means that the source of the contaminant is removed.

Workers have removed spent nuclear fuel rods from Indian Point 1 and expect to drain 500,000 gallons of radioactive water from the dead reactor's storage pool by the end of the year. The move should end strontium 90 contamination at the plant, company and regulatory officials say. Advertisement "We've said from the beginning that an essential part of the strategy for reducing additional contamination was removing the fuel and draining the pool," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "It's believed to be the primary source of strontium contamination at the site."

The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan is pledging millions to follow the operational advice of an independent safety evaluation panel. The 12-person panel of industry experts was hired in March to evaluate safety, security and emergency preparedness at the controversial plant. The more than $4-million study was conducted over the summer, and last week, plant officials unveiled their five-year, $100 million blueprint of changes. Adjustments include:

Officials at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan can cross a big chore off their to-do list. A leaking waste-containment pool, containing 500,000 gallons of radioactive water and spent fuel rods, has been drained and cleaned. The bulk of the work was completed at the end of October, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The last step is for work crews to coat the pool and do some other maintenance-related work, thus solving a problem that surfaced several years ago. In August 2005, a dangerous dose of strontium-90, a carcinogenic isotope, was detected in storm drains and groundwater around the riverside power plant. The contamination was eventually traced back to a leaking spent fuel pool for reactor Unit 1, which was shut down in the 1970s.

A plan by the owner of Vermont Yankee and the Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Massachusetts to spin off five nuclear reactors under a new company could be in jeopardy because of Wall Street's financial crisis. Entergy Corp., which is based in New Orleans, wants to fold the plants into Enexus Energy Corp., a new company. To complete the deal, Enexus, a publicly traded Delaware holding company, must raise $4.5 billion to buy the nuclear plants in New York, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts from Entergy.

For a newly hatched striped bass in the Hudson River, a clutch of trout eggs in Lake Michigan or a baby salmon in San Francisco Bay, drifting a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death. Sucked in with enormous volumes of water, battered against the sides of pipes and heated by steam, the small fry of the aquatic world are being sacrificed in large numbers each year to the cooling systems of power plants around the country.

Indian Point's owner says it still expects to spin its nuclear plants off into a separate company despite the credit crisis that has racked the global economy this month. "We know what's going on in the market," said Jim Steets, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point. "But we expect that we are going to be complete the financing necessary for the spin-off by the end of the fourth quarter."