The following are articles, editorials and letters in general about Indian Point. You can also find specific articles and commentary about the leak at Indian Point 2 discovered in September, 2005.

BUCHANAN — Indian Point 2 shut down yesterday morning so repairs could be made to a packing seal on a valve that regulates the flow of nonradioactive water to one of the plant's four steam generators.

A spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point, said the plant had to be shut down — the first time in 383 days of continuous operation — in order to make the repair.

One of two working nuclear reactors at the site, Indian Point 2 produces about 1,000 megawatts of power, an estimated 5 percent of the electrical power grid that serves New York.

Steets said the reactor's power would be reduced to about 2 percent of its normal operation and would remain there until the valve is repaired.

Company officials' only real concern about the repair was breaking their continuous operation streak.

"This is one of the longest continuous runs in the plant's history," said Paul Rubin, Indian Point's operations general manager, "and it's a credit to the Indian Point workers for demonstrating their attention to safety and operations and maintenance skills."

Indian Point 3, which was taken down for repairs during the first week in October, continues to operate at full power, company officials said.

The following letter is in the December 13, 2005 New York Observer, responding to the NYO editorial of December 5 that appears just below the letter.

Editorial from December 5th, 2005

Travesty at Indian Point

Why is Indian Point still in business?

We’ve asked that very question several times on this page, and we ask it again. Why is Indian Point, a nuclear danger to millions of residents in one of the most crowded regions of the country, still in business?

Here is the latest evidence in favor of closing Indian Point: Small quantities of radioactive water are leaking from a pool that stores spent fuel rods. Nobody can quite figure out the source of the leak. That in itself is a scary thought.

Word of the leak comes after the plant’s sirens, which are supposed to signal an emergency, failed several tests. With good reason, federal officials are investigating security at this dangerous and unnecessary power plant.

Indian Point’s owners, the Entergy Corp., say they’re doing everything they can to find the source of the radioactive leak. Residents have been told that there is nothing to fear; that the leak amounts to only about a quart or two a day.

But, of course, the problems at Indian Point go beyond this leak—which is hardly a minor issue anyway. Indian Point is a national-security threat to the city of New York and its surrounding communities. A terrorist strike there would be a global catastrophe, so horrible that, as Nikita Khruschev said in another era of nuclear-powered fears, the living would envy the dead.

It is infuriating to realize that Governor George Pataki could shut down Indian Point single-handedly. But once again, the lame-duck Governor is demonstrating his stupidity on an issue that means so much to so many New Yorkers. He will be remembered as a passive man who did nothing—after the horror of 9/11—to prevent this disaster in the making.

Why is Indian Point still in business? Because the Governor of New York is afraid to act. That’s why.

December 09, 2005

Emergency plan in works

By Greg Bruno
Times Herald-Record
gbruno@th-record.com

Goshen - In the three months since Hurricane Katrina decimated Gulf states, killing hundreds, officials here have been working to incorporate lessons learned from that disaster into regional emergency planning closer to home.

Dominick Greene, deputy commissioner for emergency management, offered lawmakers examples yesterday.

"The evacuation plan is a living document," Greene told members of the public safety and emergency services committee. "There are still lessons being learned."

Immediately after the storm, New Orleans had difficulty with bus drivers and other emergency personnel abandoning their posts to "take care of family," Greene said.

If a large-scale evacuation were to be ordered in the area - for example, caused by a release of radiation from the Indian Point nuclear power plant - Greene said orders would be given to assist first responders' families quickly.

Other ideas incorporated into the county's plan include keeping gas stations well-stocked to avoid fuel shortages; staggering evacuations to keep traffic moving on escape routes; and improving communication capabilities.

Holes do remain, but nonetheless, officials say Orange County residents are better off today than before Katrina hit.

"In emergency management," commissioner Walter Koury said, "there is no plan that's ever finished

Old civil defense siren comes to life - at 1:15 a.m.

November 30, 2005, 12:53 PM EST

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. (AP) _ An old civil defense siren that had not been used in 15 to 20 years suddenly went off in the middle of the night, rousing hundreds of residents and lighting up the Police Department's switchboard like never before, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"We got 42 "911" calls and more than 60 non-emergency calls, almost simultaneously," when the siren began wailing at about 1:15 a.m., said Yorktown Police Lt. Donald Schuck.

Some callers asked if there was an air raid, but more feared an emergency at the Indian Point nuclear power plants a few miles away in Buchanan, Schuck said. Some just wanted to get it turned off so they could go back to sleep.

In fact, there was no emergency and it wasn't one of Indian Point's 156 sirens. Investigators think some faulty wiring led to a short circuit that set off the lone siren at a firehouse on Route 132 and Locksley Road in Yorktown Heights.

It sounded for about 40 minutes before Yorktown Heights Fire Chief Martin McGannon, who was surprised the thing worked at all, managed to turn it off.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

What if the worst happened? What if there were a catastrophe at the Indian Point nuclear power plants? What if there were even a very expensive repair needed at Indian Point? What would Entergy, the owner that claims to be so concerned with our community, do?

Now, after Entergy's response to Hurricane Katrina has been made public, the answer is clear: Entergy would cut and run. Entergy does not really own Indian Point — instead, it has set up a number of limited liability corporations, which own these nuclear reactors. What does that mean to us? It means that money flows in one direction — up from these LLCs to the $10 billion parent company. It means that when the LLC has financial difficulties, Entergy selectively forgets the $1 million-a-day income per reactor it has been pocketing and lets its subsidiary LLC go bankrupt, instead of sending back some of these profits to help the community.

This is not some paranoid fiction put forth by a plant opponent — this is what Entergy did with Entergy New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As people still suffer from lack of power, Entergy feels no pain, with Entergy New Orleans having put itself into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, creating even more delay and uncertainty in the restoration of electric service to the community.

Sirens won't help residents escape
(Original publication: November 30, 2005)

Fixing the emergency siren system at Indian Point may give a false sense of security to some, but what's the point of a warning system when there can be no escape?

Imagine sitting in traffic during a normal rush hour. Make that Friday afternoon; add a rain storm. Now picture our highways on the Friday of a July Fourth weekend, or on Thanksgiving Day. We all know what that's like. I hope we never have to experience what it would be like trying to get anywhere in the event of a nuclear accident or an attack on Indian Point. Sirens or not!

Small Leak at Indian Point Eludes Diver and Cameras

BUCHANAN, N.Y. - A drop of radioactive water leaks every minute from the pool that stores the spent fuel rods at Indian Point 2 here. The water is captured in a plastic sheet and then channeled into a plastic bottle for disposal. It adds up to a quart or two a day.

