Indian Point owner fined $1.2 million for Hudson oil spill

Photo of Indian Point power plant in Buchanan, NY by Flickr user Tony Fischer. Published under Creative Commons license.

This just in from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation: Entergy, the company that owns the Indian Point nuclear power plant, has been fined $1.2 million for a 2010 oil spill.

The fine will include $600,000 to fund a yet-to-be-determined environmental benefit project, the DEC announces.

The spill, the result of a transformer failure that caused an explosion and fire at the facility, released over 10,000 gallons of oil, much of which went into the Hudson River or washed up along the shoreline.

A press release from the DEC announcing the fine says that the agency found that Entergy had problems with its facility and chemical storage:

A DEC investigation revealed that long-standing structural conditions prevented the containment moat from retaining the petroleum as designed. More than 10,000 gallons of oil were recovered from the transformer, the containment moat and areas outside the containment moat including the discharge canal, the Hudson River shoreline and the Hudson River. DEC's investigation also revealed violations of Chemical Bulk Storage Regulations at the facility.

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