State Consultant Reiterates: Indian Point Plan Is Weak
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
March 7, 2003

After hearing from a range of individuals, government officials and institutions, a consultant hired by the state has reaffirmed his warning that emergency plans for the Indian Point nuclear power plant cannot protect the public from a large release of radiation.

The consultant, James Lee Witt, a former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, plans the release today of his final report, which defends and clarifies some points in his original report but does not change his primary conclusion.

"The comments that addressed major, substantive issues were not sufficiently compelling that the draft's major findings, conclusions, and recommendations needed to be changed in the final report," according to an excerpt from the final report provided to The New York Times in response to inquiries.

Mr. Witt's report, which predicted that an evacuation could be hampered by panicked residents clogging roads, emergency workers unwilling or unable to respond and other uncertainties and problems, energized a campaign by citizens groups, environmentalists and elected leaders to close the plant, 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan in the Westchester village of Buchanan, N.Y.

The report motivated members of Congress to hold hearings and other forums on the emergency plan, which includes steps for evacuating people within a federally mandated 10-mile radius of the plant. Congress has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to the report by March 25.

The concerns it raised were cited by the four counties surrounding the plant and by New York State in the decision not to sign off on the emergency plan this year. FEMA in turn has given the state until May 2 to submit updated information on the plan it has sought for months. Without that information, the agency has said, it will officially reject the plan, leaving the fate of the plant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which requires plants to have a FEMA-endorsed plan.

"We have made observations that we believe will benefit the citizens of the state of New York and we have made them in the hope that that potential benefit might be realized," Mr. Witt said in a statement.
Mr. Witt's consulting firm, James Lee Witt Associates, collected 72 submissions from the public between Jan. 10, when it released the report, and Feb. 7. It originally intended to release the final version on Feb. 28, but delayed it to further analyze the reponses, a spokeswoman said.

Entergy Corp., which owns the plant, has disputed several points in the report, but the final report says that "few changes in the draft were required due to factual errors."

But one of seven points the report chose to clarify is an assertion Entergy has been making for the past several weeks. "We make no assertions that a terrorist attack would cause a faster or larger release," the report says, going on to explain that it had brought up the issue of a larger release only because officials thought that it was theoretically possible and that the plan did not adequately address it.

On another point, however, the final report disagrees with Entergy's past statements that the plant and the plan could adequately address a large release, regardless of its cause.

"There are unique aspects of a terrorist-caused incident that should be considered in planning and exercise," the report says. It adds that the plan does not take into account the possibility that the plant would be declared a crime scene after a terrorist attack and that the presence of federal law enforcement officers might affect how an emergency response was carried out.

"Existing plans should be followed during an emergency," the report says. "Our intent was not to discredit the plans, but to improve them."

This week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its annual assessment of Indian Point that while Entergy had improved the safety performance of Indian Point 2, extra scrutiny would still be given because of lingering problems.

The N.R.C. said that there was a backlog of repairs to be done and that it wanted to give additional tests to control room operators, a number of whom had failed exams in 2001, though they passed exams last year. It said Entergy also needed to continue improving security. Precautions were beefed up after 9/11 but have been criticized by some guards as inadequate for a terrorist attack.

Indian Point 3, the N.R.C. said, was running well, though the commission raised similar security concerns there.