BUCHANAN – Holtec’s plan to discharge low-level radioactive water from the defunct Indian Point power plant is safe and a practice that has been going on in virtually all nuclear plants in the U.S., a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Mid-Hudson News on Monday.
Area public officials and environmental groups have been screaming bloody murder about Holtec’s plan, but NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said even when nuclear plants are operational, they discharge low levels of radioactivity to the waterway on which they are located, whether it is an ocean, bay, lake or river.
“In the case of Indian Point, the plant has been doing radioactive water discharges throughout its operational life but these releases don’t occur until after the water has been filtered ands treated and then checked for its radioactive content,” he said. “Then the water is released in batches and it’s greatly diluted once it mixes in the water that is already in the waterway.”
Sheehan said the NRC also conducts inspections to ensure that a plant’s program for conducting those releases is in compliance with the agency’s regulations. And Holtec must maintain a program that checks on radioactivity levels in the surrounding environment.
