Yves here. As you’ll see, the debate over nuclear wastewater discharge is over whether the proponents have an accurate grip on safety issues. The industry claims it does and the risks are teeny. Critics contend this is a known unknown, that they don’t have a long enough time frame nor data about synergism with other pollutants to be sure, and the nuclear contamination can’t be unwound once a water release is made.
By Dana Drugmand. Originally published at The New Lede
An effort by New York to ban radioactive waste from polluting the Hudson River has embroiled the state in a bitter legal battle emblematic of challenges facing communities across the country as they wrestle with what to do with the waste from shuttered nuclear power plants.
At the heart of the matter in New York is a law enacted last August that aims to block plans by Holtec International to discharge more than one million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the river during the decommissioning of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The company sued the state in April, arguing that the discharge was allowed under federal regulations, which preempt state regulation.
The state filed a countersuit, asking the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to dismiss Holtec’s claims and validating the state new.
The United States has long had the largest nuclear power plant fleet in the world, with nuclear power accounting for roughly 20% of annual electricity generation from the late 1980s into 2020, according to the US Congressional Research Service. There are currently more than 90 commercial nuclear reactors in operation at 54 nuclear power plants in 28 states. But many have been closed over the last decade, with more scheduled for closure, due to economic challenges and battles with environmental and public health advocates who cite a number of risks associated with the facilities.
The battlegrounds extend far beyond New York. Holtec is facing similar community opposition to its plan to discharge radioactive wastewater from the decommissioning Pilgrim nuclear plant in eastern Massachusetts into Cape Cod Bay, for instance.
“It’s very clear no one wants this radioactive waste in the water,” said Santosh Nandabalan, an organizer with Food & Water Watch who campaigns against the radioactive wastewater dumping. “I think Holtec needs to get with the program now that there’s a law, and we’re going to hold them accountable to it by continuing to use this people power to ensure our Hudson River does not become a dumping ground.”
Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien told The New Lede that Holtec’s goal is to “safely decommission these plants and return the property to be economic engines for the communities that they reside in.” He said the company has “been open and forthright… answering questions as they have arisen.”
Opponents to discharging the radioactive wastewater, according to O’Brien, are trying to “push fear over facts.” He said the “reality [is] that you get more radiation from ingesting a banana or brasil nuts that you would from discharge.”
A Common Practice
Proponents of nuclear wastewater discharge argue that contaminants will be so diluted in the receiving water body that they will pose little if any risk. They say that environmental discharge of radioactive substances happens routinely in the nuclear power industry and can be safely managed.
Radioactive spent fuel from the power plants is generally stored on site in liquid pools or dry casks, and this waste is accumulating by about 2,000 metric tons each year with no permanent repository for burying the waste established.
Water used for cooling and spent fuel storage, contaminated with radioactive substances, also has to be managed and disposed of, and discharging the treated wastewater into local waterways is a common practice when nuclear power plants are operating as well as when they are decommissioning.
The decommissioning plan for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, for example, involves discharging treated wastewater into the ocean, while other radioactive waste will be either stored on site or transported off site.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) states on its website that the federal agency “regulates the disposal of radioactive waste” including “transferring the material or waste to an authorized recipient, storing it for decay (decay-in-storage), and safely releasing it into the environment (effluent release). Any disposal method may be chosen if it meets the applicable NRC regulations.” The latter disposal method, while it may technically be considered “safe” according to regulatory authorities, has raised alarm in some communities surrounding decommissioning nuclear plants and the nearby waterways receiving the radioactive discharges.
But opponents to environmental discharges of the waste say regulators fail to take into account long-term, intergenerational toxic exposures to these substances, and how they may interact with other environmental contaminants that the public is exposed to
“There needs to be a complete generational reframing of how we think about releasing these radioactive substances,” said Cindy Folkers, a radiation and health hazard specialist with Beyond Nuclear. “Radiation’s not in a vacuum, and that’s part of the problem. No one is looking at the synergism.”
Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at FaireWinds Energy and a nuclear industry decommissioning expert, also said that federal regulators are not looking at the complete picture of environmental contamination when authorizing radioactive discharges from nuclear energy facilities.
