Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. On Friday, April twenty one,
Speaker 1: the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant permanently closed down. For
Speaker 1: those who've been fighting for this for decades, it's a
Speaker 1: moment to pause and breathe a sigh of relief. While
Speaker 1: supporters of nuclear power promise affordable, clean energy that's too
Speaker 1: cheap to meet her time and again, leaks, accidents, and
Speaker 1: the general decay of decades old nuclear power plants create
Speaker 1: risks that should keep everyone up at night. My guests
Speaker 1: today are activists I'm proud to call cocombatants in the
Speaker 1: fight to close Indian Point. Paul Gallet and Richard Webster
Speaker 1: work at River Keeper, a nonprofit dedicated to the health
Speaker 1: of New York's waterways. Indian Point is on the Hudson River,
Speaker 1: less than forty miles north of New York City. Joseph
Speaker 1: Mangano is the executive director of the Radiation and Public
Speaker 1: Health Project research group. My conversation started with Joe. He's
Speaker 1: written dozens of studies and three books on radiations effect
Speaker 1: on the body. In the late eighties, many nuclear reactors
Speaker 1: existed around the United States. In the world, over a
Speaker 1: hundred were here and there were basically no studies being
Speaker 1: done on basic issues like what are cancer rates in
Speaker 1: nuclear power plants? Right? We know it's generating as toxic chemicals.
Speaker 1: We know some is getting into the environment, into people's bodies,
Speaker 1: but there were no studies done. There was a need
Speaker 1: to be filled here. That's what we've done. And then
Speaker 1: when you say no studies done, you meant no modern
Speaker 1: studies because the baby to study was in the sixties. Correct, Yes,
Speaker 1: such a spectacular study. In the late nineteen fifties, atomic
Speaker 1: bombs were being exploded above the ground in the United
Speaker 1: States and Soviet Union, uh the total of over four
Speaker 1: undred of them, and fallout was was circling around the
Speaker 1: globe and getting into the precipitation and thus into the
Speaker 1: food chain. People were concerned and two groups of one
Speaker 1: of citizens and one of scientists at Washington University in St.
Speaker 1: Louis said, we need to find out how much of
Speaker 1: this fall it is getting into people's bodies. They are
Speaker 1: tougher ways to do it, like autopsies and biopsys, but
Speaker 1: this was a very ingenious way to do it. You
Speaker 1: wait until the child sheds a baby tooth, the tooth
Speaker 1: is donated and the tooth is tested for this chemical
Speaker 1: strontium ninety, which is one of a hundred plus chemicals
Speaker 1: not found in nature, but only when an atomic bomb
Speaker 1: explodes or a nuclear reactor. If I'm not mistaken, it
Speaker 1: appears in the first set of teeth of children. They
Speaker 1: were looking for atrium levels in the teeth of these children.
Speaker 1: That was the daughter element of strontium ninety that was
Speaker 1: in the bombs, so high levels of atrium in their teeth.
Speaker 1: Mothers were asked to donate their children's first set of teeth,
Speaker 1: their baby teeth, and they would study these teeth because
Speaker 1: it mimicked calcium, correct in the teeth, that's right. The
Speaker 1: body thinks it's calcium, and when it's taken in as
Speaker 1: food or water, it goes quickly to the stomach and
Speaker 1: quickly to the bloodstream, quickly to the bone and the teeth.
Speaker 1: And as the testing went on, the amounts of strom
Speaker 1: ninety and the teeth got higher and hired. Kids born
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three had fifty times the amount of
Speaker 1: kids born in ninety as the test started, not fifty
Speaker 1: five thousand more. And this study was published in medical
Speaker 1: journal articles. The first article has been sent to President
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy where his science advisor and he discussed it,
Speaker 1: and the U. S. Senate discussed the test band Treaty.
Speaker 1: One of the Washington University faculty, Eric Reece, testified and
Speaker 1: he used it to study results as evidence why we
Speaker 1: need to ban these tests. And in fact Kennedy did
Speaker 1: sign the test band Treaty just a month before he
Speaker 1: was killed. You and I our work really takes off
Speaker 1: together when we go down to Toms River, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and the facility is called the Oyster Creek Nuclear Facility.
Speaker 1: Describe how you first came across the idea that there
Speaker 1: was a problem there. Really, the first knowledge I had
Speaker 1: of there was some trouble around Oyster Creek was a
Speaker 1: cluster of childhood cancers. It starts with the grassroots. Parents
Speaker 1: of people who essentially sitting in waiting rooms found out
Speaker 1: about each other and their neighbors and so, and kind
Speaker 1: of forced the state Health department to do a report,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they found cancer among children
Speaker 1: living in the Toms River area was quite high, and
Speaker 1: the Toms River area was sort of a toxic triangle.
Speaker 1: If you will there was a plant run by Union Carbide,
Speaker 1: what one by Seba Guide and then of course the
Speaker 1: nuclear reactor Oyster Creek, and each emitted different types of
Speaker 1: pollutants into the environment and into people's bodies. And we
Speaker 1: know that children, of course, they're most susceptible to to toxins.
Speaker 1: And the issue became not so much wait for the government,
Speaker 1: wait for leaders to do something about it, but to
Speaker 1: really do a grassroots effort to force change. And I
Speaker 1: think that was the same thing with the earlier sat
Speaker 1: It was baby to study, you know it was. It
Speaker 1: was a bottoms up movement and our efforts were twofold.
Speaker 1: We did a number of studies, same with Indian point.
Speaker 1: The recipe is the same of cancer rates around this area,
Speaker 1: especially after the nuclear plant opened. And then we came
Speaker 1: in with our own version of the baby tooth study.
