BUCHANAN – Westchester County Executive George Latimer and Rockland County Executive Ed day are fuming over Holtec’s announcement that it will star released treated wastewater from the shutdown Indian Point nuclear power plant into the Hudson River next month.
“The announcement by Holtec to expedite this plan, in the midst of ongoing discussions with state officials, community stakeholders and local municipalities, is an outrageous one,” said Latimer, in whose county Indian Point is located in Buchanan.
“The impacted communities have far too much at stake for any treated water dumping to occur on a timeline quicker than what was expected. It is a mistake for Holtec to act before full public vetting of all options and acting without convincing residents and local governments why the other options have been overridden for consideration,” he said.
The county executive said through the Indian Point Decommissioning Board, of which the county is a member, he is requesting “an exact list of all elements and components which will be tested for. I am urging Holtec and all parties involved to suspend their current plans, and to hold continued conversations on this decision and any subsequent actions that may be taken in order to ensure that residents of and visitors to our beautiful, scenic riverfronts are best protected.”
The shuttered power plant is located directly across the Hudson River from North Rockland County and Executive Day called it “utterly outrageous for Holtec to expedite their plan to dump one million gallons of toxic waste into the Hudson River from August to early May.”
Day called it “unconscionable and unfathomable for this company to snub the unanimous opposition against this, disregard the dangers, and dump their waste into the river sooner than anticipated.”
The Rockland County executive said, “Despite pending New York State legislation to ban the discharging of radioactive waste in the Hudson River, a petition with over 400,000 signatures, and multiple municipalities including the County of Rockland signing resolutions objecting to the plan Holtec is choosing to clearly ignore everyone in elected office including the people of Rockland & Westchester who share this river.”
