Learning from Indian Point Energy Center

As Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised, securing safety through scientific verification is the top priority.

AHN CHAK-HEEThe author is the head of the global cooperation team of the JoongAng Ilbo. If you drive up about 50 minutes north from New York City, you will arrive at a small town named Buchanan. It was a popular getaway destination for New Yorkers until the mid-1950s.

Buchanan on the Hudson River was famous for Indian Point Amusement Park. It featured various rides, miniature golf, a dance hall and bars. But visitors stopped coming a long time ago.

The amusement park was renamed the Indian Point Energy Center in the 1960s when a nuclear power plant was built in its place. In the 1970s, reactors No. 2 and No. 3 were added, and over the next 50 years, they supplied 25 percent of New York City’s electricity demand.

However, in the aftermath of the Sep 11 attacks in 2001 and the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, the public raised its voices to close the plant. In the event of a terror attack or an accident, 20 million residents in and around the area would be in danger.

After long negotiations, the New York state government confirmed the closure of its facilities in 2017 and shut down all reactors in 2021. Then, decommissioning work started, which is expected to take 12 to 15 years. The release of contaminated water from cooling spent nuclear fuel rods to the Hudson River was scheduled to begin in August this year.

But the schedule was suddenly changed. Holtec International, which is in charge of decommissioning the nuclear power plant, announced last month that it will release contaminated water from early May. But faith in the safety of discharging contaminated water has not been formed yet.

As a result, local residents protested. In response to opposition from politicians and environmentalists, the company eventually stepped back. It promised to review scientific grounds for safety more thoroughly.

We need to look at the implications of the conflict over the Indian Point nuclear plant decommissioning process. Even though the shutdown of the nuclear power plant was agreed to after a long review and a permanent organization to monitor the process was installed, people’s anxiety and concerns over environmental pollution does not subside easily. While the benefits of nuclear power generation were enjoyed, the decommissioning process was not effectively planned.

At the Korea-Japan summit on Sunday, it was agreed that a Korean inspection team would participate in the plan to release contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. As the Fukushima plant is almost four times larger than the Indian Point facility in the U.S., the explosion caused by the earthquake and tsunami shocked the entire world.

Concerns and anxiety in neighboring countries as well as among the Japanese people are bound to be serious. As Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised, securing safety through scientific verification is the top priority. In addition, mutual trust must be built through the process. In other words, it is not something to decide in a hurry.