Speaker 1: Did Dr Gul said, hey, that that St. Louis study
Speaker 1: years ago. It was incredible. Three teeth and it helped
Speaker 1: past test ban treaty. Let's do one of our own,
Speaker 1: and in places like Oyster Creek, you and I and
Speaker 1: others went down and appeal for donations of teeth. We
Speaker 1: had them tested in lads and we appeal for the
Speaker 1: money to do the testing. Yes, yeah we did. We
Speaker 1: did get support from this to state government. Now this
Speaker 1: is when Jim McGreevey was governor. To do the test.
Speaker 1: We found basically that number one, the levels nearest to
Speaker 1: the plant were a lot higher than people living far
Speaker 1: from the plant. Number two, as time went on, the
Speaker 1: levels are getting higher and higher as the reactor got
Speaker 1: older and leaked more. And number three we found a
Speaker 1: link with childhood cancer. Just picture a graph with two lines.
Speaker 1: One is the trend in Stradia ninety and one is
Speaker 1: the trend in childhood cancer and the local area they
Speaker 1: look the same. And we found this near Indian Point
Speaker 1: and near Brookhaven and Long Island as well, and we
Speaker 1: published them in medical journals. That which separates us from
Speaker 1: other activist groups for nuclear I I am the author
Speaker 1: call author of thirty eight medical journal articles on these
Speaker 1: topics in order to give this similar perspective. And then
Speaker 1: is we go down to an area where what we're
Speaker 1: basically saying is don't extend the license of this operation.
Speaker 1: The licenses expired, the licenses have to be renewed. These
Speaker 1: things have to be inspected. That's machinery. It wears out.
Speaker 1: There's leakage, there's this, there's that, there's problems. All of
Speaker 1: these nuclear reactors have to varying degrees. Not all of
Speaker 1: them are life threatening catastrophes in the making, but but
Speaker 1: many of them have some serious problems. But when we
Speaker 1: went down to Oyster Cree, because I want to get
Speaker 1: to Indian Point in a minute. But when we went
Speaker 1: down to New Jersey, here's a couple of highlights that
Speaker 1: I recall. One was Linda Gillick. Linda Gillick was a
Speaker 1: woman who became an activist over autism clusters, another soft
Speaker 1: tissue ailment, their prostrate breast brain autism clusters in the
Speaker 1: Toms River area, that coastal area of New Jersey down
Speaker 1: there mimics Long Island with a very narrow lens of
Speaker 1: soil Union card. But I believe was putting toxins into
Speaker 1: the ground and poorous sandy soil going right into the
Speaker 1: water table. Green piece was actually gonna target see bagagis
Speaker 1: pipe that they had out into the ocean. They were
Speaker 1: dumping resin or something. And Lynda Gillick turns around and
Speaker 1: she says to her congressman, I would like some discretionary
Speaker 1: funds to do some research into the groundwater and find
Speaker 1: out what's in there and what's causing these cancer clusters
Speaker 1: here and these other soft tissue clusters like autism. The
Speaker 1: moment that the Congressman is going to give her five
Speaker 1: million bucks to do this research see Bagogy and Union
Speaker 1: Carbide settled the case. And then when all the records sealed,
Speaker 1: didn't want anybody to know what's in the ground there,
Speaker 1: what they were pumping out into the ocean. They settled
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So of the three villains in my
Speaker 1: mind who were responsible for the toxicity in that Tom's
Speaker 1: River area see Bagogy, Union Carbide. Some people even suspect
Speaker 1: that these places are cited where there is cross contamination,
Speaker 1: so you can't prosecute them. Some people would argue that
Speaker 1: not only are nuclear facilities cited where there's low income
Speaker 1: labor who crave these jobs, because some of these guys
Speaker 1: are making thirty an hour in a union where our
Speaker 1: technicians who were responsible for operating these these facilities. Like
Speaker 1: what happened to us when we went to Ocean County
Speaker 1: and we're at Ocean County College and we packed the place,
Speaker 1: we pack it. I mean they're sitting in the aisles,
Speaker 1: and the one guy looks to me. He's out of Steinbeck.
Speaker 1: He's a young dad with his wife and two kids,
Speaker 1: and he says, you're not here to close the plant,
Speaker 1: are you? And I said, no, we're not here to
Speaker 1: close the plant. We're here to present you with all
Speaker 1: the information and the facts, and you decide if you
Speaker 1: want the plant closed. But then we go to those
Speaker 1: two guys, the father and son, who were the state
Speaker 1: senator and his son was an alderman or whatever they
Speaker 1: call them down there in New Jersey, and we asked
Speaker 1: him for discretionary money to use for the baby Tooth study,
Speaker 1: and they agree to give us the money. And then
Speaker 1: Governor Christine Todd Whitman line item vetos those requests that
Speaker 1: we get the money to do the baby tooth study,
Speaker 1: that there was ever a shill for the nuclear industry.
Speaker 1: God it was her. Talk to me now about the
Speaker 1: work you've done specifically related to Indian Point. Indian Point was,
Speaker 1: in addition to Oys to Creak, another one of our
Speaker 1: major prior ease because of its proximity to New York City,
Speaker 1: I mean, the most densely populated area of the country,
Speaker 1: meant the greatest health risks, so we focus a lot
Speaker 1: of our work on those two plants. Indian Point is
Speaker 1: located thirty five miles north of Times Square. It's on
Speaker 1: the Hudson River, which is quite close. Even though years
Speaker 1: ago there were numerous proposals to build nuclear reactors, not
Speaker 1: just around New York City, but in New York City.
Speaker 1: Let's build one below Central Park, below Roosevelt Island, right
Speaker 1: across the East River from the u. N. Let's build
Speaker 1: an island just off Coney Island, build reactors. These all
Speaker 1: made the New York Times. These were actual ideas. None
Speaker 1: of them came through, but the closest one was Indian Point,
Speaker 1: which opened in nineteen three reactors. One was a small
Speaker 1: one that closed in nineteen seventy four, but there were
Speaker 1: two much larger ones built in the mid nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and those are the ones we we focused on. The
Speaker 1: way we approached any point was sort of two ways.
