FERC Answers Cuomo’s Request to Halt Pipeline Expansion during Indian Point Review

New York’s governor asked the Federal Emergency Regulatory Commission to stop the work while his agencies investigate the nuclear plant.

By Lanning Taliaferro, Patch Staff 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s request that FERC temporarily halt the AIM pipeline expansion project while his administration does a safety analysis of the pipeline past the Indian Point Nuclear Plant.The governor, who wants the nuclear power plant closed, had ordered his health and environmental agencies to look into a series of outages at the plant and also a recently disclosed leak of radioactive tritium into the groundwater at the plant in Cortlandt.
He asked FERC to temporarily halt and then reopen hearings into AIM, Spectra Energy’s first in a series of controversial projects to expand the Algonquin pipeline that runs from New Jersey through Rockland County, under the Hudson River into Westchester right past Indian Point, through Putnam and on to New England.
In an order issued March 25, FERC pointed out that it had issued the go-ahead on the project March 3, 2015 and had already rejected eight timely requests for reconsideration.
The Commission considers pipeline safety as an important and serious matter. The New York DEC indicates that its and the other state agencies’ “investigations may reveal newly discovered information” related to risks posed by siting the AIM Project in the vicinity of the Indian Point facility which, in turn, “may warrant reopening the [Commission’s] record” in this proceeding. All of the incidents described in the
New York DEC’s pleading, including the tritium leak, occurred within the facility’s security barrier, at least 2,370 feet from the pipeline. The horizontal directional drill to install the pipeline under the Hudson River is over twice the distance from the Indian Point security barrier. The NRC’s analysis, which concluded that the AIM Project posed no increased risk, presumed catastrophic pipeline failure. There is nothing in the New York DEC’s current pleading that calls our findings regarding the safety of constructing a portion of the AIM Project in the vicinity of the Indian Point facility into question. Therefore, we find no basis for granting the requested reconsideration.
In addition, FERC pointed out that they had answered the Indian Point question twice — once after considering the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s findings and the plant operator’s findings; and again in a February ruling after reviewing the timely requests for rehearing that brought up the issue of the plant.
“New York DEC has not shown that absent a stay there will be irreparable injury to public safety,” they wrote in a letter signed by Nathaniel J. Davis, Sr., Deputy Secretary.