Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
HATS OFF TO THE SUMMERFEST 2023 HOLY NAME OF MARY KNIGHTS, THE ASSORTED VOLUNTEERS, AND THE CHURCH BAKERS---(WHO MAKE A MEAN IRISH SODA BREAD)---AT THE ANNUAL FOOD TENT. CLICK ON THE PHOTO. FOR MORE ABOUT HOLY NAME OF MARY, VISIT Holy Name of Mary - Croton-on-Hudson, NY
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To the editor:
The good news is that thanks to Senator Harckham we won’t have to drive to New Jersey to pee. The bad news is that we may be headed for expensive litigation and Town Supervisor Becker is going to be lonely and dehydrated.
From 1962 to 2021, all of us have benefited from the operation of the Indian Point nuclear reactors. During all that time, water containing tritium was being produced and discharged into the Hudson River. Some of this is the “tritiated water” (HTO) which must now be disposed of.
Tritium can be man-made (as in a nuclear reactor) or naturally (by the interaction of cosmic rays and atmospheric hydrogen). For drinking water, maximum limits are measured in units (becquerels in most countries, or picocuries in the USA) per liter, and vary by country. American standards set by the EPA are some of the lowest in the world, and the calculations themselves are conservative. For nuclear plants such as Indian Point, tritium discharge is also regulated by the NRC.
Supervisor Becker’s April 26 press release says that Cortlandt is taking a stand against radioactive wastewater in the Hudson River. He states: “As a physician, there is no safe established level of nuclear waste. Experts have established certain levels that they consider safe, but this is speculative.” As a physician, Dr. Becker knows better. For starters, unless the Town of Cortlandt has a method of preventing cosmic rays from falling within municipal limits, then Dr. Becker knows that there is going to be a level of radioactivity in any river and in any human being.
To tell the residents of Cortlandt that there is no such thing as a safe level of exposure to radiation plays well at a “Save the River” concert, but it is the type of argument that causes people to distrust doctors and scientists. All of us are exposed to naturally occurring radiation every day.
As a public official, Supervisor Becker should consider the legislative ramifications of absolutist statements. Each and every reader of this newspaper is radioactive, because all human beings give off radiation due to the food we eat. This fact inspired the “banana-equivalent-dose” (BED) metric cited in a public presentation by Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board technical expert David Lochbaum. As Professor Michael Short of MIT points out, sleeping next to someone for eight hours gives you 1.5 BEDs (no pun intended). Does Dr. Becker tell his married patients to get separate bedrooms?
Does Dr. Becker stand at the Metro-North station warning commuters that Grand Central Station is made of granite which gives off radiation? Has he warned Congressman Lawler and Senator Schumer to quit their jobs because the US Capitol Building is so radioactive (also due to granite) that it would be shut down if it were regulated by the NRC?
And don’t even get me started on Brazil nuts. If Dr. Becker believes that there is no “safe” level of radiation, then he should mobilize the Town Board to outlaw Brazil nuts within the town limits.
One of the concerns about legislation prohibiting radioactive discharge into the Hudson is the consequence for medicine. Does Dr. Becker tell his patients to not get chest x-rays? To not have their conditions properly diagnosed? We commonly think of radiation therapy for cancer treatment, but 90 percent of radioisotopes are used for diagnosis—not treatment. This results in a measurable radiation signature within the human body: on a regular basis people who recently had nuclear medicine are questioned at JFK because they set off sensitive radiation detectors at the airport. If the Cortlandt Town Board bans discharge of radioactive liquid into waters draining into the Hudson, then many of us will have to drive to Jersey to pee.
Croton resident Joel Gingold has a background in science and in politics, which explains why his analysis (The Gazette, May 4/10) has been the most insightful so far: “The psychological impact on the residents of the Hudson Valley of Holtec’s dumping is as important, or maybe even more important, than any actual physical threat.”
Mr. Gingold proposes that Holtec ship the waste to west Texas. This is not as far-fetched as it seems: Holtec already ships waste there for clients who are members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. I don’t know how practical this solution is, but it is an idea. Most importantly, Mr. Gingold does not put forth the idea that it is possible to achieve zero radiation exposure, nor does he take issue with EPA and NRC standards for HTO discharge.
All of us in Croton can support dumping our waste in Texas. Here in Croton, our average household income is $150,000 but in Andrews County TX it is only $34,000. Given their poverty and high percentage of marginalized minorities, those folks will be kissing our feet for sending them our radioactive trash. If poor folk are willing to take our trash and we are rich enough to pay them off, well… that is what they call a win-win! At the Decommissioning Oversight Board meeting, Mr. Lochbaum raised the environmental justice issue posed by dumping our garbage on poor people in a distant state, but what’s the use of being rich if you can’t shift the environmental cost of your cheap electricity on to the peasantry?
Even if Mr. Gingold’s proposal does not pan out, his view of this as an emotional rather than scientific problem can lead to a more productive outcome than where Supervisor Becker and his passel of grandstanding politicos are leading us. Cortlandt’s press release listed seven politicians, three NGOs, and four musicians… but not a single concrete plan for how to dispose of the HTO. That is not leadership, it is electioneering. Outraged citizenry may clap at the applause lines and stay for the free concert, but after they return home the actual problem that inspired the concert is no closer to resolution.
Senator Harckham has been in office long enough that he knows that legislation is drafted with the assumption that it will face legal challenge. His proposed law (S 6893) is drafted in a way that makes me wonder if he secretly wants it to be struck down in court.
Harckham’s bill is so narrowly-drafted that as a practical matter it applies only to Indian Point. That is good, because it won’t affect nuclear medicine at local hospitals, and radiology patients can use their home bathroom without breaking the law. The flip side is that because it only applies to Holtec’s work at Indian Point, it will be closely scrutinized in court.