Speaker 1: The burden of proof was on us to show that
Speaker 1: there was not just radiation being released and entering the body,
Speaker 1: but to show that there was harm. The releases were easy,
Speaker 1: taking um data that the industry is required to report
Speaker 1: every year, and the Indpoint was one of the highest
Speaker 1: amounts of radiation in the seventies and nineties into the air.
Speaker 1: Number two was the baby Tooth study. We appealed to
Speaker 1: people to donate teeth and we collected five teeth near
Speaker 1: Indian Point. We found the strontium ninety levels higher than
Speaker 1: elsewhere in New York State. And again the similar patterns
Speaker 1: with child cancer. And then finally, the litany of cancer
Speaker 1: statistics dress cancers higher, child cancer is higher. The biggest
Speaker 1: one is thyroid cancer, which is not one of the
Speaker 1: high profile cancer. It's usually treatable, although it's a horrible
Speaker 1: experience ba CANNA. In the nineteen seventies, when these two
Speaker 1: big reactors are opening, the rate in the four county
Speaker 1: area within twenty miles of New Point was two below
Speaker 1: the US and by the year two thousand, fifty five
Speaker 1: percent higher. And that's where where it is today. I mean,
Speaker 1: instead of fifty cases a year in the fourth it's
Speaker 1: like over four cases. In emergency circumstances like a possible
Speaker 1: meltdown or a leak or whatever, where there's contamination and
Speaker 1: the public is exposed on a larger scale, don't they
Speaker 1: issue like iodine or something for people to consume to
Speaker 1: to prevent thyroid cancer. The thyroid is very vulnerable to radiation. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: iodine goes directly to the thyroid glands all right where
Speaker 1: it kills and in your cells. And yes, one of
Speaker 1: the ways that are used to reduce the effects of
Speaker 1: a meltdown would be to take this what they call
Speaker 1: potassium iodide, which sort of coats the thyroid gland and
Speaker 1: protects it from iodone. All along, they've never copped to
Speaker 1: the fact that there was a be radiation emitted from
Speaker 1: these facilities on a daily basis. Am I correct, they have,
Speaker 1: but their slogan is too low to be harmful. Officials
Speaker 1: new they couldn't operated without allowing at least some of
Speaker 1: this highly toxic radio activity to be released into the environment.
Speaker 1: So they said what they called permissible limits and took
Speaker 1: the big giant step of saying that permissible limits means
Speaker 1: they are safe, they don't harm people. It's like a
Speaker 1: doctor's telling a patient, well, you spoke five cigarettes today,
Speaker 1: so let's below the permisible limits and there's no health
Speaker 1: rents are your You know your wife smokes, but you don't,
Speaker 1: so you're okay. No, all radiation is harmful at all
Speaker 1: levels and you know, a lot of the discussion about
Speaker 1: a place like Indian Point was about potential harm from
Speaker 1: a meltdown or if radioactive waste were at least somehow.
Speaker 1: We dealt with actual cases of cancer, We dealt with
Speaker 1: actual deaths from the actual releases that you actually went
Speaker 1: into people's bodies, into their baby teeth. And we also
Speaker 1: feel that it probably resulted in the greatest hostility from
Speaker 1: the nuclear industry being pointed at us. We had evidence,
Speaker 1: and they didn't like it one bit. Well, they wanted
Speaker 1: an industry that evolved from a process of bomb making
Speaker 1: to end the war, and they're saying in the wake
Speaker 1: of the war, they're saying, hey man, these guys are
Speaker 1: our partners and making armaments to defend our country, so
Speaker 1: let's give them a little bit of a break. They
Speaker 1: would like to take these reactors and put them in
Speaker 1: hundreds of sites around the country, and these things are
Speaker 1: gonna boil water and you're gonna have steam turbines. It's
Speaker 1: going to be, you know the famous quote, too cheap
Speaker 1: to meter. And let's throw these guys a bone. Let's
Speaker 1: let him make a little money on the side. And
Speaker 1: you know, you realize that's always been the fight, which
Speaker 1: this is about money. These companies, whether it's geor who
Speaker 1: would you say the dominant power corporate wise in nuclear
Speaker 1: technology far the too biggest funds where g E and Westinghouse.
Speaker 1: G E and Westinghouse made almost of the reactors, and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, man, you know we're making money here.
Speaker 1: Get out of the way. We're not hurting anybody, and
Speaker 1: so they claimed. So tell people what happened recently at
Speaker 1: Indian Point. Indian Point, but the two reactors reached their
Speaker 1: forty year license and applied for an extension from the
Speaker 1: federal government of twenty additional years. And you know, reactors
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to last more than forty years, but with
Speaker 1: no reactors being built, they hatched this idea to keep
Speaker 1: it going. A number of the citizen groups against Indian
Speaker 1: Point took on the license extension, and they took it
Speaker 1: to court and legal actions, and finally a deal was
Speaker 1: worked out where the reactors continued to run until last
Speaker 1: year and this year, but no more closed forever, which
Speaker 1: leaves the hundred mile radius around New York City with
Speaker 1: zero operating nuclear reactors where at one time there was
Speaker 1: supposed to be many. Joe Man Gano is the executive
Speaker 1: director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. The dangers
Speaker 1: of nuclear power are sometimes only apparent in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of disasters three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chair NOBIL in
Speaker 1: the Ukraine, and Fukushima in Japan. For more in depth
Speaker 1: conversation on the challenges of nuclear power, listened to my
Speaker 1: conversation with Gregory Yasco. He became Chair of the Nuclear
Speaker 1: Regulatory Commission just before the Fukushima disaster. While in office,
Speaker 1: he tried to tackle the persistent question of where to
Speaker 1: store radioactive waste in a lot of ways. The best
Speaker 1: alternative is probably to leave it where it is, you
Speaker 1: know it really, I mean there are some places where
Speaker 1: you don't want to keep it, you know, the probably
Speaker 1: Indian Point, which is close to New York City. Um
Speaker 1: so some of the fuel you want to move, you
Speaker 1: want to get it into maybe another location, you think,
Speaker 1: for for from an engineer ring standpoint, from a physics standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's better to leave it there. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: is right now. I mean, were certain transporting it is dangerous.