Wastewater from nuclear power plants contains tritium – a radioactive isotope of hydrogen – which can be hazardous and potentially carcinogenic. Dumping large volumes of this radioactive wastewater into waterways already contaminated with toxins like PFAS or PCBs risks creating even greater contamination issues, he said. He noted that the Hudson River, for example, is known to be polluted with PCBs.
“There’s this thing called synergistic toxicity,” Gundersen said. “The NRC regulations don’t take that into account, and the EPA regulations don’t take that into account.” The science around how tritium may interact with or affect other chemical contaminants is not well understood, which warrants a precautionary approach when it comes to disposing of radioactive wastewater from nuclear plants. “There’s no doubt in my mind there’s not enough science to allow it to be dumped.”
Seeking Alternatives
New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant, located on the east bank of the Hudson River about 25 miles north of New York City, permanently ceased operating in 2021. Holtec, a private equity company and a big player in the burgeoning nuclear decommissioning business, bought the plant with a plan to accelerate its decommissioning – including release 1.3 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Hudson.
But when environmental activists learned of the plan, they swiftly mobilized in opposition, pushing the state to pass the law they dubbed “Save the Hudson”.
In Massachusetts, Holtec faces similar backlash with the decommissioning of the Pilgrim nuclear plant into Cape Cod Bay. The company currently lacks legal authority to discharge into the bay and reportedly is considering evaporating the wastewater.
An April 30, 2024 letter from US Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and US Rep. William Keating, sent to Holtec’s president and CEO, states: “There is no question that evaporating wastewater from Pilgrim poses potential health and environmental risks.” The letter urges the company to heed community concerns about releasing the waste into the air or water.
The nuclear wastewater disposal dilemma is not limited to the US. In Japan, releases of treated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima plant began in March 2024, but the option to discharge the radioactive water into the ocean is highly controversial and the move has prompted China to ban seafood imports from Japan.
According to one expert who studies the environmental consequences of radioactive pollutants in the environment, the wastewater release from Fukushima is not expected to result in any significant impacts for the marine ecosystem.
Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science at University of Portsmouth in the UK, co-authored a paper published in October that notes that it is “common practice for nuclear facilities worldwide to discharge wastewater containing [tritium] into the sea.” Releasing large volumes of water containing small amounts of the radionuclide tritium is generally safe, Smith told The New Lede. “The radiation doses to the public from this release are extremely small – I would call them insignificant,” he said.
Despite such reassurances, it is still “totally understandable” why people are disturbed by the prospect of radioactive water being released into their local environment, said Allison Macfarlane, professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at University of British Columbia, and a former chair of the NRC. “It’s really important for these nuclear companies and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to work with the affected public.”
One disposal option is to package the wastewater and transport it off-site to a licensed treatment facility. This is what NorthStar, another nuclear decommissioning company, did with the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
Another alternative for contaminated wastewater is long-term storage before release. Holding contaminated wastewater for 10-20 years allow for the radioactivity to decrease is an alternative to the quick dumping approach, and one that Gundersen says is probably most appropriate for the million-plus gallons of radioactive water at the Indian Point plant in New York. “My recommendation is to store it until you find out the science behind releasing tritium into water that’s already contaminated with PCBs,” he said.
For the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts, which Holtec acquired in 2019, the company evaluated alternative wastewater disposal options and concluded that discharge into Cape Cod Bay would be the most convenient and lowest cost disposition method.
Holtec dismissed the option of long-term on-site storage, stating in an evaluation that “impacts to the decommissioning schedule are a factor in the evaluation of alternatives.” Discharging treated wastewater into the bay, according to the company, would be “the most protective of human health and the environment” as any remaining contaminants or radionuclides, like tritium, would be so diluted as to be barely detectable.
Folkers, however, said this argument is misleading. “If something is dilute, that presupposes that it stays that way, and radioactivity moving in the environment doesn’t stay that way.” She said there is “a lot of confusion that swirls around tritium,” which is routinely released into the environment from nuclear power plants at very low doses that have long been considered relatively benign. But emerging science suggests that this radioactive substance may be more hazardous than previously thought, especially for pregnant women and children.
