NRC ISSUES FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION

December 3, 2010 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued its final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the proposed renewal of the operating license for Indian Point Nuclear Generating Units 2 and 3 located in Buchanan, N.Y., located 24 miles north of New York City.

The report concluded there are no environmental impacts that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. Indian Point Units 2 and 3 are two pressurized-water reactors whose current operating licenses expire Sept. 28, 2013, and Dec. 12, 2015, respectively.

Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., submitted an application to the NRC on April 23, 2007, to extend Indian Point's Unit 2 and 3 licenses by 20 years. Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC would be extended until 2033 and 2035, respectively. As part of its environmental review of the application, the NRC held public meetings near the plant to discuss the review process and the draft version of the environmental impact statement. The agency solicited comments from members of the public, local officials, representatives of state and federal agencies and tribal governments. Indian Point's draft environmental impact statement received the most comments of any license renewal application received by the NRC.

 The final publication encompasses three volumes - with Volume 2, discussing the public comments, in three separate parts - and totals more than 2,200 pages. The average SEIS for a license renewal application totals about 480 pages in a single volume. The NRC staff has completed both its environmental and safety reviews for the license renewal application. The agency staff documented its safety review in its safety evaluation report on Aug. 11, 2009, and NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) reviewed it on Sept. 10, 2009. Following the issuance and publication of the Indian Point final SEIS, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) , NRC's independent adjudicatory body, will establish a hearing schedule and conduct a public hearing concerning contested issues for the Indian Point license renewal application. Indian Point's final SEIS is available on the NRC's website at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437/supplement38/ and can be viewed in the NRC's ADAMS online documents system at http://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/adams/web-based.html by entering the following corresponding accession numbers for Vol. 1, ML103350405; Vol. 2, ML103350438, ML103360209, ML103360212 and Vol. 3, ML103350442 in the search window. Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRC's Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at PDR.Resource@nrc.gov . Indian Point's license renewal application is posted at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/indian-point.html. Additional information about the license renewal process is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html. Documents related to Indian Point's license renewal application are also located at the following locations: The White Plains Public Library, 100 Martine Ave., White Plains, N.Y. ; the Hendrick Hudson Free Library, 185 Kings Ferry Road, Montrose, N.Y., and the Field Library, 4 Nelson Ave., Peekskill, N.Y. More information on the ASLBP is located on the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/organization/aslbpfuncdesc.html.