Speaker 1: Transporting it adds a risk, and we just we don't
Speaker 1: have any place to put it here. More of my
Speaker 1: conversation with Gregory Jasco at Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Richard Webster, Riverkeepers legal director, joins Joe
Speaker 1: Mangano to explain the logistics involved in the fight to
Speaker 1: close Indian Points. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. When they say the Earth needs a
Speaker 1: good lawyer, Richard Webster is who they have in mind.
Speaker 1: Richard works at Riverkeeper and before becoming an attorney, he
Speaker 1: was a hydrologist and an environmental scientist. But in order
Speaker 1: to close Indian Point you had to know what we're
Speaker 1: up against, and she was the owner at the end.
Speaker 1: Niper built in the point. Niper New York Power Authority,
Speaker 1: so it's a public company, and actually Connor built in
Speaker 1: your point too. Basically, just to go all the way
Speaker 1: back to the start. Nuclear plants to build them is
Speaker 1: incredibly risky. They have a tradition of being away over
Speaker 1: budget and way behind schedule. So the only people that
Speaker 1: can really afford to build nuclear plants are either public
Speaker 1: corporations or public utilities. But then the problem came that
Speaker 1: they weren't operating them very efficiently in the sense that
Speaker 1: the run times were not very high, so there has
Speaker 1: a sense that if you're into a private company, they
Speaker 1: will increase the run times, which they did. By run times,
Speaker 1: you mean how long their online and active and producing
Speaker 1: power exactly, so that the availability went up from about
Speaker 1: I think seal which you can make the difference between
Speaker 1: the reactor making money or the reactor losing money. What
Speaker 1: experience shows is that it's hard to keep a reactor
Speaker 1: maintained in the first place, and it's doubly hard if
Speaker 1: you don't want to come offline when you detect problems. So,
Speaker 1: for example, an Indian point, they had a problem with
Speaker 1: the reactor lid and how well it fitted, and repeatedly
Speaker 1: what they found was that there was leakage around the
Speaker 1: top of the reactor lid. Every outage they found this leakage,
Speaker 1: but they didn't stop the reactor in the middle to
Speaker 1: investigate this leakage because they wanted the production. And that's
Speaker 1: what you see repeatedly. Davis Bessie was the most egregious
Speaker 1: example of this, where cooling water actually eight all the
Speaker 1: way through the reactor head, which was about six inches
Speaker 1: of steel. The only thing left holding the pressurized water
Speaker 1: in the reactor together was half in layer of stainless steel.
Speaker 1: They refused to take that offline four weeks and got
Speaker 1: very close actually to a meltdown there. So that's one
Speaker 1: problem in the nuclear industry is there's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure for production and that tends to lead to undermining
Speaker 1: of maintenance and safety. Another example I'll give you is
Speaker 1: the battle bolts at Indian Point. When they finally measured
Speaker 1: the battle bolts, they found that over half of them
Speaker 1: were defective, but they didn't then take a new point
Speaker 1: three offline and measure that one. They let that run
Speaker 1: for another year. And then when they measured the battle
Speaker 1: bolts there, which is baffle bolts, by the way, the
Speaker 1: things that kind of hold the inside of the reactor together,
Speaker 1: they found that over seventy percent of those are defective.
Speaker 1: So people who say, oh, you know, nuclear plants that
Speaker 1: they're pretty safe are too complacent. We haven't seen any
Speaker 1: major nuclear disaster apart from t m I here yet,
Speaker 1: But just because we got lucky so far doesn't mean
Speaker 1: to say we shouldn't get smart. What happened to t
Speaker 1: m t M I was operator arm That could obviously
Speaker 1: happen again, but the chance of operator probably goes down
Speaker 1: or stays the same more or less over time. The
Speaker 1: thing that concerns me is that as the reactors get older,
Speaker 1: the margin between what's exceptional and what's unacceptable get smaller
Speaker 1: and smaller as you have corrosion fatigue and all these phenomena.
Speaker 1: And I don't think the industry is doing a very
Speaker 1: good job at managing these phenomena. They're just basically hoping
Speaker 1: and chancing it. You know, we saw that at Oyster
Speaker 1: Creek where the secondary pressure vessel had been corroding and
Speaker 1: points was half as thick as it started off. It
Speaker 1: started off about an inch and a half thick and
Speaker 1: at points it was point seven inches thick. But the
Speaker 1: industry was saying excellent. There was saying, oh no, it's okay,
Speaker 1: it's stopped corroding. We promise, and therefore we don't need
Speaker 1: to do any more measurements for twenty years. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just wishful thinking. And explained to people how we
Speaker 1: have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which of course was the
Speaker 1: precursor was the Atomic Energy Commission, and the NRC is
Speaker 1: there presumably to protect the interests of the American people.
Speaker 1: How would you evaluate how good of a job they're
Speaker 1: doing in that Department. Well, I've been to a lot
Speaker 1: of meetings with NRC personnel, and you know, they're generally
Speaker 1: nice people, and I think they're generally competent engineers. But
Speaker 1: I think there's a fundamental problem with the agency. And
Speaker 1: I think my best anecdote this was all the time
Speaker 1: as own meeting in New Jersey and a guy stood
Speaker 1: up from the back and said, you guys at the NLC,
Speaker 1: you're taking taxpayers money and you should be protecting the taxpayers.
