Indian Point 2 workers found a small leak of radioactive water in late August that company officials and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission felt wasn't significant enough to be made public, a move that angered county officials yesterday. The leak, which company officials announced yesterday, is between a half pint and a pint per day and probably came through cracks in the spent-fuel storage building at the nuclear power plant that were discovered during a construction project to reinforce walls.
"There is no radiological hazard to workers or the public and the potential environmental impact is minimal," officials from Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the plant, said in a prepared statement sent to media outlets a little after 2 p.m. yesterday. "Soil samples taken three feet from the area where the moisture was detected showed normal background levels of radiation."
....
Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef expressed frustration similar to Spano's about the leak, but said he was equally concerned about what else might be wrong at the nuclear plants. "Something like this erodes confidence about getting timely information about Indian Point, which is critical," Vanderhoef said. "But the second question is, what else is there that we don't know about? Are there any other tanks with cracks in them? This raises more questions than it answers, and none of it is good."
