Nuclear mattersNew York denies water permit for Indian Point nuclear plant

New York environmental regulators have denied a key water-quality certification Entergy Corp. needs to extend by twenty years its license to operate the 2,000-megawatt Indian Point nuclear-power plant.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation said in a letter to Entergy dated 2 April that the two units of the plant “do not and will not comply with existing New York State water quality standards,” even with the addition of a new screening technology favored by Entergy to protect aquatic life. The plant’s existing “once-through” system withdraws and returns as much as 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water a day for cooling, a system blamed by environmentalists for damaging the river’s ecosystem and killing millions of fish a year, including the endangered shortnose sturgeon.

The New York Times’s Mark Long writes that certification under the Clean Water Act is required before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) can approve an extension of the operating license for Indian Point, which generates enough electricity to power approximately two million homes and is major power source for New York City. The licenses for Indian Point units 2 and 3, which came online in the 1970s, are due to expire in September 2013 and December 2015, respectively.

The denial of the water permit comes less than a month after New York’s utility regulator rejected Entergy’s plan to spin off five of its nuclear power plants into a new company, threatening the creation of the nation’s first stand-alone nuclear generator after a lengthy regulatory battle. It also follows the Vermont Senate’s February rejection of a 20-year extension of the operating license for the state’s sole nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee, which is also owned by Entergy.

Entergy spokesman Jim Steets confirmed the company had received a notice of denial from the New York regulator late Friday afternoon. “We expect to disagree with the findings,” but “there’s not much we can say about that because we haven’t had a chance to review [the letter],” Steets said.

Long notes that Entergy has thirty days to request a public hearing on the permit’s rejection. While the permit, known as a 401 for its section of the Clean Water Act, is a federal certification, states largely have control over approving or denying environmental permits, with the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company purchased the plants about a decade ago and launched its efforts to extend the licenses in late 2006.

Although rejection of the water-quality permit will preclude approval of an extension of the plant’s license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will continue its review of Entergy’s application, said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci, adding a final environmental impact statement is due out in May. “Our process still has a ways to go,” she said.

Entergy’s Steets said the company believes the so-called wedge-wire system it has proposed to screen out fish and larvae during water intake is more appropriate for the plant than a closed-loop system. Such a closed system would require the construction of cooling towers, take fifteen years to be approved and built and cost about $1 billion, he said.

The company has said the nuclear plant, which does not emit greenhouse gases linked to climate change, is vital for the region. Environmentalists counter by saying sufficient new and relatively clean power sources could be brought online to make up for Indian Point’s loss.

“That power is replaceable,” said Alex Matthiessen, president of environmental group Riverkeeper. “The evidence for why the plant doesn’t meet state water-quality standards is overwhelming,” he said, adding Indian Point accounts for the deaths of about a billion fish a year and that the group estimates cooling towers could be constructed for $200 million to $300 million.