Speaker 1: The n l C. You guys stood up and said,
Speaker 1: actually funded by industry, so don't worry about it. That
Speaker 1: was illustrative to me. That is that accurate? Yes? Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: what was the a e C completely funded by the government.
Speaker 1: Did they replace the a C with the n RC
Speaker 1: to put the industry in charge of its own regulation? Joe,
Speaker 1: do you have an answer? Yeah, I think the a
Speaker 1: C was government funded, but definitely the NRC is ninety
Speaker 1: funded by industry fees. Energy is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: regulator and not to promote nuclear power, which is what
Speaker 1: the a e C was doing to help sell this
Speaker 1: project to the American people, right, they kept promoting it.
Speaker 1: That was right. To go back another step, it all
Speaker 1: comes out of Atoms for Peace, right. The original idea
Speaker 1: was to show we hadn't spend all this money just
Speaker 1: creating a nuclear bomb, we also created something useful. So
Speaker 1: that's where the a C came in. And then there
Speaker 1: was a concern that the a C, because it had
Speaker 1: to promote nuclear power, couldn't really be an effective safety regulator,
Speaker 1: so they formed the NRC. But I do think there
Speaker 1: was some deliberate shenanigans in the setup of the NRC,
Speaker 1: because the NARC was designed to be rigidly independent of politics,
Speaker 1: and so that's why the industry largely funds and r C.
Speaker 1: And it also stands as what's for an independent agency
Speaker 1: with like five commissioners, which are normally three from the
Speaker 1: president's party and two from the other party. But they've
Speaker 1: been steadfastly pro industry. So basically, the NRC is one
Speaker 1: of the very few agencies where a senator could write
Speaker 1: the letter asking him a reasonable question and they basically
Speaker 1: say get lost. And in fact, I found that's the
Speaker 1: most effective way to get a senator on your side,
Speaker 1: you know, because when you complain to a senator, oh
Speaker 1: you know, the NRC won't tell me. This, won't tell
Speaker 1: me that. Then the Senator says, I'll soon find that out.
Speaker 1: Write some a letter, and they basically right back saying, sorry,
Speaker 1: we're not going to tell you. By I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, Richard Webster, win Napor in cooperation, I guess
Speaker 1: we're Carnet or whatever they build these facilities, what is
Speaker 1: the path and what is the reasoning why they pass
Speaker 1: into the hands of companies like Energy? When does that
Speaker 1: happen and why? So that happened around twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and the theory was Entergy has a fleet of nuclear actors,
Speaker 1: so they don't just own one or two nuclear actors.
Speaker 1: They get They owned I think twenty at the time,
Speaker 1: and so they gain knowledge and because they have a fleet,
Speaker 1: they were able to maintain them more effectively and run
Speaker 1: them more effectively. So that was the theory, and they
Speaker 1: did keep the reactor running for longer. But I question
Speaker 1: whether they ran it as safely and what was your opinion?
Speaker 1: Didn't I be and carn Ed overall run it more
Speaker 1: safely than Entergy do? Yes, because the production pressure wasn't
Speaker 1: there right, so they were content to go offline when
Speaker 1: they had a lower expectation. I think actually they had
Speaker 1: a higher expectation about safety. I mean, it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: You meet a lot of people in the nuclear industry
Speaker 1: come from the nuclear Navy, and they always say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like people wouldn't go on a submarine with
Speaker 1: a nuclear actor if the nuclear actors weren't safe. The
Speaker 1: difference is in the Navy, they're very procedurally orientated and
Speaker 1: they don't have a pressure to produce all the time.
Speaker 1: They can take the thing offline. When you're in a
Speaker 1: commercial situation, there's a lot of pressure to produce, and
Speaker 1: that pressure to produce producers as we've seen with with
Speaker 1: Indian Point, I mean a litany of maintenance problems, you know,
Speaker 1: that o ring problems sort of about on the reactor
Speaker 1: lid that recurred I think three times, so they never
Speaker 1: actually fixed it. What do you think was ultimately responsible
Speaker 1: for closing Indian Point? What finally made it happen? People
Speaker 1: power votes. It's notable that in New York the state
Speaker 1: subsidizes some upstate nuclear plants while at the same time
Speaker 1: closing down Indian Point. Where are the other plants in
Speaker 1: New York? The ones in Oswego, that's Genae, and then
Speaker 1: there's Fitzpatrick, I think, which is up on Lake Ontario
Speaker 1: nine mile point nine. So combine that with with pressure
Speaker 1: from US Rear keeper on the cooling water permit. Describe
Speaker 1: the speci a fix of that for people who don't
Speaker 1: understand the massive amounts of water that are necessary. These
Speaker 1: things are always built on a river. Correct. Correct, And
Speaker 1: they deliberately decided to install an outdated system of cooling
Speaker 1: even when they built the plant, which is called wants
Speaker 1: through cooling, so that the water just comes in, cools
Speaker 1: the hot water from the reactor, and then goes out again.
Speaker 1: There's no recycling of the cooling water that takes in
Speaker 1: billions of gallons a day, puts out hot water billions
Speaker 1: of gallons a day, kills billions of organisms a year.
Speaker 1: It has a huge impact on the ecosystem, and there
Speaker 1: is a lot of clean water rate that requires the
Speaker 1: best technology available to be fitted. And so we were
Speaker 1: pushing very hard on that side of things, and the
Speaker 1: state was coming along with us. So that was essentially
Speaker 1: one of the things that helped close it was that
Speaker 1: you insisted and the government eventually fell on line to
Speaker 1: have them adjust this cooling operation. Correct. That's right, because
Speaker 1: you see that the state can't just close a nuclear
Speaker 1: plant out of safety concerns. Only the NRC can regulate safety.