Federal officials and the plant's owners say there is no danger from the leaking water, which contains tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. But plant operators have still not pinpointed the source. And because the plant was built when detection systems were not required, the leak went unnoticed until discovered almost by chance when workers excavating around the pool noticed dampness in the surrounding dirt.

The leak, which was found in September, has been the latest worry for local officials and nearby residents concerned about the Indian Point nuclear reactors. It comes on top of repeated failures in tests of the plant's sirens, which are meant to warn of an emergency. Federal security experts also began a reassessment of the plant's security in September, which they have declined to discuss.

"It added on to the other issues that we have with Indian Point, like the sirens," Susan Tolchin, a spokeswoman for Westchester County, said of the leak. She also questioned whether the leak was the only one.

Plant officials have been searching for the source of the leak for the past two months. They have lowered remote-controlled cameras into the 35-foot-deep pool that stores the plant's spent fuel rods, and they even sent a diver wearing radiation monitors to look at flaws found by the camera for evidence of the leak, with no luck.

While there is no assurance that the leak can be fixed, Don Leach, a project manager at Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the reactor, said, "We are going to do everything we can to get there." Monitoring wells are also being drilled to detect contamination.

"We're required to monitor and control our releases, so this is something we have to deal with," said Don Mayer, a radiological engineer who has been involved in finding the source of the leak. Even so, he said, from the standpoint of the environment, health risks and safety risks, it is almost negligible. "The offsite dose is essentially zero," he said.

Indian Point's first plan for stopping the leak was to bring in a diver that Entergy hired, Tim Fisher, 39, of Tucson, who said he has been working as a commercial diver for 17 years. His company, Underwater Construction Corporation of Essex, Conn., has sent him into lakes and rivers and to about 15 nuclear plants to repair parts that must be kept submersed to limit radiation. Mr. Fisher examined three spots in the Indian Point pool, but none of them were the source of the leak.

Mr. Fisher goes into the spent fuel pool with a radiation monitor on each arm, each leg, his back and his head. Readings are instantaneously fed to the surface.

After a series of dives, he recently sat with a colleague, Rene Breault, as they dubbed video images of the pool's inner liner and of Mr. Fisher's dive onto compact discs. Stuck to the wall near his workstation with a piece of duct tape, a hand-written note showed how much radiation exposure he could absorb before the end of this year. Under the plant's rule, he is limited to 1,167 millirem, the amount that the average American absorbs in about three and a half years from natural and man-made sources. He said he was unlikely to get close to that amount on this job; in his last dive, he absorbed about 15 millirem, he said.

He professed little concern about working a few feet from the highly radioactive fuel, which is stored in water that acts as a radiation shield. "Whatever it takes," he said.

He has explored almost all of the pool area that is accessible to humans. Soon Entergy will begin with a smaller camera that can squeeze into the bottom 15 feet of the pool, the area between the side of the fuel rods and the wall. Finding the source of the leak there would be reassuring, company officials say, because they would know where it is, although it is not clear how they would repair it.

Tritium levels above the drinking water limit have been found at only one monitoring well near the storage pool, and no wells in the area are used for drinking water, company officials say. Tritium is produced as a byproduct in nuclear reactors producing electricity. Small amounts are routinely released as plants like Indian Point continuously filter out radioactive contaminants like strontium and cesium from water from its reactors, and release the water.

To put the leak in perspective, plant officials say the two Indian Point operating reactors already legally discharge into the Hudson every year an amount of tritium 18,000 times greater than what is now leaking.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, recently met with the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and called for a "comprehensive plan" to deal with the leak, as well as swifter notification of local officials whenever there are problems at the plant. Earlier this month the commission promised enhanced oversight, Mrs. Clinton announced.

Engel pushes for Indian Point security report

By GREG CLARY
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: November 25, 2005)

Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said the company has completed all of the video inspections it can in the 40-foot-deep, 400,000-gallon tank without smaller cameras and other equipment. That portion of the inspection will take place as soon as possible, he said.

"We've done all we can without having to modify the camera or use different equipment," Steets said. "We won't be sending in a diver to look at the area that's left."

The water is leaking at the rate of about a liter per day, and the source
still has not been determined.

"The third flaw turned up nothing, zero," Steets said. "We never put a lot
of stock into that idea, but we needed to check it."

Now the company must become more creative in finding the source, he said.

Since the discovery of the leak Aug. 22, engineers at Indian Point have said that it would take time to determine its origin.

Steets said Entergy would continue to look in the spent-fuel pool for the
leak, though company engineers have not ruled out that the leak might be
coming from elsewhere.

"It's possible that it could be somewhere else in the pool, but it's
possible it's coming from somewhere else," Steets said.

The Department of Homeland Security is delaying a report on the security of navigable waters around the nation's nuclear power plants until 2007, and a group of New York's elected representatives in Washington wants some answers.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, wrote Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff at the beginning of the month asking that the report, due during
the summer, be released. Engel said he didn't hear from Chertoff's office
until he sent a second letter containing the additional signatures of his 19
Democratic colleagues from the New York delegation.

Among those joining Engel in signing that letter were Reps. Nita Lowey,
D-Harrison and Charles Rangel, D-Manhattan.

Pamela Turner, an assistant secretary for Homeland Security, told Engel in her Nov. 17 response that an interim report would be available to Congress in 30 to 60 days and that the full report would be part of a more comprehensive vulnerability assessment that would be sent to Congress in the fall of 2007.

Engel said that schedule was too slow for an issue as sensitive as security.

"That's obviously not acceptable," he said. "I'd like to know why we were never informed that the one-year deadline was not going to be met. Are they arrogant enough to think they can disregard a congressional mandate? Why did it take missing the deadline and a letter from me and my colleagues before we get any kind of response?"

Brian Doyle, a Homeland Security spokesman, said a second letter from the department would go out immediately to let the congressional delegation know that the interim report would be available as early as next week.

During congressional consideration of the vulnerability review, Doyle said, the task was "elevated and broadened" to allow for a more comprehensive review of how to protect nuclear plants.

"It's not like we've been sitting here twiddling our thumbs," Doyle said.
"We are moving as fast as we can on this."

Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, overall security at the
Indian Point nuclear power plants in Buchanan was upgraded to include the posting of Coast Guard cutters until a state militia marine unit was
stationed there full time. The property is on the bank of the Hudson River.

Indian Point officials said a fully staffed militia boat was posted in the
Hudson around the clock and there was no means by which a vessel could get to the site from the water.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point, said even a rocket fired from a boat would not be able to penetrate the containment buildings' 4-foot-thick concrete walls.

