NYC's Nuclear Power Plant Leaking 'Uncontrollable Radioactive Flow' Into River (inhabitat.com)

MikeChino writes: New samples taken from groundwater near New York's Indian Point nuclear plant show that contamination levels are 80% higher than previous samples, and experts say the leak is "a disaster waiting to happen." The Indian Point nuclear power plant is located just 25 miles north of New York City, and it is a crucial source of power for the greater metropolitan region.

Comments

Solution

[BarbaraHudson]

They can always import water from Flint ... at least the lead will block a bit of the radiation .

Re:Careful and expeditious investigation is pruden

[mspohr]

From a linked article... some actual numbers:
According to initial reports, the radioactivity levels are quite high and the leaked materials contain tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope. At one location, levels shot up 65,000 percent from from 12,300 picocuries per liter to over 8,000,000 picocuries per liter.

The usual denial from the power plant operator (nothing to worry about here...):
Despite the size of the leak, Entergy, the company that owns the plant, has argued the radioactive materials only leaked into the groundwater and should not impact drinking water sources.
(Not sure how radioactivity leaking into groundwater is not a concern for drinking water.)

The Governor seems to be concerned and has called for an investigation:
Cuomo has called on Entergy to shut down the Indian Point facility while the full scope of the problem is assessed.

Further denials... yes, it's leaking but "no problem":
“While elevated tritium in the ground onsite is not in accordance with our standards, there is no health or safety consequence to the public,” Entergy said in a statement late Saturday.

Old nuclear plant has had problems before:
This isn’t the first problem with tritium leaks at Indian Point, which supplies around 30 percent of the electricity used in New York City. The plant had three emergency shutdowns in December, and there have been a number of leaks in recent years.

Re:Careful and expeditious investigation is pruden

[mspohr]

I don't expect that anyone drinks out of the monitoring wells... they are for, well, monitoring.
However, groundwater is mobile. It flows through different layers of the, well, ground and eventually ends up downhill somewhere (i.e. NYC metropolitan area).
(Interesting fact is that surface water flows such as rivers are only about 10% of fresh water flows. The rest are underground.) It's pretty obvious that the water will move to a place where someone has drilled a drinking water well... it's only a matter of time.
Best to take care of this at the source.

Re:80% of what?

[BarbaraHudson]

New York Times from February 6th (~3 weeks ago):

New York State will investigate high levels of radioactive contamination found in the groundwater at the Indian Point nuclear plant, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Saturday.

The governor said water contaminated with tritium had leaked into the groundwater at the plant, causing “alarming levels” of radioactivity to be found at three out of the 40 monitoring wells on the site.

One of the wells reported a 65,000 percent increase in the water’s level of radioactivity, Mr. Cuomo said, citing a report by Entergy Corporation, which owns the plant.

At the same time, it's reported as being 0.1% of acceptable levels ... but it's not clear from the article if they're talking about that well, all the detection wells combined, or the property.