Speaker 1: Only the organization in the pocket of the industry has
Speaker 1: the right to close down the plant. Well, so that's
Speaker 1: where the cooling water comes in, because the state has
Speaker 1: a right to impose protection of their environmental resources. Exactly,
Speaker 1: is there a place in the United States or anywhere
Speaker 1: around the world where they're doing the cooling more effectively?
Speaker 1: Where are they getting the cooling right? I don't know
Speaker 1: if they wrinkling up his nose here, No one's getting
Speaker 1: it right, Joe. The bottom line is the state had
Speaker 1: could insist on high standards for cooling, and that's indeed
Speaker 1: the route that the callsign administration went down for Oyster Creek,
Speaker 1: and basically the administration went down the same route in
Speaker 1: New York and in the lights of the threat of
Speaker 1: the strict standard, Entergy agreed to take a deal where
Speaker 1: they had four more years and then they could close.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting they'd rather I mean, who knows whether
Speaker 1: the extension of the least would have gone the twenty
Speaker 1: years at Indian Point that they wanted, But they were
Speaker 1: willing to close the plant rather than adjust the cooling operation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were willing to close the plant rather than stop
Speaker 1: destroying the aquatic life. Now, when you're on the Hudson,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with fresh water presumably, and that's Harrison where
Speaker 1: Indian Point is. Where did the water come from? For
Speaker 1: Oyster Creek? Well, actually, on the Hudson, you're dealing with
Speaker 1: with brackish. It's the tide comes up and down, still
Speaker 1: brackish at that point Oyster Creek, it came basically out
Speaker 1: of the bay there, out of Bottegat Bay. So they
Speaker 1: can't use ocean water. They can't use salt water, they
Speaker 1: can't use so Santa no free in places like that,
Speaker 1: they use ocean water. Yeah, yeah, because I was wasn't
Speaker 1: sure about the corrosian factor. Okay, a question I should
Speaker 1: have asked you back in actually, so that anyway, So
Speaker 1: Joe Mingano from our PHP, you tell me what do
Speaker 1: you think contributed to closing Indian Point. The two reasons.
Speaker 1: The first one was public concern about safety and health,
Speaker 1: which is something that we helped to build by our
Speaker 1: studies on our work. The second one is economics. Why
Speaker 1: are nuclear plants costly? It's because they are dangerous to operate.
Speaker 1: It takes many trained, and it takes complex safety systems,
Speaker 1: and it requires lots of security, and it involves lots
Speaker 1: of money that goes to waste storage, you know, as
Speaker 1: you don't see from other So for both reasons, it
Speaker 1: goes back to safety and health. Joe man Gano from
Speaker 1: the Radiation and Public Health Project and Richard Webster from
Speaker 1: Riverkeeper follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
Speaker 1: leave us a review when we come back. Paul Galley,
Speaker 1: president of Hudson Riverkeeper, talks about Indian Points risk to
Speaker 1: New York waterways. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. Water plays a key role in nuclear
Speaker 1: power plants heated by fission. Water becomes steam that spins
Speaker 1: the turbines that generate energy. Water also cools the reactors
Speaker 1: and spent fuel rods. Indian Point was built on the
Speaker 1: Hudson River and for more than five decades, Riverkeeper has
Speaker 1: fought to keep the Hudson clean. Paul Gallet is its president.
Speaker 1: I've been with Riverkeeper for eleven years and Indian Points
Speaker 1: just been a huge focus. We also help stop fracking
Speaker 1: in New York, got New York to reinvest in water
Speaker 1: infrastructure so that water quality could come back. And one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting things that we've been involved in,
Speaker 1: thanks to support from the state, is removing all the old,
Speaker 1: unneeded dams that are blocking the fish from getting to
Speaker 1: their areas where they spawn and where they used to feed,
Speaker 1: so that we can reconnect our rivers and tributaries restore
Speaker 1: our biodiversity in the Hudson Watershed. Was this related to
Speaker 1: the reservoir system in New York at all or no?
Speaker 1: The reservoir systems still up and probably gonna stay up.
Speaker 1: But these are old dams that used to be used
Speaker 1: for factories that haven't existed for sixty years. But they
Speaker 1: never took the dams down and they've been blocking the river.
Speaker 1: So we took the first three down and our partners
Speaker 1: and government have taken others down. So we're gonna bring
Speaker 1: the fishback. Where were you working What kind of work
Speaker 1: were you doing before you came to Riverkeeper? So I
Speaker 1: worked for the State of New York at the Department
Speaker 1: of Environmental Conservation. You know, when I was at the
Speaker 1: d E. C. Basil Sagos was at River Keeper, and
Speaker 1: then I came to Riverkeeper. Now Basil Sagos has running
Speaker 1: d e C. There's a little funny story for you
Speaker 1: musical chairs over there. Also worked in land conservation for
Speaker 1: ten years. And you know, I'm thirty five years in
Speaker 1: on environmental protection and I'm pretty excited about the work
Speaker 1: that we're doing. Remember in the eighties we went up
Speaker 1: to go visit Mario Cuoma and they were going to
Speaker 1: have in the wake of the certification of the passing
Speaker 1: of the Big Green Initiative in California, they wanted a
Speaker 1: similar referendum here in New York and they put up
Speaker 1: the Environmental Bond Act. They wanted one point one billion dollars.
Speaker 1: And of course, the friction between the Democratic and Republican
Speaker 1: leadership in both the House and the Senate in Albany
Speaker 1: was that the Republicans wanted eight hundred million dollars for
Speaker 1: construction projects that they could hand out to their supporters
Speaker 1: and three d million dollars for land acquisition and for
Speaker 1: passive measures, and the Democrats wanted the opposite. They wanted
Speaker 1: eight hundred billion dollars and land acquisition and passive measures.
