New York City’s nuclear power plant leaking ‘uncontrollable radioactive flow’ into Hudson River

February 26, 2016 in News by RBN
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via: Inhabitat
New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently called for an investigation after Indian Point, a nuclear power plant on the Hudson River, reported a leak of radioactive material flowing into the groundwater. Now, new samples taken from the local groundwater show that contamination levels are 80% higher than previous samples, prompting experts to claim this leak is spreading in “a disaster waiting to happen” and calling for the plant to be shut down completely. The Indian Point nuclear power plant is located just 25 miles north of New York City, and it’s a crucial source of of power for over 23 million people living in the greater NYC metropolitan region. The location 25 mile north of NYC is a serious threat to the whole region, according to watchdog group Riverkeeper.
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“It’s a disaster waiting to happen and it should be shut down,” Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, told CBS News. Indian Point has been operating for around 40 years, and generates about 25 percent of the electric power for Westchester and New York City. The plant, owned by Entergy, is leaking tritium, a radioactive substance. Three of the forty Indian Point wells showed an increase in radioactive material, and one of the wells showed a 65,000 percent increase. Entergy states that this leak will not harm local inhabitants, as the groundwater is located on their property. John J. Kelly, former director of licensing for Indian Point and a certified healthy physicist, said that tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that is found naturally. “It’s more of a regulatory problem than an environmental problem,” said Kelly.