Cmdr. Pete Gautier, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, which conducted the water-security portion of the review for Homeland Security, said Indian Point was one of 11 locations nationwide that have been assessed. Forty sites in the country are on navigable water, and all will be reviewed before the report is finished, he said.

Gautier said the interim report going out soon to Congress probably would not deal with the specifics of each plant, but rather the commonalities of their security needs and plans.

Details of security measures at nuclear power plants are mostly classified,
federal and Entergy officials said.

'We have bullet-resistant observation towers. The towers give us 360-degree visual and video capabilities.'

Can the Indian Point nuclear power plant, just 17 miles away from Bedford, withstand a terrorist attack? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking the public that question by inviting comments that could eventually change security regulations at the nation's 103 nuclear power facilities.

Nuclear power plants were required to upgrade security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. By 2003 some upgrades were in place, but for many nuclear watchdog groups the upgrades were minimal and a new round of petitions to the NRC requested a stronger security force at the plants.

NRC commissioner Greg Jaczko said last week at a Nuclear Policy Research Institute conference in Virginia, attended by The Record-Review, that the public has 75 days to comment on nuclear power plant security.

"The industry will know about the updates when the ruling is finalized, which will be in about six to nine months, or even a year," said Dr. Jaczko.

But exact details on plant security can't be shared with the public because the information is deemed "safeguarded."

"They can comment on broad general descriptions like protection against bombs, paramilitary groups, or types of vehicles and things of that nature."

The NRC's proposed rule says that "the lack of information on the security is to guard against potential adversaries that could exploit the information."

So how can the public fully comment on any security upgrades? Dr. Jaczko said, "It's one of the difficult challenges regarding a rule-making like this."

Enhanced security upgrades include protection against radiological sabotage such as theft of special nuclear material, violent external assault, and attack by stealth and from multiple entry points to the plants.

Language in the proposed amendment further suggests that nuclear power plants be able to defend against "dedicated individuals willing to kill or be killed, a range of weapons to include hand-held automatic weapons, and the ability to defend against internal threats."

Also suggested is more protection by increased guard patrols, additional physical barriers, improved coordination with law enforcement and the military, revised security plans, more security officer training, and contingency response plans.

Not being considered by the NRC is safeguarding airspace, a concern for many area residents, since the jets that bombarded the World Trade Center on 9/11 flew directly over the plants at Indian Point.

"It's not within our authority," said Dr. Jaczko. "The no-fly zones are under the Department of Energy and the Federal Aviation Agency."

Neil Sheehan, the NRC spokesman for Region 1, covering Indian Point, said a no-fly zone would have to be many miles wide to have any real impact.

"If a no-fly zone is five miles in diameter, a plane going 500 miles an hour will cross that no-fly zone very rapidly. If the zone were 10 miles in diameter, the plane would cross it in a matter of seconds. For a no-fly zone to be meaningful you really have to make it quite large."

If larger no-fly zones were in place on the East Coast, where numerous nuclear power plants and chemical facilities densely dot the map, air traffic would be slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped altogether, said Mr. Sheehan.

"A much more practical approach would be to deal with these problems at the airports with better screening of passengers, stronger cockpit doors," he said. "That's the best way to ensure that planes don't fall into the wrong hands."

Mr. Sheehan added that the North American Aerospace Defense Command is also responsible for monitoring airspace over the United States.

One of the groups petitioning to change the current security rule is the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based nuclear watchdog organization. Dan Hirsch, president of the group, said that when all is said and done, the new rule will not require the industry to do anything beyond what was done a few years ago.

"It's a very misleading document," said Mr. Hirsch about the current proposed rule. "It will codify the status quo."

Mr. Hirsch, who was also at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute conference, said the new energy bill directed the NRC to revise security rules known as the "design basis threat" and to take into account attacks of the magnitude of 9/11, attacks by air, and attacks by large groups. Implied but not spelled out in the energy bill was protection for plants from as much as 19 individual attackers, the same number that attacked on 9/11.

"We have been pushing for [guarding against] 19-plus attackers and attack by air," said Mr. Hirsch. "Those are not in the proposed rule. The NRC has declined so far to do any of that. The proposal is to make no improvements."

The Committee to Close the Gap also suggested that plants construct shields against air attack. These shields are sometimes referred to as "beamhenge," which is a line of steel beams set vertically in deep concrete and placed around a plant, decreasing its vulnerability to an air attack from a fully loaded jumbo jet similar to what occurred on 9/11.

"There are people who feel very strongly about beamhenges," said Mr. Sheehan. "But the commission has not agreed with that philosophy."

Surrounding the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in southeastern Pennsylvania are 990 11-ton concrete blocks and $200-a-foot fencing topped with razor wire. Ten new guard towers - some six stories high - give armed guards broad vistas of possible approaches to the plant.

Jim Steets, spokesperson for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owners of Indian Point plants one and two, said Indian Point has upgraded security to meet the current NRC requirements.

"We have bullet-resistant observation towers," he said. "The towers give us 360-degree visual and video capabilities. There's a completely new 10-foot-high fence with concertina wire, and we now have vehicle barriers at the base of the outer perimeter of the property, enhanced perimeter barriers, personnel barriers."

A new permanent group of guards hired by Entergy provide 24-hour surveillance of the plants, said Mr. Steets.

"They are armed with new weapons, semiautomatic weapons," he said. "Drills have included scenarios with an insider person who might work with the attackers, someone who has access, someone with a badge. We've also had drills for water-based attacks."

Mr. Steets said that all drills are determined by the NRC, which is advised by federal intelligence agencies.

Although local politicians have reviewed the security improvements at Indian Point, they are still bringing the NRC to task.

Congressman Sue Kelly (R-19) said in an e-mailed statement, "The bottom line is the NRC must always exercise utmost scrutiny in its evaluation of a plant's defenses. These security evaluations need to be based on the reality of any possible terrorist threat we face. Anything less is unacceptable."

Mrs. Kelly is also asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to re-examine emergency preparedness plans for the areas surrounding the Indian Point nuclear power plants.

Last year, Congressman Eliot Engel and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton requested a U.S. Coast Guard review citing vulnerabilities of nuclear power plants. The report has yet to be released. Since 9/11, the NRC, FEMA, and the U.S. Coast Guard have testified before many congressional hearings on protecting the country against terrorist attacks of nuclear power plants.

United States Congressman Ed Markey, a Democrat representing the 7th District of Massachusetts, was also a presenter at the conference in Virginia. He said there is no follow-up for the various congressional hearings.

