Buchanan Reaches Agreement with Holtec on Indian Point Funds
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The Village of Buchanan Board of Trustees has reached an agreement with the new owners of the Indian Point Energy Center to secure funding for at least the next three years.
Village officials announced Friday Buchanan will receive $1.4 million annually through 2024 with an option to renew for a fourth year under a pact with Holtec Decommissioning International and Nuclear Asset Management Company (NAMCO).
“This agreement will give the village certainty with its budget after years of uncertainty,” said Buchanan Mayor Theresa Knickerbocker. “I believe it’s a fair agreement for the village and I will continue to work with Holtec for the release of the 60 acres at the earliest possible date.”
In 2017, Entergy, New York State and Riverkeeper stunned local officials when they announced the two operating nuclear reactors at Indian Point would close. Unit 2 powered down in April 2020 and Unit 3 shut down a year later.
Since that time, local leaders put their heads together in an effort to plan for the financial hit municipalities, the Hendrick Hudson School District and other entities would suffer after the $32 million revenue stream from Indian Point ran dry.
Revenue from Indian Point covered half of Buchanan’s $7 million annual budget.
The Cortlandt Town Board voted on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that continued its PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) arrangement from Entergy to Holtec, guaranteeing the town received $809,000 in 2022 and $550,000 in 2023. $809,000 is what Cortlandt had been receiving annually.
As part of its decommissioning plan, Holtec said it expected to move all of the Indian Point spent nuclear fuel into dry casks within about three years following facility shutdown in 2021. Holtec has a pending application with the NRC for a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility in New Mexico, which could eventually store spent nuclear fuel from Indian Point and other U.S. nuclear power plants.
During a meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board at Linda Puglisi Town Hall in Cortlandt last month, a Holtec representative said the company was requesting several exemptions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding property insurance, off-site liability and how long it could keep spent nuclear fuel rods outside a cooling pool.
While Entergy owned the plants, Holtec was in charge of handling the spent fuel for three decades.
There is currently $2.3 billion in a Indian Point Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
