Virtually all nuclear plants in the U.S. discharge water containing low levels of radioactivity to the waterway on which they are located.
Neil Sheehan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public affairs officer
Virtually all nuclear plants in the U.S. discharge water containing low levels of radioactivity to the waterway on which they are located.
Neil Sheehan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public affairs officer
“Virtually all nuclear plants in the U.S. discharge water containing low levels of radioactivity to the waterway on which they are located,” Neil Sheehan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public affairs officer, stated via email. “Tritium cannot be filtered out, but a member of the public would have to ingest a significant amount of it for there to be even the possibility of a health concern and radioactive water released from Indian Point is greatly diluted by the flows in the Hudson River.”
The soon-to-be-released water has been treated and filtered with charcoal and resin, which removes metals and chloride. But it still contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen and a byproduct of nuclear fission, that could accumulate in the Hudson River. Humans can breathe in or ingest tritium, which emits low levels of beta radiation as it decays and eventually becomes helium. In large quantities, it can elevate the risk of cancer. Tritium also cannot be extracted from water because the two are so chemically similar.
“It’s time to draw the line against using the Hudson as a dumping ground for tritium, a radioactive isotope found in the wastewater,” read a Feb. 10 blog statement by Riverkeeper, a local environmental advocacy group.
Options are limited when it comes to disposing of radioactive waste, and only three methods are typically used for tainted water. The first and most expedient one is to dump small batches of about 18,000 gallons intermittently, which is the method favored by Holtec. The second way is to slowly evaporate the radioactive water and release it into the atmosphere, which Lyman said is “hardly any better than pouring it into the river.” The third procedure entails transporting the contaminated substance to another state, which could pose an environmental justice issue depending on where it lands.
“You are taking hundreds of truck trips, using fossil fuels, thousands of miles to then either liquidly discharge or evaporate or mix and bury that water in the same manner you could do here,” said Patrick O’Brien, Holtec International’s director of government affairs and communications.
Lyman said a fourth option would be leaving the radioactive water onsite to decay over time into non-harmful helium. “Keep storing indefinitely and eventually the problem will solve itself," he said.
For tritium, this process would take just over 24 years. Lyman considers this the best option because it minimizes the effects on the environment. It’s also viable because other radioactive material — spent fuel generated from operating the plant — remains onsite and will take hundreds of thousands of years to decay. This material includes plutonium and uranium.
Lyman said this waste has no place to go and will be there for a long time, so there’s no rush to deal with the radioactive water while spent fuel continues to sit on the property. Most radioactive waste is stored where it is generated. And federal regulations allow 60 years for decommissioning. That spent fuel could remain at the site even after the decommissioning is completed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“In the long term, it's going to degrade, and the only way to protect the environment from that degradation is to bury it in a deep geological repository,” Lyman said.
Holtec has a decommissioning plan and already transferred the spent fuel from two of its three inoperative reactors into leak-tight steel cylinders, a method known as dry cask storage. It plans to remove the third unit’s spent fuel later this year.
These dry casks will remain at the facility until an interim or permanent depository becomes available. Currently, the U.S. has no permanent sites for this waste, and more than 90,000 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste, including spent fuel, remains near its site of origin without permanent storage, according to Chemical & Engineering News.
Holtec is investigating the option of interim storage in New Mexico and expects to get a license for it by next month.
The next meeting for the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board will take place on April 27 at 6 p.m. at Cortlandt Town Hall. Participants have the option to attend virtually.
The article was updated: The spelling of Neil Sheehan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public affairs officer, was corrected