"Congress is a stimulus-response institution, and there's nothing more stimulating than a near-term interest of a Republican congressman," said Mr. Markey. "Nothing will happen, there won't be any significant oversight, and no significant hearings in Congress at all. The Bush administration does not want to deal with the reality of the al Qaeda documents found about targeting nuclear power plants, where Indian Point is, what the safety issues are - it would run totally contrary to the agenda of the Bush administration, who are subsidizing a new generation of nuclear power."

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would amend its regulations governing the requirements pertaining to the design basis threat (DBT).

Comments must be received within 75 days of publication in the Federal Register to guarantee consideration by the NRC. Comments submitted later than this date may be considered if practical.

They can be mailed to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., 20555-0001, Attn.: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff.

Comments can be hand-carried to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on federal work days, or they can be faxed to 301-415-1101.

E-mail comments can also be sent to SECY@nrc.gov. In addition, comments can also be submitted through the NRC's eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. The entire proposed rule will also be available at that Web location. More information about the DBT and security requirements for NRC licensees can be found on the NRC's Web site.

Indian Point sirens to be replaced

By Greg Bruno
Times Herald-Record
gbruno@th-record.com

Peekskill – Following months of political pressure that wound its way to Washington, the owners of Indian Point have made a commitment to replace their nuclear plant's troubled siren system by 2007.

The timeline has yet to be established, but Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns and operates the twin reactors in northern Westchester County, offered details into what they hope to do during a public meeting here Wednesday.

Mike Slobodien, emergency programs director for Entergy, said plans call for multi-directional sirens that would likely be louder than the current Cold War-era rotating horns that dot the region.

In addition, electronic gadgetry – possibly military-grade – will give greater information and feedback to local officials; backup batteries would enable the system to function during blackouts; and the elimination of moving parts would reduce breakage.

Currently, 156 sirens in four counties – Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester – surround the Buchanan plant. In the event of a radiological emergency, officials in each county trigger the sirens with telephone lines or radio frequencies.

But months of poor test results have eroded public confidence in the system, federal regulators say.

"It's more than hardware," Sam Collins, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's top reactor safety official, told Entergy managers. "We're up here for a reason, and that's clearly because people are concerned."

So are elected officials. Earlier this year, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton added a provision into an energy bill that required Entergy to make improvements.

"We intend to use tested, proven technology," Slobodien said. "We want to use something that's tried and true."

No vendor has been selected for the multimillion dollar project, and the company has only begun the arduous task of gaining local, state and federal approval.

"We're committed to this aggressive schedule, but this is a very large system," Entergy's emergency director said. "The implementation of a new system will take time."

Plant critics who attended the Wednesday forum – officially advertised as a meeting between the NRC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Entergy – interpreted that to mean delays are inevitable.

"It is your job to not let them spin the numbers," Mark Jacobs, of the anti-plant Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, told NRC officials during a heated-public comment period.
"And I don't think you're taking that job too seriously."

Indian Point siren tests show improvement

Indian Point's two tests of its emergency network of 156 sirens yesterday found only a few problems, results that local emergency officials found encouraging after two earlier, larger failures.

Between 9:55 and 10:35 a.m., the nuclear plants in Buchanan ran two tests — one of the backup and another of the primary notification system over four counties — and the preliminary results showed connectivity problems with two sirens in Rockland County and five in Westchester.

All the sirens in Putnam and Orange counties worked during both tests, an emergency official said.

Throughout the last few years, the four counties and Indian Point officials have disagreed about whether sirens actually failed to sound or merely to register on the computer software programs that monitor their functions.

Officials representing the Indian Point nuclear plants said the actual number of sirens that failed to sound was two — one in Rockland and one in Westchester. Local emergency officials agreed with that count.

"We're pleased with the results but we're still not comfortable," said Dan Greeley, assistant director for Rockland County's Office of Fire and Emergency Services. "After two failures, the system doesn't have a good record. My recommendation will be to test the siren system more often, maybe once a month rather than quarterly."

Officials of Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the Indian Point plants, have promised to replace the siren system as soon as possible and will meet tonight in Peekskill with representatives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss alternatives to the decades-old notification system and installation of backup power.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, said the company expects to make its recommendation for a replacement at the meeting, which the public is invited to observe.

At previous meetings, the company has sought input on possible replacements from the county officials within the 10-mile emergency evacuation radius of the plants.

A key element of the new system will be tying the notification to means of communication that many people now take for granted, such as text-messaging to cell phones and mass e-mails sent to desktop and hand-held computers, in addition to interrupting regular television and radio programming.

The sirens have notified residents who can hear them since they were installed in early 1980s that they should seek more information by turning on their radios, for example, but have never been able to provide more information than the steady signal that was sounded twice yesterday.

Until another system is in place, however, county officials want to ensure that the current system will work in the event of an actual emergency.

The sirens have been a major issue in the Lower Hudson Valley for nearly three years, since the issue of whether they would sound in the event of a power failure brought backup power into the debate. As recently as the spring, the NRC declined a petition calling for backup power to be required.

Since that decision, however, the sirens have failed a number of times, including a period in which the failure went undetected for at least six hours. In the two most recent systemwide tests, whole sections of the system failed to work properly, first in Rockland in September, then in Orange County last month.

The controversy surrounding the antiquated siren alert system for emergencies at the Indian Point nuclear power plant raises serious questions about the ability of the school system and local government to protect the safety of pupils trusted to their care. The recent down rating from green to white at Indian Point 2 and leaks at the spent fuel at Indian Point 3 have also contributed to a sense of growing unease on the part of many parents.

There are ten school districts, 55 schools, and nearly 30,000 students who have never rehearsed the proper procedures for an emergency evacuation. Drills in which the schools have participated have been either “table top” drills where a single phone call to participating districts assumed complete and successful compliance or, at most, a drill where pupils were loaded onto buses but not taken to a reception center. To do anything well it is necessary to practice: an evacuation drill is no exception. If all of the many complex pieces of the puzzle designed to keep students safe are to work smoothly, the plan must be tested under the most realistic scenario possible. Just as fire drills are regularly and routinely practiced so that students and staff know how to exit the building swiftly, so must evacuation drills be practiced so that there is no question about how to respond in the event of a radiological emergency.

There are realistic precedents for this kind of testing. The TOPS 2 drills that were conducted in the Midwest revealed many unsuspected weaknesses in regional evacuation plans. Last month the state of Vermont conducted a real-time unannounced drill for the 20 schools surrounding the Yankee nuclear power plant. This is Vermont’s third such real time drill to prepare for a real disaster.