As a threshold matter, the law would be subject to challenge because it governs a matter already subject to federal (NRC and EPA) regulation. The bill does admit (section 30-0103) that Albany cannot preempt Washington, and there is a significant chance that the Harckham bill will be struck down by a federal court.
Of particular significance is that the bill does not make any claims as to health and safety. It does not even mention the radiation exposure argument put forth by Supervisor Becker. Indeed, the Harckham bill implicitly agrees that the HTO discharge is not a medical threat, but rather affects property values. The sole reason for the new law is the economic impact of the water discharge.
The proposed bill begins with the first legislative finding that “the energy and economic output generated by nuclear power plants are beneficial to the state and its residents…” but that discharge of radiological agents have a “substantial economic impacts” on the state and residents. Given that water discharge has been going on for 60 years, there should be evidence from real estate transactions to quantify that impact. And since there has not been any recent water discharge, what is the impact on home values? Living next to a nuclear plant can impact the value of your home, but did you ever hear of anyone refusing to buy a Hudson riverfront house because of the water discharge?
The second legislative finding is that the deleterious economic impact of water discharge was outweighed by “countervailing economic benefits” during the 60 years that Indian Point was operating, but that since the plant is now closed there are no economic benefits to the community.
In other words: we made a mess and did not care as long as it was to our benefit. Now that we don’t get the cheap electricity, we don’t want to pay for what we left behind.
This is rather like when you were in high school and had a raucous party while your parents were away but refused to clean up afterword because the fun part was over. Sen. Harckham refuses to admit that the HTO is a result of the plant producing electricity for 60 years which all of us used and benefited from—the economic benefit has already been obtained even if the costs are ongoing. That we failed to set aside proper funding for decommissioning is irrelevant: the Indian Point property is our responsibility to clean up.
The third legislative finding: “other methods of managing waste from decommissioning nuclear power plants are available and would not result in the same economic impacts.” What other methods would result in less economic impact?
The answer to that question depends on who bears the cost of those “other methods of managing waste.” As John Ravitz of the Business Council of Westchester noted (The Examiner News, May 16/22), the alternative disposal methods are more risky, and “contrary to the Joint Proposal and the Public Service Commission order that was agreed to by all parties.”
I have not seen the written documents and signed agreements. But in litigation, all of that will be subject to discovery. If Mr. Ravitz and others are correct and Cortlandt is backing out of what it had agreed to during the course of negotiations, that can result in significant liability for taxpayers. We already have our state Senator admitting that this is purely an economic issue, and admitting that we all benefited from the operation of the very reactor that produced the waste which now needs to be disposed of. There is no new medical or economic data which has come to light since then-Governor Cuomo announced that Indian Point was shutting down.
Holtec assumed responsibility to remediate the site in compliance with state and federal requirements. The decommissioning cost estimate was based on those requirements, and a decommissioning trust fund was established based on those requirements. Now the state legislature proposes to change the requirements based on a dubious legislative finding, and refuses to discuss the impact of the new requirements on the adequacy of the trust fund, except to state that the law will result in no fiscal implications to the state. Given the circumstances, a court might disagree and hold the state and/or town responsible for the added expense of any alternative disposition method.
In the Bill Summary, Sen. Harckham claims that “Our communities along the Hudson River are concerned with the economic impacts on local real estate values and development that could arise as a result” of the discharge. The truth is that the discharge went on for 60 years without our current politicians or their predecessors complaining. The truth is that the discharge proposed by Holtec would be one-fifth of the radiation emitted by a banana.
Holtec is a business. So long as Cortlandt proposes a legally-permissible method of disposition and is willing to pay for it, Holtec has every reason to keep Cortlandt happy. The problem is that the politicians want to change the plan and stick Holtec with the cost. If Supervisor Becker objects to handling the water differently than it has been handled for the past 60 years, then he should propose an alternative and tell us how much it is going to cost.
If there is now an impact on local real estate values it is because rather than honor commitments made during the prior negotiations, our politicians have chosen to fan the flames of fear. Instead of highlighting the successful progress of the decommissioning, prospective homebuyers now are reading about how radioactive the water is. I noticed that in the Comments section below the official press release posted on the River Journal site, there is an unanswered public comment from Louis Garso: “Why would you put radioactive water into a river? Is there more to this story as this makes no sense to do.”
Yes, Mr. Garso: there is more to the story, and the Town of Cortlandt is not going to clear up the confusion because at the present time it is in the politicians’ interest to rile up the electorate. Eventually we will have a resolution to the problem, but with the warm weather there is still time for another concert or two before Election Day. So next time you hear a politician expounding on the evils of the Holtec plan, ask them what is their preferred alternative, how much will it cost, and who will pay for it.
--Paul Steinberg
Croton-on-Hudson
BY SPECIAL REQUEST---CROTON NOTABLE HOWARD DA SILVA IN THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER AND HIS WIFE, 1967
Hard Times[ is a 1975 action drama sport film marking the directorial debut of Walter Hill.
It stars Charles Bronson as Chaney, a mysterious drifter freighthopping through Louisiana during the Great Depression, who proves indomitable in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches after forming a partnership with the garrulous hustler Speed, played by James Coburn.
Well written....well acted....read more at Hard Times (1975 film) - Wikipedia
See more films for our movie bucket list at THE NEW EVERYTHING CROTON: RAINTREE COUNTY 1957
FROM THE FB PAGE--We’re very sorry to announce that Croton Corners will be closing on June 30, 2023. It was a difficult decision for our family but we have run out of runway to keep the business operational. Our sister business, Double Docs Design, has also closed their retail location on Grand Street, though they will continue to sell their wares on the flea market circuit.
