Mining for battery minerals is destroying millions of acres of land and the worst of this, children in Africa are being abused and forced into slavery working in these mines.

The unfortunate truth about electric vehicles: To produce a single electric car battery, you must move and excavate 500,000 pounds of earth’s crust, process 25,000 pounds of brine for lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. Even worse, the materials required to manufacture the most vital components of EVs are highly concentrated in nations with the worst environmental and human rights records, such as China, Russia, and the Congo.

For us to have an EV future, these nations would need to significantly expand their mining operations, which would INCREASE human suffering and environmental devastation.

Indian Point should have never been forced to close. Period.

The Hudson River has truly come a long way but it is being threatened on many fronts. Let's be clear - Gov Cuomo, NY and Westchester Democrats and Riverkeeper have fought to close Indian Point Energy Center spending millions of dollars in courts over years. They closed down an energy facility plant that provided over two thousand megawatts of carbon free energy, destroyed thousands of good paying union jobs and crippled the tax base of the local communities. The fear right now is that Holtec is about to pump millions of gallons of radioactive water from the pools where the spent fuel assemblies are stored into the Hudson starting this August. They did not consider any of the consequences of this all of the years they fought to close this plant.

FACTS: 

First - the water history

When the plant was running...Here is a simplified explanation of the "reactor coolant system (RCS)". There are 3 RCS loops in the Indian Point Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR). The first loop, or primary water used in the reactor coolant system, is circulated through the reactor, then through steam generator tube bundles and back to the reactor by the Reactor Coolant Pumps (RCP). This water doesn’t boil because it is under high pressure and is used to boil the secondary water. The water in the secondary loop is circulated into the steamed generator secondary sides where it contacts the tube bundle and flashes to steam. This steam is used to spin the turbines which turned the generator which is where the power was made. Then this steam is exhausted into the condenser where it turns back to water called condensate water and the cycle continues. The third loop is the water from the Hudson River that cools the condenser tubes and is cycled back into the river. Unless there is a leak, those three loops never intermingle. That's not to say that radioactivity does not remain in pumps and valves, but this is on the primary side of the plant which the Hudson River water NEVER comes in contact with.This is different from the water in the pool where the used fuel assemblies are stored. That water has been in the pool for over 50 years. This is the water we are talking about right now. This water is still being filtered and the water going into the Hudson is below any limitations set as acceptable. The containment domes have had a 30 foot by 30 foot hole cut for access but the dust was eliminated by water suppression. Therefore, no dust is circulating from the containment domes, and will not for about 10-12 years. According to the agreement signed by state, county and local elected officials, the dust must be contained to the property line.

Testing

They have always had a SPDES (State Pollutant Discharge Elimination  System) permit which was required to operate so every requirement would have been met.  All water into the Hudson River is monitored even the ground water. The permit requires that water discharged into the river is monitored 24/7.  A report goes out maybe quarterly to NYS, Army Corps of Eng and the NRC.  This will not end because the plant has closed. 

OPTIONS TO GET RID OF WATER FROM THE POOLS - None of them are good. More are being considered.

VILLAGE OF BUCHANAN MEETING

Store it on site - very dangerous. And if they hold it in tanks for the next 24 years, which is what the Cortlandt Town Supervisor is recommending, we will be exposed to radioactive release every day of those 24 years. There will need to be more than one tank - probably 100.They are all prone to leaking. All of the tanks will need to be vented. That means everyone within a mile of the plant will be exposed that much longer. Evaporation is 300-700 times more dangerous than water release. 

Ship it out to Idaho. Not an option. It is illegal to ship liquid radioactive material.

Discharge it into the ocean from barges - unless close to US shore, International Law prohibits this.

Release into Hudson - It has been done like this for the life of the plant; however, no one wants this in our backyard. These pools that house the rods have been emptied before. It was done in 2008. Radioactive material is closely monitored and has always been less than 1% of what is allowed. Testing on fish and the river bottom has shown no accumulation of radioactive material since 1962.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Permits - are all done in Buchanan.

HOLTEC. While the people working at Entergy are amazing, the owner of HOLTEC is not. I have no idea how the NRC did not step in and prevent this company from purchasing this plant.  The sole owner of Holtec, a 76 year old man named Kris Singh, has 2.5 billions dollars in his bank account given to him by the funds collected by the state to decommission this plant. They have yet to decommission another plant successfully. There is no succession plan for this single owner company. Based on his history, if he runs out of this 2.5 billion before the plant has been completely torn down and cleaned out,  he will abandon it. To date there hasn’t been a decommissioning project yet that was accomplished using the fund. It always cost more.

Then what?