“People who support releasing [tritium] into the environment think that because it has a low-energy beta, it’s safe, but that’s not how radioactivity works,” Folkers said. “What we should be focused on is the longer-term releases, the releases that happened over 40 years, and the intergenerational environmental and health implications, biological implications, of that contamination.”
The NRC states on its website that “any exposure to radiation could pose some health risk,” which may include increased risk of cancer. The agency says it sets dose limits “well below the levels of radiation exposure that cause health effects in humans – including a developing embryo or fetus. The effects of high doses and high dose rates are well understood. Public health research, however, has not established health risks at low doses and low dose rates.”
For Folkers, this limited understanding of the public health impacts of low-level radiation exposures over the long-term is even more reason to be skeptical of assumptions radioactive waste discharging is safe.
“It is becoming more and more evident that we are not looking at radiation exposure in a way that we need to look at it,” she said.
(Featured photo by Tony Fischer.)
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Maybe there is something to be worried about with the waste water release.
However the article provides no data points about the type/s of hazardous waste and concentrations.
All the links I clicked on provided no additional information.
Maybe someone can provide a link or two. I couldn’t find anything, I guess I’m not asking google the right question.
from one of the papers linked…
“Tritium is the most common radioactive pollutant rou-
tinely discharged in the largest quantities as measured by
radioactivity. For instance, the total radioactivity of trit-
ium in the discharges of polluted water from the Braid-
wood nuclear power plant in Illinois in 2019 was more
than 75,000 times the discharges of all other fission and ac-
tivation products. The total radioactivity of routine gase-
ous releases of tritium in the form of water vapor from the
Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois in 2019 were
more than one hundred times that of all other gaseous fis-
sion products and activated radioactive gases.”
That isn’t enough. You’d want to know the amount of radioactivity measured in curies or becquerals ( sp?) and you would also like to know estimated doses ( in milli or microsieverts) to the public and told what assumptions go into those assumptions. And how it compares to background rates.
News accounts typically do a terrible job on stories involving radiation. From a newspaper account you typically can’t tell anything at all about the amounts or doses. And activists are often worse. I once knew one who told me that trees were dying a few miles outside a local nuclear plant, not realizing that this would mean that people in the town would also be dying of acute radiation sickness. I am sure he had seen dying trees but he had no clue on the implications of what he was claiming was the cause.
This might sound like I a pro nuke, but of course you can’t trust the corporations or government on the other side.
Those are only relative ratios. If Braidwood released a total of 2.6 micro-becquerels per cubic meter of “all other fission and activation products”, this means that at 75000X as much, the tritium releases would add up to clock in at 0.2 becquerels per cubic meter. Which is nothing. [For comparison, human body tissues measure around 70000 Bq/m^3, a consequence of naturally occurring radiocarbon (C-14) and radioactive potassium (K-40) that is absorbed by the human body. So chugging water which contains 0.2 Bq/m^3 isn’t dangerous. Heck, most public water systems permit radiation levels as high as 0.55 Bq/m^3.]
We need to know absolute radiation levels, and how those compare to normal background radiation. Without hard numbers, the tendency is to drop into the environmentalist mindset of “RADATION = BAD” without asking how bad, and people get paralyzed by fear.
A crucial issue is the assumption that radioactive isotopes will be diluted in the Ocean (or a network of rivers and lakes) so as not to cause any excess radiation above the background one.
We already know from earlier investigations about Fukushima and Sellafield that this assumption is not warranted in the general case: radioactivity migrates at different rates in the ocean depending on the radioisotopes, dispersion is not homogeneous, isotopes may suprisingly concentrate far from the source of discharge, dilution of radioactivity is not as rapid as generally assumed.
It seems to me that opponents to those uncontrolled discharges have therefore a point.
Yeah, but what I really want to know are the starting concentrations and the exact isotopes involved. Because that’s what defined the dilution required and the amounts of bio-concentration we might expect.
If the waste is only 2X as radioactive as “natural background”, then we only need to dilute it once over. That would be trivially easy. If it’s a million times as radioactive, then it needs to be handled carefully. I’d want to see the plan. If it’s a trillion times as radioactive, then hell no. But what is the actual number?
