NY Daily News, Feb 11, 2016 (emphasis added): Cuomo to launch probe into troubled Indian Point power plant as radioactive leak gets worse — The amount of radioactive tritium leaking from the Indian Point nuclear power plant is growing, officials said… New samples from groundwater monitoring wells show 80% higher concentrations of tritium compared with when the leak was first reported Saturday… Wednesday, [Cuomo] ordered a more sweeping investigation… “Last week the company reported alarming levels of radioactivity at three monitoring wells, with one well’s radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000%,” Cuomo said… “The news just keeps getting worse,” said Paul Gallay, president of the watchdog group Riverkeeper.

AP, Feb. 10, 2016: New testing has shown that the amount of tritium in the groundwater below the Indian Point power plant in Buchanan, New York, is about 740 times the amount allowed in drinking water… Entergy Corp., which operates the plant at the edge of the Hudson River, said Wednesday that the latest samples from monitoring wells found tritium at a level of 14.8 million picocuries per liter [up from 12,300 pCi/L, a 120,000% increase]. The [EPA] has set a limit of no more than 20,000 picocuries per liter in drinking water… [C]ritics of nuclear plants said the mere fact of the leak’s occurrence is cause for concern, partly because investigators had yet to pinpoint how it happened. “There a leak somewhere, and I don’t think they know where it is,” said Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer and former industry executive… Gundersen said he was concerned that other, potentially more problematic elements could also have leaked out… [Indian Point spokesman Jerry Nappi] said testing had also found elevated levels of antimony, at about 5,500 picocuries per liter… “It’s like an old car ready to fall apart“… said Assemblyman Tom Abinanti…

Reuters, Feb 10, 2016: Entergy said it continues to look for the source of the tritium leak…

CBSNY/AP, Feb 10, 2016: The radioactive water leak at the Indian Point Nuclear power plant is getting worse. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Wednesday that the level of radioactive tritium-contaminated water that leaked into the groundwater at the nuclear facility has increased by 80 percent since last week’s initial report… Cuomo called it “extremely disconcerting.” “Today, I have further directed that the three agencies integrate their investigations to thoroughly explore whether the operational problems that are suspected to have caused the uptick in unexpected outages of the plant may also be causing the leak of radioactive water into the environment”… the New York governor said.

WAMC, Feb 10, 2016: Additional testing has turned up even higher levels of radioactive tritium than what was reported last week…

The Journal News, Feb 11, 2016: Tritium levels reported last week were the ‘highest that they’ve seen to date‘ at the plant

WAMC, Feb 11, 2016: Tritium Levels Spike In Groundwater… Additional testing has turned up higher levels of radioactive tritium in groundwater than what was reported last week at the Indian Point nuclear power plant… One reading showed an 80 percent increase in tritium levels over the 65,000 percent increase initially reported… [An NRC spokesman said] “So given the migration of that water, we would expect those to continue to go up for a period of time… Our specialist inspector will be there… tasked with trying to better understand exactly what happened”…

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Published: February 12th, 2016 at 4:45 pm ET By ENENews