Oil leaks into New York's Hudson River following nuclear plant fire
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E-mail Xinhua, May 11, 2015
Thousands of gallons of oil were leaked into Hudson River following a transformer fire in a nuclear plant, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news briefing on Sunday.
The governor said that emergency crews were out on the water near Buchanan, trying to contain and clean up transformer fluid that leaked from Indian Point 3, but it is still unknown how much exactly has been discharged into the river.
The transformer at the plant failed on Saturday evening, Cuomo said. In the process of putting out a fire, it ruptured, discharging oil onto the ground. The oil then went into a holding tank.
In this case it appears that the volume of oil and water exceeded the capacity of the holding tank, and the liquid then spilled out onto the ground before emptying into the drain and going right into the Hudson River, he elaborated.
Indian Point Energy Center is a three-unit nuclear power plant station sitting on the east bank of the Hudson River, 38 miles north of New York City. It supplies electricity for millions of homes, businesses and public facilities in New York City and Westchester County. The plant provides about a quarter of the power used in the New York City area.
"This plant is the nuclear plant that is closest to the most densely populated area on the globe. If anything goes wrong here, it can go very wrong for a lot of people," Cuomo said.
A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector was at the site Sunday and the agency would follow up as Indian Point assesses the affected equipment, Diane Screnci, a spokesperson for the commission, was quoted by local media as saying.
There was not much impact on the public, and it was ordinary for a transformer to have a problem, she said.
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