Indian Point oil slick smelled from Rockland

BUCHANAN – Walter Garschagen got strong whiffs of oil Monday morning as he stood on the Stony Point and Haverstraw shoreline, two days after an Indian Point transformer exploded and spilled oil into the Hudson River.

"I see oil slicks," said Garschagen, who works on the river as owner of Sea Tow Central Hudson, which helps with boaters in distress. "The discoloration of oil is all over the beach here. ... Where is the cleanup? The current around Indian Point and the water flow is pushing the oil downstream."

Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi, speaking earlier Monday, said the company was hopeful absorbent booms placed on the river by Miller Environmental would contain the transformer oil, estimated to stretch across a 75-by-100-foot area just south of the two reactors in Buchanan.

"We had our own environmental management personnel on the river and in a boat with the Coast Guard," Nappi said Monday morning. "They observed little to no environmental impact," including no dead fish.

He noted the transformer oil that spilled "contained no PCBs" (polychlorinated biphenyls).

Late Monday Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that state responders saw oil sheens on the east and west sides of the Hudson River, but no recoverable amounts of oil.

Nappi said the company is pumping out the moat to determine how much transformer oil was captured. He said he cannot speculate on what people are seeing on the river as Entergy's consultants are still cleaning up. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is monitoring the cleanup, estimated several thousand gallons of oil went into the river, said Neil Sheehan, an agency spokesman.

State officials expect to announce an estimate of the oil recovered from the Hudson River by the end of the week.

High-voltage electric transformers need insulation to prevent short circuits or overheating and transformer oil is typically used as insulation. Most transformers use mineral oil, but it is flammable and it may be toxic to fish, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

State environmental officials and Cuomo have promised an investigation into the cause and a cleanup.

The transformer, which holds 20,000 gallons of oil, exploded about 5:50 p.m. Saturday. The plant's fire suppression system helped put out the fire, but the amount of water used apparently caused the 80,000-gallon containment well under the transformer to overflow into the plant's drainage system. Oil, firefighting foam and water then discharged into the Hudson River, according to the NRC.

Tim Sugrue, president of the Beacon Institute for Rivers & Estuaries, called the oil spill a "best-case scenario" because Indian Point's staff were aware of the spill as it happened.

"I dare say that people at the plant foresaw this to some extent and it looks like they were prepared for it," said Sugrue, adding that boaters and the public should not be worried about the impact. "This is not an oil tanker spill where confinement is no longer possible....Clean-up will be accomplished relatively quickly."

A Nov. 4, 2009 Con Edison transformer explosion spilled 15,000 gallons of transformer oil that contaminated a six-mile stretch of the Bronx River from Yonkers to the Bronx. That clean-up cost about $1.5 million and the state DEC fined Con Edison $700,000.

Only $91,000 of the fine was needed to restore aquatic life and riverbank vegetation. Linda Cox, the executive director of the Bronx River Alliance, said her group is not aware of any lasting damage to the Bronx River from the 2009 spill.

After Saturday's fire, one of the two generators was shut down, and remains closed. The other is fully operational.

At full strength, Indian Point provides about 12 percent of the state's electricity and as much as 30 percent of all the electricity in New York City and Westchester.

Nappi said the transformer that exploded was purchased in 1989 by the former owner of the reactors, the New York Power Authority. The 20-foot-high and 20-foot-square piece of equipment had been online since 2007 and was last tested in March.

Environmentalist and anti-nuclear power advocates contend the explosion is another reason to shut down the plant, which is in a lengthy license renewal process.

The Hudson Riverkeeper, an environmental watchdog group, is among those fighting to close the reactors.

"This is a problem to be taken with the utmost seriousness," Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said. "Indian Point has a long, disturbing history of operational and environmental problems. The plant's aging infrastructure has caught up to it and we must see that it is closed or these problems will only worsen with potentially catastrophic results."

Cuomo, who supports closing the reactors, raised similar concerns during news conferences at the plant on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

"Anything that happens at this plant obviously raises concerns," Cuomo said. "This plant is the nuclear plant that is closest to the most densely populated area on the globe. If something goes wrong here, it can go very wrong for a lot of people. So it's always been a priority for us."

Twitter: @lohudlegal

Previous Indian Point transformer failures

• Nov. 7, 2010: Unit 2 main transformer explosion/failure. It led to an "Alert" declaration - the second-lowest of four levels of emergency classification used by the NRC.

■ April 6, 2007: Unit 3 main transformer explosion/failure. It was due to an electrical fault in the transformer's "B" phase high-voltage bushing.

■ Feb. 29, 2012: Unit 3 auxiliary transformer was removed from service due to increased gassing.

Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Notable oil spills:

March 15: Up to 200 gallons of home heating oil spilled into Lake Oscawana in Putnam Valley and into the ground.

Jan. 4: About 2,700 gallons of transformer oil spilled at a Con Edison substation at 507 Commerce St. in Thornwood during a fire. Almost all of it was contained in a moat surrounding the substation, according to Con Edison.

June 2, 2010: Several hundred gallons of home heating oil from apartment buildings spill into the Bronx River, contaminating a three-mile stretch from White Plains to Scarsdale.