A real time drill would test the schools KI or potassium iodide distribution plan, and ensure that radiation monitors were available, that bus drivers could locate the shelters and that shelters were adequately stocked with food, water, medicine, and could accommodate all of the students assigned to them. All this is merely speculation at the present time.

Dr. Richard Kravath, a pediatrician stated that “ Children are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of radiation because their bodies absorb and metabolize toxins differently. Children are also far more likely to ingest the highly carcinogenic iodine, strontium and cesium isotopes because they put their hands in their mouths more than adults. So it is really imperative that they be rapidly evacuated and decontaminated, if exposed, and receive immediate and appropriated dosages of potassium iodide.”

There are many different elements of our community that would require careful planning in case of a radiological disaster. Children are among the most sensitive and vulnerable of all. During the recent campaign for County Executive the challenger called for a real time evacuation drill for the entire county. The incumbent’s response was that the business community would be very unhappy with a real drill because of the economic loss that would be sustained. Evacuating only the schools would help mitigate this effect.

Marilyn Elie of Westchester Citizens Awareness Network stated: ”An emergence evacuation plan is a chain in which one weak link can spell havoc. The Indian Point plan is fatally flawed. Entergy’s broken siren system is at the top of the list. Hiring an independent contractor to quickly install a fully functioning alert and notification system is the only was to ensure that the pubic will be informed.

An additional question that must be clearly answered is: ‘Who is in charge here?” Is it the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, FEMA, or Homeland Security? After the nightmare in New Orleans, it is obvious that FEMA, while normally in charge is not able to fulfill its obligation in either approving the merit of the plan or coordinating a real time drill. This is one more reason that school officials and county government must proceed on their own.

Westchester Citizens Awareness Network calls for the following items to be incorporated in the existing emergency preparedness plan:

1. Immediately install back up power for all sirens that are a part of the emergency notification system and rapidly replace them with a state-of-the-art system.

3. Distribute a 2-week supply of potassium iodide tablets to all residents within 20 miles of Indian Point.

6. Expand the Emergency Planning zone to cover all people within 50 miles of Indian Point.

7. Add sirens for full coverage of all towns within the 50-mile radius of Indian Point.

Who would have thought that the World Trade Center could have been destroyed so easily? Indian Point can be worse. Elementary vulnerabilities are arrogantly pooh-poohed by Indian Point management. Assurances that the plants are safe are empty. They would shut down the Indian Point immediately if the Price Anderson Act were abolished. This is a federal law that limits their liability to a microscopic fraction of the harm they can cause. Price Anderson destroys your property rights to protect their property rights.

Their refusal to take full responsibility for the risk they cheerfully impose on you is equaled by their satisfaction with ridiculously inadequate evacuation plans. Their rule that a 10-mile evacuation zone is good enough is stupid. One "health" physicist (at a debate) insisted that the poisons are diluted to a safe level after 10 miles. Hogwash. Each microscopic deadly particle is not diluted; it is carried by wind to harm living beings.

Highly qualified conscionable scientists have been persecuted for exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the nuclear cult. We have been confronted by a criminal fraud on a massive scale. Our government will not tell you that nukes are unsafe because they are a product of the nuclear weapons bureaucracy. Hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies have been guzzled at the expense of cleaner, safer, less costly energy alternatives. The Indian Point nukes have a long history of negligence and dishonesty. They endanger you, the entire metropolitan area and hundreds of miles beyond.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Lowers Indian Point Safety Rating

For Immediate Release
November 9, 2005

Contact: Mark Jacobs 914-382-1804 Marilyn Elie 914-739-6164

Radioactive Leaks from Irradiated Fuel Pools Raise New Worries

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) website, Indian Point 2’s safety rating has been down rated from green to white status for the second quarter. Again, the NRC has been reticent in releasing significant safety information about the plant, although the rating change occurred in August, this information has only been recently released. The plant lost its green rating because of degradation to the safety injection system over a period of several weeks—this involved the accumulation of nitrogen gas in portions of the safety injection system which caused one pump to become inoperable and would have caused the performance of the two remaining pumps to become degraded.

Mark Jacobs, spokesperson for the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) stated: “Indian Point, the first nuclear reactor to be given a red rating by the NRC after the February 2000 steam generator leak, is again moving in the wrong direction. The current profile of problems including degradation of the safety injection system, faulty sirens, failing water pumps, defective emergency sump pumps, defective fireproofing of electrical cables, two leaking irradiated fuel pools, control rods dropping unexpectedly and a backlog of over a thousands repairs show Indian Point to be too great a risk for the surrounding community.”

The number of problems at the plant has raised the concern of state and local officials. In response to this pressure the NRC recently issued a "deviation" memo that called for increased scrutiny of the reactors.

Margo Schepart of Westchester Citizens Awareness Network (WestCAN) said, "They can inspect it until the cows come home. What good is that going to do? It did not keep the spent fuel pool from leaking and it has not kept the water pump operating properly. We need to put an end to this nonsense. Indian Point is an aging plant that will unquestionably be closed. The only question is when. And the only rational answer is: as soon as possible. The minute this decision is made, the marketplace will have the incentive to develop replacement energy sources."

As has been reported, problems with the spent fuel pool at Indian Point have resulted in the leak of the radioactive isotopes tritium, cesium and cobalt into the soil and groundwater surrounding the pools. It has just been discovered that there have been similar leaks at the decommissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant. Connecticut Yankee reports the east side concrete wall shows some concentrations of cesium, cobalt, strontium and tritium, three of which are the same isotopes found leaking from the Indian Point fuel pool.

In both cases it is not known when the leak started or how much water was lost from the spent fuel pool. In fact, the Indian Point 2 Spent fuel pool is the only one in the country that was built without ‘leak detection channels’ between the steel liner and the concrete outer wall of the pool. Had the pool been built consistently with other plants’ designs, the leak would have been detected immediately. At Connecticut Yankee, monitoring equipment failed to detect a leak. The leaks were found much later by sampling water in nearby wells. In both cases radioactive isotopes are migrating away from the pool and possibly into ground water. In the case of Indian Point, the migration pathway includes the Hudson River .

Marilyn Elie of WestCAN said, “It is now evident that these pools have reached the end of their useful life. Reactors are like used cars, you can only keep patching them up for so long and then you just can't throw enough money at them to keep them operating safely.”