And what are the isotopes? The two studies you quoted focused primary on releases of radioactive cesium and strontium, both of which are strong bio-accumulators in fish (factors of 2000 and 60, respectively, per https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/20293388). But today’s article is focused on tritium, which has a bio-accumulation factor of 1.0. It doesn’t concentrate.
How can we make conclusions without any meaningful data?
Your final question summarizes the situation: in the absence of accurate, sufficient data, we cannot assess the risks and take a reasoned decision.
The DRL (derived release limits) for nuclear facilities are based on the resulting dose to the most exposed member of the public, the maximum dose being 1 mSv.
Initial concentrations do not drive dilution requirements.
What is important are the actual isotopes and how many bequerels of each isotope is released.
From that the tall foreheads calculate how much radioactivity can be released, taking into account bio-accumulation and other factors such as how much dilution is required to ensure no single person gets too many bequerels.
In theory, the releases in water have to ensure a person downstream can eat all the fish they want, drink all the water they want and water their garden with that water and receive a dose of less than 1 mSv. This also includes the air they breath.
Good luck for any of us making decisions based on the data.
As they say in the industry, “the solution to pollution is always dilution”.
Um, “initial concentrations of each isotope” times “volume of waste” times “rate of decay per isotope per unit mass (or volume)” will give you total becquerels per isotope. The quantities I wanted to see can be used to derive the quantities you describe. The math works either way.
And yes, the ultimate goal is for the total radiation dose received by a person to be held below an established limit. Which is why I find Dana Drugmand’s article so frustrating: Nowhere does she estimate a likely radiation dose that would result from a release of Indian Point wastes, nor does she provide any of the data one could use to derive an estimated dose.
Instead, we get spurious arguments about weirdo interactions with PCBs and other chemical waste, none of which actually make sense.
As an example, storm water from a site is directed to the outfall from various parts of the site. This contribution to the total activity disposed has to be accounted for, the only practical way is through sampling just before it hits the river or lake.
So yes, once you know the final concentrations and volume at the end of the pipe you can calculate the dose to the most exposed member of the public, also taking into account the dose from the subsequent decay products which can be substantial.
Financial accountant here. What about marine life? Surely this will effect marine life, yes?
google doesn’t want you to know – we have 2 in Michigan on the west side using Lake Michigan to cool – and Holtec is reopening Palisades which had been closed down – my head bowed and shaking –
“The science around how tritium may interact with or affect other chemical contaminants is not well understood..”
This is a giant load of poop, Tritium is hydrogen. The most common element in the universe, and, along with carbon, the main components of organic chemistry, which is probably the most studied branch of chemistry. The extra neutrons don’t influence the charge of the shell.
Not a chemist. but is not Hydrogen hydrogen, and Tritium tritium?
“Tritium (from Ancient Greek τρίτος (trítos) ‘third’) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or 3H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life ~12.3 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a triton) contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the common isotope hydrogen-1 (protium) contains one proton and zero neutrons, and that of a non-radioactive hydrogen-2 (deuterium) contains one proton and one neutron.” (Wiki)
Speaking of toxins we don’t really know and understand, and the dynamic synergies with outher elements and compounds, what is the half-life of a Biden or Trump?
Chemically, tritium (hydrogen-3) still has one proton and one electron, and it participates in chemical reactions very similarly to regular hydrogen (hydrogen-1). And given that the chemical behavior of ordinary hydrogen is well understood, this means that we understand the behavior of tritium also. Paradan’s criticism is correct.
It’s sort of a technicality around what you mean by “chemical.” I think what Paradan is referring to is that chemical reactions & bonding are almost entirely driven by the structure of the outermost electron shell, which is independent of an element’s isotope. So chemically, tritium in the form of heavy water should interact with other chemicals in the environment almost entirely like normal water.
I think the catch would be if tritium emits ionizing radiation during decay (not sure if it does), and if so, how much is being released. With ionizing radiation, you can push chemicals into weird transitional states that can form weird bonds.
I think its a beta emitter.
Paradan beat me to it, but that comment about tritium interaction being poorly understood is utter, utter BS.
