Environment

Addressing the Tritium Leak

It had long been thought that Tritium was in the groundwater beneath the Indian Point plants. It’s stipulated that this was most likely a result of a one-time leak of the Indian Point 2 fuel pool that was subsequently repaired by the previous plant owner in the 1990s.

Tritium had apparently seeped into the plant’s sewage pipes, though just a small amount (about 8,000 picocuries), which likely is getting to the village of Buchanan's sewage treatment plant (limit for sewage is 10 million picocuries; drinking water standard is 20,000 picocuries).

Addressing “False-Positives”

Once discovered, Entergy immediately took steps to identify and mitigate leakage of strontium-90 and tritium from the spent fuel pool of the non-operating Unit-1 plant and tritium from Unit 2 pool. Entergy installed a water purification system to remove>95% of SR-90 from the Unit-1 pool water. To stop leakage permanently, Entergy moved up its timetable to 2008 for removing the spent fuel and draining the water from pool. Entergy also installed more than 35 monitoring and sampling wells after its initial detection in September of 2005. In addition, Entergy has continued to inspect the inner liner of the IP2 pool with no reports of any active leaks up to date.

However, in June of 2007, Entergy notified local public officials as well as federal and local regulators that possible indications of tritium in the sewer lines at Indian Point reported in early May have proven to be incorrect. Entergy cautioned then that sampling for tritium at extremely low levels, as is done in the sampling program at Indian Point, could sometimes lead to "false positives," but that Entergy would pursue verifying the validity of the sampling and investigate the possible sources.

Entergy re-analyzed samples taken in early May that produced the false positives and determined they were negative for tritium. Samples also were sent to an outside laboratory which confirmed the re-analyzed negative results seen in the Indian Point lab.

Entergy workers also inspected potential sources inside the plants that could have provided a pathway for the tritium. An examination of plant drawings and physical infrastructure inspections showed there is no pathway for the radioactive materials to get off site through the sewage system.

In the later samples, the apparent tritium indication had disappeared in just a few days. An actual or real tritium result would continue well beyond a few days since tritium has a 12.3 years half-life.

Ongoing Vigilance

No tritium has been seen above background levels in any of the numerous samples taken outside of the Indian Point property, including the Buchanan sewage treatment plant and other nearby properties.

Today weekly calls are held by the NRC with all key stakeholders – including representatives from Sen. Clinton's office-to discuss any and all new findings and results. Entergy continues to work very closely with the appropriate health and environmental officials on the local, state and federal level to continue environmental safety.

If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to contact us.