"It is unconscionable that nuclear corporations not only leak toxic materials, but act like its no big deal," said Deb Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness Network. "Pool leakage is a systemic problem at aging reactor sites. In western MA, Yankee Rowe's compromised fuel pool leaked tritium as well as chemicals into the groundwater. Two of the tritium plumes are double the EPA drinking water standard. This violation of the community's trust is a big deal."

While officials at Entergy continue to maintain that the amounts radioactive isotopes discovered in the water are below current regulatory limits, a recent report by the National Academy of Science determined that there is no such thing as a risk free low level of radiation. Moreover, long term exposure to low levels of radioactive isotopes is carcinogenic. Notably, regular and routine radioactive emissions are part of the everyday operation of nuclear reactors.

Indian Point is located on the Wappinger 's fault line. This fault line has caused displacement problems with conduits in the past.

Michel Lee of IPSEC questioned if earth tremors could have caused the cracks in the concrete walls of the pool and noted that cracking, fraying, breaks and corrosion are the realities of any aging system. “These problems will only get worse, if the plant is re-licensed for an additional 20 years. Indian Point is a menace to the people who live and work in the New York metropolitan region; it is a plant that was built in the wrong place, yet the $10 billion Entergy Corporation reaps hundreds of millions of dollars profit annually from Indian Point.” She added, "After Indian Point has closed, we will no longer have to face headlines like “NUKE LEAK TAINTED WELLS.”

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

November 1, 2005, 3:39 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- A long-awaited federal review of security at Indian Point
and other nuclear power plants in New York is months overdue,
infuriating some New York lawmakers.

The national review was prompted by Rep. Eliot Engel last year based on
concerns about the Indian Point facility in Buchanan, N.Y. Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton later expanded the Coast Guard effort to survey the
vulnerabilities of nuclear power plants throughout the country.

The Coast Guard was directed to assess the plants' vulnerabilities to
terror attacks from the water. The report to Congress was due Aug. 5,
almost three months ago.

"I'm told the report is written but that they're still vetting it, this
and that, and every other excuse," Engel, who represents parts of
Westchester and the Bronx, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

"I don't believe it and I really don't care. They're required to report
to Congress by a certain date and by golly they're supposed to do it by
that date," he said.

Indian Point is located about 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, residents in the surrounding
suburbs have argued the facility is not properly protected from
potential terrorism, despite assurances by federal regulators and the
company that operates the power plant, Entergy Nuclear Northeast.

Clinton, D-N.Y., said the report was needed not just for Indian Point,
but for other nuclear sites in upstate New York, including Rochester and
Oswego, and similar plants around the country.

"Indian Point and New York's other nuclear power plants are all located
on the water, and it is important that the Coast Guard evaluate whether
they are vulnerable to terrorist attack from the water," Clinton said.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Angela McArdle said the review is taking longer than a year because it involves a number of agencies, and has been expanded to look at more than just water-borne terror threats.

"The Coast Guard and the other agencies are still doing reviews and
they're still writing up their recommendations," said McArdle.

She said the review for Indian Point is complete, and the results are
now in the hands of Department of Homeland Security officials.

Security reviews have yet to be done for 29 of the 40 nuclear power
plants at issue, McArdle said. She said it was unclear when the work
would be completed.

The Bush administration has missed dozens of congressional deadlines for developing ways to safeguard infrastructure, particularly air, sea, and
rail transportation.

The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee blamed the Department of Homeland Security for being sluggish and unresponsive to lawmakers' concerns, while some of the agency's defenders fault Congress for imposing too many deadlines.

The department has to submit 256 reports to Congress every year.

Engel said the department is too big to be overworked.

"You're talking about the agency with the most employees, the most
resources, and they are the ones dedicated to overseeing the country's
homeland security. You get the feeling no one is on top of things," said
the congressman.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2005/11/communitynotebook/sustainability.php

If anything positive arose from the stunningly inept government response to the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it has come in the form of a wake-up call for communities to adopt a "better safe than sorry" attitude, and be prepared to take matters into their own hands should disaster strike.

But here in the Hudson Valley, home of the Indian Point nuclear power plant (IP), the public has heard that wake-up call before. With three original reactors, IP's 43-year history is replete with safety violations, leaks, technical glitches, even several shutdowns-including permanent closure of IP1. For all its problems, the plant, owned by the Entergy Corporation, supplies only 2,000 megawatts of power per day-or approximately 8 percent of total power to New York City and Westchester.

On September 28, simultaneous press conferences calling for the immediate closing of Indian Point were held by elected officials in Ulster, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, and Westchester Counties. The officials included Nyack's mayor John Shields, and county legislators Susan Zimet and Hector Rodriguez (Ulster) and Joel Tyner (Dutchess). The press conferences were held at the major roadways that would serve as IP evacuation routes for the 20 million people living within the plant's 50-mile radius.

The press conferences were designed to notify the public that an increasing number of elected officials consider Indian Point to be a disaster waiting to happen-a "potential Chernobyl on the Hudson," said Tyner-and if and when the worst happens, for people living in New York City as well as the Hudson Valley, there may be "nowhere to run," as claimed by the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC), a coalition formed following 9/11 of over 70 environmental, health, and public policy organizations concerned about the vulnerability of the plant to both accidents and acts of terrorism.

Situated on the east bank of the Hudson River just 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan, IP's placement has been controversial since the first of the plant's three reactors began operating in 1962, when a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) official described the location as "insane" given its proximity to such a densely populated area.

Mark Jacobs, co-director of the Longview School in Cortlandt Manor, co-founder of IPSEC and a homeowner living four miles from IP, remarked, "If we have three days to evacuate the area before any radiation is released, we're fine-I mean, we're fine in that we get away, and then we have to pay mortgages on houses that are uninhabitable, but we live through it. If we don't have three days, if it's a release that takes less time, then we have less time, we hit traffic bottlenecks, chances are we don't make it."

From all accounts, the evacuation plan is as devoid of sense as the plant's location. The plan, written immediately after the 1979 incident at Three Mile Island, does not include New York City or the Hudson Valley. It covers only a 10-mile radius around the plant, and if nuclear industry lobbyists have their way with the NRC, it may be limited further, to a 2.5-mile radius. However, says Jacobs, "Radiation doesn't stop at any barriers. We know from Chernobyl that a 50-mile radius is rendered uninhabitable. An incident at Indian Point could cause significant casualties, including the city, of over 20 million, which is 8 percent of the population of the entire US. Can you imagine-New York City and the Hudson Valley uninhabitable?"