Speaker 1: And and as many people know, there was a very
Speaker 1: somewhat sinister move afoot to force the treatment of New
Speaker 1: York City water. They wanted to switch from New York
Speaker 1: City's water remains filtered but not treated correct. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: city has avoided filtration for its larger system. The smaller
Speaker 1: system has the filtration. And it's because they protect the
Speaker 1: lands around the reservoirs. And that's the big watershed agreement
Speaker 1: that riverkeepers struck with the City of New York in
Speaker 1: the state and the upshed upstate towns. Way back in
Speaker 1: about so some people accused certain administrations in Albany, the governor,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I need to name who. This
Speaker 1: is a very long term serving governor who wanted to
Speaker 1: denigrate He wanted to impact the quality of the water
Speaker 1: to force treatments. They wanted to force stream because it
Speaker 1: could be a multi billion dollar project in terms of
Speaker 1: construction for many people who don't live in the area.
Speaker 1: The water supply for the City of New York comes
Speaker 1: from reservoirs and the mountains above and the hills above.
Speaker 1: And historically they flooded private land. They displaced hundreds of
Speaker 1: not thousands of people years ago, and they flooded it
Speaker 1: with these reservoirs, which became the drinking water supply for
Speaker 1: the city of New York, which remains relatively well protected.
Speaker 1: There was some runoff from roads and so forth, and
Speaker 1: some still some untreated sewage that seeps into that water
Speaker 1: in developments and so forth. But there were Republican governors
Speaker 1: and representatives in Albany who wanted to see that system
Speaker 1: go down enough well, they wanted to relax those protections,
Speaker 1: which would necessitate the building of treatment plants for the water,
Speaker 1: which would have been multibillion dollar projects to treat that
Speaker 1: water the way other cities water was treated. I think
Speaker 1: they came around because ultimately Mario Cuomo had the idea
Speaker 1: to do this agreement to avoid the filtration, and George Pataki,
Speaker 1: his successor, ended up sealing the deal, and I worked
Speaker 1: for both of them actually at the d e C
Speaker 1: and h PATTACKI ultimately ended up being pretty proud of
Speaker 1: his partnership with River Keeper. Fantastic that. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, because Pataki was exactly who I was
Speaker 1: talking about as the person who I was under the
Speaker 1: impression was trying to force the treatment of the water.
Speaker 1: POTACKI is an environmental hero. I didn't know it, so
Speaker 1: Riverkeepers role in helping to close Indian Point. What kind
Speaker 1: of work have you guys been doing in terms of
Speaker 1: Indian Point. Well. Riverkeeper got involved on Indian Point back
Speaker 1: in the ninet seventies when the plant was first doing
Speaker 1: so much damage to the river. It was incredible, and
Speaker 1: we've made sure that we got the studies necessary to
Speaker 1: show the damage that the plant was doing to the river.
Speaker 1: And the state saw those studies, and to their credit,
Speaker 1: they decided that the plant would need to build cooling
Speaker 1: towers to avoid damaging the river so much so they
Speaker 1: didn't have cooling towers initially at all. Now they still
Speaker 1: they never did. They never built them. Had they built
Speaker 1: them back in the day, that plant might still be operating,
Speaker 1: but they refused to comply with the Clean Water Act.
Speaker 1: They refused to protect the river from the damage that
Speaker 1: was being done. That plant used more water every day
Speaker 1: than the entire city of New York, almost double, and
Speaker 1: they destroyed a tremendous amount of river life. And they've
Speaker 1: done a real number on the biodiversity of the Hudson.
Speaker 1: But after nine eleven, that's when we realized there was
Speaker 1: a bigger threat, a bigger threat to the river. A
Speaker 1: bigger threat to our communities, and that was the spent
Speaker 1: fuel that's sitting right now and relatively unpretend pools that
Speaker 1: could be damaged by attack or greater leak. So the
Speaker 1: spent fuel is as vulnerable, if not more vulnerable than
Speaker 1: the actual reactor inside the dome, correct much more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: There's no concrete around it, and there's five times as
Speaker 1: much radiation in those spent fuel pools as there is
Speaker 1: in the reactors. And that's why not only do we
Speaker 1: have an agreement that has allowed us to close the
Speaker 1: Indian Point as of last Friday, but Richard has negotiated
Speaker 1: in the agreement that requires all that spent fuel to
Speaker 1: be moved by into far safer, dry cask storage. So
Speaker 1: the regions safer as a Friday, and will be still
Speaker 1: safer when that spent fuel is moved. When you shut
Speaker 1: down a reactor like Indian Point, what is the impact
Speaker 1: on the available power for the community at large. So
Speaker 1: the good news here is we've had so much energy
Speaker 1: efficiency added into the system and some renewables as well.
Speaker 1: We're actually burning less natural gas now than we were
Speaker 1: the day we signed in that closure agreement, because, like
Speaker 1: I said, we're been busy for a decade now. The
Speaker 1: state began preparing for Indian Points closure. In they came
Speaker 1: up with a renewable energy program called Clean Energy Standard.
Speaker 1: They required a tripling of energy efficiency programs by utilities.
Speaker 1: In they passed the Best Climate Leadership and Community Protection
Speaker 1: Act to cut carbon in the Nation, which is going
Speaker 1: to require seventy of our power to come from carbon
Speaker 1: free sources by. I could go on and on, but
Speaker 1: because of the work that's been done, we're on track
Speaker 1: to replace Indian points power output roughly three times over
Speaker 1: by and offshore wind will do it a fourth time
Speaker 1: over and we're ahead of schedule for meeting that seventy
Speaker 1: reduction by As the industry thrown in the towel is
Speaker 1: in terms of development of these tech novelogies and using
Speaker 1: them for utility reactors or are they still going to
Speaker 1: keep coming with modern developments and what do you think
Speaker 1: the odds are that they're going to succeed When you
Speaker 1: go around the horn here, Joe, you go first. They're
Speaker 1: gonna keep trying to push these new types of reactors,
Speaker 1: but there's really not going to get beyond the talking stage.