To sort of answer your question, yes, hydrogen is hydrogen, and tritium is tritium, but tritium is ALSO hydrogen. It’s like saying a dog is a dog, and a poodle is a poodle, but a poodle is also a dog.
The ONLY difference you will see in the chemistry is to do with what are called primary and secondary kinetic isotope effects due to a tritium atom/ion being three times heavier than the most common isotope. This can marginally affect reaction outcomes (i.e. chemical interactions) in very specialized cases, but for the most part, the types of reactions that hydrogen is involved in will not be affected to any measurable extent. When I was 17, back in the seventies, I had to learn about the basics of kinetic isotope effects in high school, and we had detailed classes on these effects in undergrad PChem.
Basically, the comment highlighted by Paradan is FUD, as well as being Grade A BS.
The comments about PCBs would also quality as FUD/BS. Chemical compounds with aromatic rings (like PCBs) tend to be more resistance to radiation, not less. And how would radiation from dilute tritium in the water get to the PCBs anyway, as they’re buried in the river bed? The penetration depth of tritium-decay beta particles through water is a fraction of a millimeter. And it’s even less in dirt.
We know that certain chemicals increase your risk of cancer and we know ionizing radiation increases your risk of cancer.
We also know that smoking and alcohol multiply the risk of cancer , as an example.
So, when you are exposed to both, is the risk of cancer just adding the 2 risks together or does it become a multiple of the 2 risks?
I doubt it has been studied or is even possible to study.
Curiously not mentioned is the ‘Grand Tetons’ at San Onofre, which was quickly shut down rather all of the sudden about a decade ago.
San Onofre replaced the steam generators and related parts and those ended up being faulty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station
Look At Crystal River Plant right to the Gulf of Mexico It has been for more than a decade.
Clearly others above are more knowledgeable about the physics side of the disposal, so let me just note: private equity in charge of nuclear decommissioning sounds like a spectacularly bad idea.
Hey Irrational,
What is wrong with having err… Private Equity in charge of nuclear decommissioning?
The US religion is capitalism. Are you Socialist or Communist? /s
They see an opportunity to enter into a space, arbitrage the costs and profits, and make $$$$ off of their initial investments, and they have the deep pockets to do it:)
I was very err.. ¨saddened¨ :) when I read this quote:
¨…impacts to the decommissioning schedule are a factor in the evaluation of alternatives…”
Don´t you see? The err… profit margin will decrease substantially if they had to add in extra storage costs, and their financial models would have to be revised and new profit margins presented to the private equity stakeholders.
Time is of the essence, so we need to dump all of this into the Hudson River ASAP, because if not, we will have to eat some of our profit!!!
And besides you dumb people, this is capitalism at its best!!!
Our country was built on this!!!
If you are scared, just move away from the Hudson River!!!
I am sure everyone would agree with the private equity firm that stated ¨you get more radiation from ingesting a banana or brasil nuts that you would from discharge…¨ LOL!!!!!!!
Anyways, I *used* to work in private equity, with a New York based company back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I know their kind. I am not surprised they are profiting off of the nuclear decommissioning space, but I would never trust them in a million years to do the right thing for the public.
Let´s just say I would bet they will cause more harm to public health than to improve public health.
One thing that I don’t see mentioned in this article is that both of these power plants were originally built by regulated utilities, Con Edison for Indian Point and Boston Edison for Pilgrim, but were sold when the industry was deregulated in the late 1990s. I don’t know the specifics of these plants, but many power plants changed hands repeatedly over the next few decades. They generated fees for Wall Street, law firms, and consultants, but the rates in Massachusetts at least still seem to go higher and higher every year.
And now that the plants have closed, they have been sold again to a firm that hopes to be able to profit off of the large amount of money in the decommissioning pool. It seems like the inevitable conclusion of decades of utility regulatory policy.
Sorry, but is it only tritium in that water? I presume the tritium comes from it having been irradiated with slow neutrons for a long time, in which case surely there must be a hell of a lot more deuterium in that water. (It’s almost impossible to remove either isotope from water.) Is deuterium good for you? I know tritium is sexy because of hydrogen bombs and industrial uses, but this still worries me a bit.