On January 10, 2003, James Lee Witt Associates, Inc., a research firm founded by the former Federal Emergency Management Agency director, issued a comprehensive draft assessment of emergency preparedness for the area surrounding IP and portions of New York City (available at http://www.closeindianpoint.org). The report called the plan "unworkable," and found that the current evacuation "system and capabilities are not adequate to...protect the people from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release from Indian Point, especially if the release is faster or larger than the design basis release."

Based on Witt's report, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, and Ulster Counties have refused to certify the plan.

At present, 52 municipalities and 13 community boards have passed a "Close Indian Point" resolution, and more than 400 elected and public officials from the tri-state area, including 11 members of Congress, have called for the plant's closure. New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who is running for governor in 2006, has spoken out against keeping IP running, and has been holding meetings to explore alternative renewable energy resources in New York State, says Lisa Rainwater van Suntum, Riverkeeper's Indian Point campaign director. In 2003, Westchester County legislator Michael Kaplowitz testified before Congress that: "The reasons to be concerned about IP are many, but can be summarized as follows: potential operational
difficulties endemic in aging plants, a potential terrorist attack in this new, difficult age, and questionable security. When combined with the potential for disastrous consequences to people and property should something untoward happen and the inability to adequately and timely evacuate area residents within the penumbra of Indian Point, we, and you, have compelling reasons to be concerned."

This year, several incidents at and involving IP have provoked concern. Last February, a control rod at IP2 (the first plant in the nation to receive a "red rating" from the NRC in 2000, necessitating a yearlong shutdown) malfunctioned twice in less than 24 hours. In June, as the Federal Department of Transportation announced the end of a special exemption that allowed secret shipments of radioactive depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the Department of Defense, a DU shipment from IP began leaking somewhere between New York State and its storage unit destination in South Carolina, where workmen unloading the truck were exposed.

On September 20, a leak of cobalt and cesium occurred in IP2's spent-fuel pool. Although the leak initially went unannounced by Entergy for three weeks, it was eventually reported on the company's website as posing "no threat" to the populace; however, says Riverkeeper's Suntum, the website's wording has since been changed to "no immediate threat." According to Suntum, as of press time in mid-October, the leak was continuing at the rate of one liter of radioactive material per day. In late September, the plant's 156 sirens failed the mandatory emergency test for the third month in a row. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has demanded that the NRC require Entergy to provide backup power for the sirens within 18 months. On October 5, tritium (a radioactive isotope of the element hydrogen) was discovered in the plant's sampling well. At press time, it had not yet been determined whether this finding was related to the leak.

In the wake of 9/11, nuclear power plants in general and IP in particular became flashpoints for debate. It is known that IP was flown over and used by the terrorists on 9/11 as a navigational marker. Later, maps and floor plans for several American nuclear power plants were found in Afghan caves vacated by Al Qaeda members. Whether terrorists would ever actually attack IP is anyone's guess. However, Imagining the Unimaginable, an HBO/Cinemax documentary, shows that small aircraft hovering over the plant go unnoticed and undeterred. IP's security chief testified on film to inept staff training-despite being scripted toward security team victory, the guards playing the roles of terrorists still managed to win entry to the plant-and was promptly fired.

IP's licenses for plants 2 and 3 expire in 2013 and 2015, respectively, and Entergy is applying for 20-year extensions. Westchester, Rockland, Ulster, and New Jersey's Hudson County, along with several municipalities, have passed resolutions against IP's license renewal. Legislators from these and other Hudson Valley counties plan to hold regular press conferences to update the public on the fight against relicensing as well as IP's problems. For more information, contact Susan Zimet at zauerbach1@aol.com or (845) 255-2117. To find out how to help, visit http://www.riverkeeper.org for a list of "What You Can Do" and "Eighteen Reasons Why Indian Point Should be Safely Decommissioned."

County executive candidates spar in key debate

By GLENN BLAIN
gblain@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: October 27, 2005)

YONKERS — Things got testy between Republican Rob Astorino and County Executive Andrew Spano during a televised debate last night as the two candidates sparred relentlessly on taxes and public safety issues, including Indian Point.

In their first head-to-head debate, Astorino repeatedly accused the Democrat Spano of being "out-of-touch" with the needs of struggling families and allowing county property taxes to surge by nearly 40 percent in recent years. The taxes, he said, had driven many families to leave the county.

"Nobody has inflicted more financial pain on Westchester families than Andy Spano," Astorino said at one point during the debate. "He blames (state) mandates. He blames Medicaid. He blames everybody but himself."

Spano accused Astorino of distorting his administration's record and sought throughout the session to depict the GOP challenger as an inexperienced politician who would say anything to get elected. He also took aim at Astorino's position on Indian Point, attacking him for not being a more vocal critic of the plant's owner, Entergy.

"He is a puppet of Entergy," Spano said. "And I would not expect him to protect me if he was county executive."

Astorino, a county legislator from Mount Pleasant, responded that safety at the plant would be his top priority and knocked the Spano administration's emergency planning, including the absence of elaborate drills. He also criticized Spano for not doing enough to prepare for an emergency at Kensico Dam, which he labeled a "far greater terrorist target" than the nuclear plants.

With less than two weeks remaining before Election Day, the debate likely represented Astorino's best chance to get his message directly to voters. Sponsored by cable station News 12, it was carried live to subscribers throughout Westchester and will also be re-broadcast at various times over the next few days.

Astorino, who served on the Mount Pleasant town council before becoming a county legislator in 2004, cast himself as one of many residents struggling to raise a family in an ever-more expensive Westchester and criticized Spano for the 38 percent jump in Westchester's property tax levy that took place over three years, beginning with the 2002 budget.

Spano rejected Astorino's criticism and, as he has throughout his re-election campaign, took credit for stabilizing and streamlining Westchester's budget in the face of extreme financial pressure from expensive state-mandated programs like Medicaid. He noted that the county's 2005 budget contained no property tax increase and the outlook for 2006 was also bright.

"I've had seven budgets," Spano said. "Three we decreased taxes, two of the largest decreases in 30 years. One, this year, zero. ... I've kept the lid on taxes."

Astorino replied that Spano was "living in another world. I don't know what planet he is on."

Spano defended his administration's response to both the ongoing fiscal crisis at the Westchester Medical Center and the spring strike by drivers at Liberty Bus Lines, which shut down Bee-Line bus service for nearly two months.

On the Medical Center, Spano said he inherited a poorly-run facility riddled with patronage appointments and has worked to improve its management and provide the fiscal assistance it needs to stay open.

Spano, as he has since the earliest days of the bus strike, blamed the drivers' union for the strike and said his widely-criticized decision to travel to China was proper. The trip, which had been planned for weeks, was necessary to promote economic development and help Pace University set up operations in China.