Speaker 1: In fact, there have been several bright ideas in the
Speaker 1: past that have bombed terribly, the sodium pools reactors, where
Speaker 1: there was a meltdown near Los Angeles, at Santa Susanna,
Speaker 1: there was a near meltdown near Detroit that went out,
Speaker 1: the breeder reactor concept that went out. They'll keep trying,
Speaker 1: but in the past more than half century, it's it's
Speaker 1: never gone beyond just the talking stage. What about you, Paul,
Speaker 1: what do you think? Well, even if they were to succeed,
Speaker 1: and there's no evidence that they will, they're not going
Speaker 1: to have any scale on this for decades. And there's
Speaker 1: one nuclear plant being built in the US right now
Speaker 1: in Georgia. They're billions over budget. They just announced yet
Speaker 1: another dual A but long story short. While we're waiting
Speaker 1: for the so called fourth generation nukes to show up,
Speaker 1: we've got all the technology we need to solve our
Speaker 1: energy challenges in hand. Wind and solar and battery storage
Speaker 1: keeps getting cheaper beyond hopes and expectations. The build out
Speaker 1: keeps getting bigger, and so we got the tools in hand.
Speaker 1: Let's focus on what we have in hand, because we
Speaker 1: don't have twenty years to start building stuff. We got
Speaker 1: to build stuff now and Paul. What's the status of
Speaker 1: the fracking thing in New York? Now, stop hard stop.
Speaker 1: The governor banned and then the legislature banned it legally,
Speaker 1: and the governor signed that law about a year ago.
Speaker 1: Richard Webster, what do you think is the future for nukes? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, my niece actually works in fusion research, and
Speaker 1: she says, the joke there is that fusion is always
Speaker 1: twenty years away. But it's been twenty years away for
Speaker 1: fifty years, right, So so that's kind of the submary
Speaker 1: of affordable nukes. I think. Let me just say this,
Speaker 1: I've never been more gratified working in public policy. Things
Speaker 1: I've worked on that our campaign, finance, reform, reproductive rights,
Speaker 1: a women's right to choose, gun control, whatever issues I've
Speaker 1: been involved with. It has never been an issue I've
Speaker 1: been involved with like shutting down utility reactors where I
Speaker 1: encountered a group of men and women. Because Jeanette Sherman
Speaker 1: passed away who we worked with him, I want to
Speaker 1: have a tip of the hat to her and all
Speaker 1: of our colleagues that we worked with over the years.
Speaker 1: I've never been more gratified working with a group of
Speaker 1: people than I had them with you guys, and I
Speaker 1: want to say that that Indian Point is closed. Indian
Speaker 1: Point's not gonna close. We're not trying to pressure them
Speaker 1: to close it. Indian Point is closed. Was an epic battle,
Speaker 1: but Indian Point is closed because of the work of
Speaker 1: each of you on this podcast with me. You worked
Speaker 1: with many other groups. We know that. We always acknowledge
Speaker 1: our colleagues who were out there and worked with us,
Speaker 1: and we're very great to them. But name one that
Speaker 1: you helped really worth the Indian Point. What's a local
Speaker 1: group that was really ferocious on that? Oh? Well, I've
Speaker 1: got a name, clear Water. I actually represented clear Water
Speaker 1: at the re licensing hearing on an environmental justice contention
Speaker 1: and we actually one of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board,
Speaker 1: which is quite rare. Of course, we lost on appeal,
Speaker 1: but you know, I always say with the NRC, the
Speaker 1: question is not whether you win, it's how long do
Speaker 1: you not lose? For Well, my phrase with the NRC
Speaker 1: is we're always going to win twenty years from you,
Speaker 1: and we've been saying that for fifty years. One last
Speaker 1: comment from each of you, Richard, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about it? I feel great about it. I think We
Speaker 1: worked hard, we marshaled the facts, the people were persuaded,
Speaker 1: and the politicians listened. So that's probably a rare thing,
Speaker 1: but it's nice when it happens. Paul galleis grateful, and
Speaker 1: I've got to give my tip of a hat to
Speaker 1: a man who has not been mentioned, but for fifteen
Speaker 1: years or so, Andrew Cuomo stayed true to this cause
Speaker 1: and he was on that agreement. In the agreement also
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened if not for the commitment, and New
Speaker 1: York State in this administration got it, got it well done.
Speaker 1: Joseph Banano I feel mixed. On the one hand, we
Speaker 1: know from our studies that we've done that local rates
Speaker 1: of child cancer and infantests are going to plunge immediately,
Speaker 1: and cancer at all ages and eventually will go down.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it's unfortunate that we had to
Speaker 1: go through this period where people had to suffer to
Speaker 1: get to this point. Now that right there, that's the
Speaker 1: Joe Bangano I grew to love. The guy was never satisfied.
Speaker 1: We had to have one more lunch. We need to
Speaker 1: raise more money and give him. How that's the Joe
Speaker 1: I love. He's never satisfied. We're gonna be a million
Speaker 1: years old trying to raise money for anti nuclear utilities. Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you very much. Indian Point is closed,
Speaker 1: and that is due in large part to the work
Speaker 1: that each of you have done. My thanks to all
Speaker 1: three of you for doing this show. I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot like wonderful to told to you. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for the work you did too. Thank you
Speaker 1: all very much. Thank you. Hall Galley is the president
Speaker 1: of Hudson Riverkeeper. My thanks to him, Richard Webster and
Speaker 1: Joe Mangano for their time and their dedication to this
Speaker 1: long fight. Indian Point has closed, but there are still
Speaker 1: nine three other nuclear reactors still operating in the United
Speaker 1: States and more than four others around the world. We're
Speaker 1: produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donohue, and Zach McNeice. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.