Persist
“Row not glow” was among the chants from the paddlers who gathered in the Hudson River, off of Verplanck, on Saturday, May 6. That chant was a reference to Holtec’s plan to discharge water into the river from the spent fuel pools at the former Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan.
The paddlers were part of the Rally to Save the River, which the Town of Cortlandt hosted at Cortlandt Waterfront Park, about two miles south of Indian Point. The town encompasses the villages of Buchanan and Croton-on-Hudson as well as the hamlets of Crugers, Montrose, and Verplanck.
Holtec signed on to decommission Indian Point, which was owned by Entergy. The plant’s three reactors operated from 1962 to 1974 (Unit 1), 1974 to 2020 (Unit 2), and 1976 to 2021 (Unit 3).
On land, the Rally to Save the River had a stage, seating, food trucks, and a schedule of speakers and singers. The speakers ranged from activists to elected officials representing federal, state, county, and local governments.
The emcee was Cortlandt Town Supervisor Richard Becker, M.D., who read a letter of support from U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and a similar text message from U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer. On April 6, Gillibrand and Schumer sent a letter to Christopher Hanson, chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that posed questions about Holtec’s plan to discharge the water no sooner than May 4. The senators wanted answers by April 14. The day before that deadline, Holtec announced a pause to its plan.
During a meeting of the Decommissioning Oversight Board on Feb. 2, Holtec announced the discharges would start in late August or early September. Holtec then moved up that timeline after the Rally on the River was scheduled and after State Senator Pete Harckham and State Assemblymember Dana Levenberg introduced a bill to prohibit “the discharge of any radiological agent into the waters of the state.”
During the rally, activists urged attendees to contact Gov. Kathy Hochul, who would need to sign the bill into law if it was approved by the Assembly and the Senate. The activists also want Hochul and the NYS Department of Environmental Conversation to use state regulations to prohibit the discharges.
The recurring message during the rally was for public pressure to persist, especially toward elected officials. Congressman Pat Ryan, who represents seven communities that draw drinking water from the Hudson, stated that “They win when we get tired. They win when we give up.”
