Who said there would be lifeboats?
The 20-odd million people living in the soon-to-be-unaffordable Hudson Valley region need more than empty stunts, cooked up by devious and overanxious "activist advocates'" (paid press agents), in the pay of big charity, big oil, and antinuclear lobbyist foundations, and in turn, foisted on clueless Democratic electees as panaceas, without understanding, without any need, and in the end, without any possible viable result.
It seems that the paid antinuke lobby has settled on the "Independent Safety Assessment" as the next in a line of ostensibly serious proposals that all end up useless exercises in partisan attack futility. It is one thing to oppose policy from the sidelines, but it is quite another to be elected, and have the responsibility of making livable lives for your constituents, outside of any one-sided expectations on the part of the far right, the far left, or the far anti-nuclear fringe.
Just as bungled electric service negotiations are turning into major permanent rate hikes and tax hikes for the unfortunates living in Rockland county, are we to stand by mesmerized, while the same electoral stupidity begins to destroy infrastructure on the east shore, in attacking Indian Point power plant for no demonstrable reason, except that certain fringe political groups voted a "no nukes" line?
The no-nukes cadre was but a small minority in a fairly close majority voting Sue Kelly into retirement in favor of John Hall, and Hall made much of declaring he was "everyone's congressman"---- so now we demand to hear exactly what cause there is to begin to harrass Indian Point, and its mentor, Entergy, aside from promises perhaps rashly made at fuzzy-logic no-nukes concerts over twenty years, by a man who does not understand the area's big cities, the inner suburbs, the local job markets, the local near-suburban housing crunch, the need for blue collar work, and the urgency of the viable absorption of unknown tens of thousands of new arrivals, who are here for the long haul, and who cannot survive integration into American life as penniless marginalized peons, prevented from participation by ill-thought-out infrastructure-burning rampages, hatched in the name of 1980's rock'n'roll concert talk.
In the only other "Independent Safety Assessment" ever held, (Maine Yankee 1996) there seemed to be a glaring proximate cause---a smoking gun--- in an employee allegation of criminal wrongdoing. Without that allegation, which also implicated the NRC, no ISA ever would have happened a decade ago. Where is today's smoking gun? Where is the specific wrongdoing. It is much more than claiming Indian Point could be "Guilty until proven innocent", ..... it is a case in which our freshman congressrocker cannot even say WHAT Indian Point might be guilty of!
In the Maine case, in 1996, even the smoking gun claims were later found to be not true--- it just so happened that Maine Yankee was decrepit, understaffed, lax in almost every way, ignored by its corporate owners, and so it was put to a just and deserving death. And in the irony of ironies, the savior corporation called upon to send knowledgeable experts to Maine to complete the burial arrangements, was you guessed it--ENTERGY!! Entergy uncovered a host of FURTHER bad stuff at Maine Yankee, and correctly advised them to stay closed, and give up their license (which they eventually did).
At least in part from the glaring lessons learned in doing away with Maine Yankee, Entergy entered New York in 2000 with a healthy skepticism toward Indian Point, and began a long 7 year improvement plan, one still being followed today. Almost every area concentrated on by Entergy at Indian Point harks back at least in part to some laxity found at Maine Yankee, and therefore has been specifically targeted now for at least 7 years of ISA remediation at the New York plants, whether they needed it or not.
All this info is available to Hall, and tells him not only could nothing bad be found by an Indian Point ISA, but that it is at root a deception of the public, to act as if an ISA could do the public any good . It cannot. But it can help Hall, and a few other complicit cross-burners, because professionally organized antinuke fakery contributed at least some votes to all of them.
Bread & Circuses is, I'm afraid not enough here. What we need, all us 20 million forgotten souls (all of us who didn't meet at the concerts)-- what we need, is a concrete plan to build energy centers. Not study centers, actual viable electricity-producing power plants, to replace Indian Point's 2000+ megawatts, get them built, set up, and pumping on the grid--so that we can live here---- and I will be the first one to say , at that point, to Indian Point :....."Goodnight old gal, thanks for a fine half-century"
If nobody builds those plants, every single swipe at Indian Point , is a hatchet swipe on at least 15 million of us being able to afford to live here. Mark my words. Its smoke and mirrors. Its bread & circuses. It's screw-your brother for a soundbite, but it is NOT responsible leadership.
It's like blowing up the Titanic first, so it won't hit an iceberg, and,
once in the icy water saying: "Lifeboats?"
"Who said there would be lifeboats?"