Astorino said both issues demonstrated Spano's poor leadership. The Spano needs to accept a greater share of the responsibility for the medical center's financial crisis and be more forthcoming about how the facility will be turned around, he argued.

Both candidates are scheduled to debate again at 8 p.m. today at Pace University in White Plains.

WASHINGTON -- The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has pledged to boost oversight of the Indian Point nuclear plants after the apparent leak of a radioactive isotope, aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.

Clinton, D-N.Y., met with NRC chairman Nils Diaz, who told her he would announce in coming days "enhanced oversight ... with respect to both the leaks and the emergency notification system," said the senator's spokesman, Philippe Reines.

Diaz didn't spell out exactly what the enhancements would be, but they could include additional reporting requirements and closer monitoring of the site.

"They already have sent additional inspectors to Indian Point to check our work," said Jim Steets, a spokesman for Indian Point's owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast.

"They're more than welcome to send more people, we're all on the same side of this issue," he said.

Entergy and the NRC said last week that low levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope, have been found in water at the bottom of six sampling wells on the Indian Point property in Buchanan, N.Y.

The tritium may be the result of a leak from Indian Point 2's spent fuel pool, first detected in August.

In one of the wells, the amount of tritium found was slightly above the federal standard permitted for drinking water. However, none of the wells, which are 20 to 30 feet deep, are used for drinking water or for anything other than sampling groundwater.

The water is believed to have leaked from a 40-foot-deep pool, which holds the highly radioactive fuel assemblies that have been used in the nuclear reactor. Experts are not sure if there is a new leak or if the contaminated water could have come from a previous, already-repaired leak and just remained for years in the ground.

Tritium, which is used in a range of products from watch faces to nuclear bombs, is present in nature in tiny amounts and is also a byproduct of the reactors.

The company is also wrestling with the failure of emergency sirens meant to warn surrounding communities.

Last week, a majority of the sirens in Orange County did not work during a test, and a similar test last month in Rockland County also failed.

The sirens have been a near-constant headache for Entergy, which has pledged to replace the entire system within the next two years.

Times Herald Record

Same story for Indian Point

The Indian Point failure story continued last week as 10 emergency sirens in Orange County failed to sound in a test of the nuclear facility's backup alert system. This was the fourth successive test in which some sirens failed to sound and is especially disturbing since the latest test was held to correct major problems uncovered in Rockland County in a test last month.

Orange County Executive Ed Diana called the results unacceptable and said he's asked the Nuclear Regulatory Agency for another test within 30 days. That's certainly appropriate, but when a significant number of sirens fail to sound every time the Hudson River plant tests them, residents living in the emergency evacuation area have a right to worry.

Critics of the plant point to the regular failure of sirens and what they say are unrealistic traffic control plans to argue that Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the plant owner, cannot conduct a reliable emergency evacuation and so the plant should be closed. If those sirens keep failing, Entergy won't be able to drown out the chorus of people saying the same thing.

Indian Point sirens fail in Orange County

All but four of the system's 156 sirens worked during a test of the primary network that was held 30 minutes later but officials from Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties expressed concern about a wholesale failure for one county after a similar event occurred Sept. 14 in Rockland.

"I'm outraged. We have to have this fixed immediately. We need redundancy in our system," Orange County Executive Edward Diana said late yesterday afternoon. "I'm sending a letter out now demanding another test in the next 30 days and a review by the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) of what is done on the system between now and then."

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the Buchanan nuclear plants, said the company was still sorting out what went wrong yesterday.

"He's right, of course," Steets said of Diana's comments. "We need to do something to reassure everyone that the siren system will work."

Steets said the company had tracked down the causes of software problems from last month's failure and earlier siren problems and had rectified those, but yesterday's malfunction hadn't shown a definitive cause.

Steets said the problem appears to have been with the backup radio transmission to the 10 malfunctioning sirens, which might indicate that there was a frequency problem. The sirens worked when the system was tested without the back-up radios.

He acknowledged, however, that a problem with controlling the sirens cropped up when Orange County officials tried to push their backup system button a second time and ended up sounding Putnam County's sirens.

"That will be thoroughly discussed (tomorrow) morning," said Adam Stiebeling, Putnam's top emergency management official for Indian Point. "We need to verify that the siren software is working properly."

The four counties within the 10-mile evacuation zone of the nuclear plants have already agreed to meet with Entergy officials on the sirens, to see what progress the company has made in its vow to replace the decades-old system. Now that meeting will include significant discussion of the past as well as the future.

Anthony Sutton, Westchester's top emergency management official, said the mix-up of which county could activate which sirens presents a new problem.

"That's disturbing to us," Sutton said. "We want to get to the root cause of what happened in that case, and we want to ensure that no one else can break into the system and set off the sirens."

In an emergency, the sirens are supposed to rotate several times, notifying residents in all directions to turn on radios and televisions for more information.

Rockland officials were visibly relieved yesterday as they tested the sirens at the county's emergency management center and were able to hear the undulating high-pitched hum out the back door of the building. However, they weren't happy to learn that the Lower Hudson Valley's problem had moved from them to their neighbors in Orange County.

"They have a real problem with the system," Rockland emergency official Dan Greeley said of Entergy. "And they're going to have to do something to repair it until it can be replaced."

Indian Point re-licensing billboard is an important reminder about hopefully limited time of plants

It's clear the only realistic way to have the Indian Point nuclear power plants, located in an area on the shores of the Hudson River where 20 million people live within a 50-mile radius, shut down is for the licenses of the two operating reactors to not be renewed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Which is why WestCAN, part of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC), should be applauded for raising public awareness about that vital issue with its recently erected billboard on Route 202 in Cortlandt, that has caught many people's attention.

Entergy, which has invested millions of dollars in the aging plants in Buchanan, is not simply going to walk away, so it's essential that pressure be put on the NRC to seriously look at every aspect of the plants, including its shaky history, when it considers re-licensing the plants for another 20 years.

The NRC's history is questionable in itself in the way it has basically turned a blind eye to the problems at Indian Point, so an intense lobbying effort is needed to open its eyes and convince them that having a nuclear plant that was built to last 30 years continue operating in a heavily populated area where such a facility should never have been situated is a major risk that should not be taken.

The licenses for Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 expire in 2013 and 2015 respectively, and the NRC requires the re-licensing process to begin no later than five years before the expiration date.

It's been rumored, but never confirmed, that Entergy is planning to start the process for Indian Point as early this summer, which makes the WestCAN billboard perfectly timed.

Obviously, Entergy is never pleased with any attention dir