News Archive 2003

Consultant Expresses Doubt About Plan for Indian Point
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
March 12, 2003

WASHINGTON, March 11 — James Lee Witt, whose report faulting the emergency plan for the Indian Point nuclear power plant stirred debate over the plant's future, said today that he was uncertain that the plan could ever be made adequate.

Mr. Witt, who directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton, said that a true measure of the plan could not be taken unless officials adopted his recommendations, which included better public education, more advanced technology for figuring out and communicating where radiation was headed and better training and communication systems for emergency workers.

Just as important, he added, the rewritten plan must be tested with a real-life simulation of the kind of large, fast release of radiation that he said the emergency plan failed to adequately consider.

"If these recommendations are implemented and they do an exercise, then it is possible it will protect the public," said Mr. Witt, whose final report to the state was released on Friday. "But nothing is certain. Nothing is certain until you have the opportunity to exercise it."

Mr. Witt did give some comfort to Entergy, the owner of the plant, praising it for improving security and safety at the plant — partly at the direction of federal regulators — in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And, as company officials have done, he doubted assertions by opponents of the plant that a radiation release would seriously jeopardize New York City, 35 miles south of the plant, which is in Buchanan, N.Y.

"The likely effect on New York City probably would be minimal," Mr. Witt said, though "a lot depends on the weather." He cited the city's distance from the plant and prevailing winds that tend to blow west to east.

Still, he emphasized a point in his report that emergency planners should more adequately weigh the likelihood of "spontaneous evacuation" by anxious residents outside the federally mandated evacuation zone, a 10-mile radius around the plant.

Mr. Witt declined to answer directly a question on whether he believed the plant should be shut. But in responding, he cited Congressional testimony from a nuclear industry supporter who said that today, putting a plant in such a high-population area — nearly 300,000 people live within 10 miles of the plant — would be a minus.

More than anything, Mr. Witt said, he hopes the report will cause national officials to review and improve emergency plans for nuclear plants nationwide.
"I think every plan should be revisited," Mr. Witt said of the 103 active reactors nationwide.

Gov. George E. Pataki, who commissioned the report, has not commented publicly on whether he agrees with its findings and, Mr. Witt said, has not spoken to him about it either, though he expects a call "sooner than later."

Mr. Pataki, however, who has previously called on federal officials to review emergency planning standards, today went a step further, calling for a "top-to-bottom" review of how plants were regulated.

"The president has acknowledged publicly that nuclear power plants are among those that have been mentioned by potential terrorists as possible targets," Mr. Pataki said at a ceremony honoring Joe M. Allbaugh, the director of the FEMA, who will leave the post this month.

"I think," Mr. Pataki continued, "they have to do a complete re-evaluation of everything from the initial licensing to the relicensing, to the operations to the emergency services to security, from top to bottom, in light of those post-Sept. 11 realities."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, after reviewing security standards, soon plans to put out new regulations governing how plants are guarded.

Mr. Witt, speaking in the downtown offices of the consulting firm he started two years ago, noted the series of Congressional hearings on Indian Point prompted by the report. But he said he had not decided whether he would testify if asked.

The report set off bureaucratic Ping-Pong between FEMA and the state emergency management office over the adequacy of the plan.

The state and the four counties surrounding the plant, citing concerns raised by the report, have refused to endorse it; FEMA, in turn, has given the state until May 2 to supply missing information so it can make a final report on it to the N.R.C. The commission has the authority to close the plant and requires a FEMA-approved plan as a condition of the plant's operating license.

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