Yesterday Governor Andrew Cuomo, who for years has advocated closing the Indian Point nuclear plant located about 30 miles from the city limits, announced that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission was making the plant "its first and top priority" as it reviews 27 nuclear plants nationwide. It makes sense they'd prioritize it, considering the plant is located near the intersection of two fault lines and is closer to an urban area than any other plant in the country. But after Cuomo made the big announcement, the NRC responded with "Wha?"
"This won't start until 2012," the NRC's Elizabeth Hayden told the Post. "I know what he [Cuomo] said, but... the letter seeking the information and modeling that we need will likely not be going out until the end of this year." Hayden added that the NRC wasn't in a rush to get the data is "because this is really not a serious concern." Well, that makes us feel very secure, very warm inside. At least Michael Kaplowitz, a Westchester county Democrat, is seriously concerned. "New York water goes through Westchester," he tells Fox 5. "If New York City drinking water became radioactive, you'd have to dump that water. How long could you go with out water?"
Pretty long assuming we have beer, but if we're forced to evacuate, there's only so much we can fit in a cooler. And that's troubling. (Tokyo's tap water has tested more than twice the limits for radioactive iodine considered safe for infants, the Post reports.) A large scale evacuation caused by a crisis at Indian Point would make Herald Square at rush hour look like the Monument Valley at sunset. "We're looking at a population of one million (if the evacuation zone were extended to 50 miles.) It's not realistic. It won't happen," predicts Westchester Legislator Peter Harckham.
For all those reasons and more, Cuomo believes the plant should be shut down, not re-licensed. Of course, NYC gets 30 percent of its juice from Indian Point, and it's unclear how we'd fill the void. “You would have to build it,” Cuomo told reporters yesterday. But build what, and where? Ooh, got it: Kill two birds with one stone and replace that controversial bike lane on Prospect Park West with a giant wind farm.
