title:  ‘Safe’ Nuclear Power Plant Continues To Leak Radioactive Waste, Corporate Greed To Blame
text: The Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York is under investigation, again, because of yet another leak of tritium, a dangerous waste byproduct:The amount of radioactive tritium leaking from the Indian Point nuclear power plant is growing, officials said Wednesday, prompting Gov. Cuomo to launch a multiagency probe into operations at the troubled plant.New samples from groundwater monitoring wells show 80% higher concentrations of tritium compared with when the leak was first reported Saturday.Cuomo had already ordered the state health and environmental conservation commissioners to investigate the incident. But on Wednesday, he ordered a more sweeping investigation that also includes the Department of Public Service.The private company that runs the plant, unsurprisingly, said that there s no threat to the public but that s what nuclear power plant operators always say even after rates of cancer and birth deformities go up in nearby towns.Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the contaminated water was not going into the nearby Hudson River or sources of drinking water. Some organizations who are longtime opponents of nuclear power will take opportunities to try and frighten the public,  said Nappi.  The fact is this issue did not and cannot impact human health or any aquatic life in the river. Frighten the public indeed. And I m not even going to bring up the ongoing disaster in Fukushima.Advocates for nuclear power say that it is a safe technology and certainly not as dangerous as fossil fuels. But putting aside the massive problem of storing nuclear waste (a problem we have not even come remotely close to solving, by the way), the single greatest danger of nuclear power is what we are seeing at Indian Point: human error and corporate greed.As the energy companies that run these power plants look to squeeze more money out of their facilities, they cut corners. Those cut corners inevitably result in  accidents  that end up irradiating the surrounding environment. Then the power companies throw up their hands and claim it couldn t have been avoided, spend millions to crush lawsuits and give their CEOs giant bonuses for a job well done.This is a similar pattern to what we ve seen at coal mines that suffer avoidable explosions and cave-ins as well as at oil companies that continue to use  bomb trains with little to no regard for the towns they threaten to vaporize. The money lost to these  accidents  is less than the money made by cutting corners so there is every incentive to place the public s health at risk. It s not like the executives live or work near the areas impacted by their greed, after all, so who cares if a few hundred kids get thyroid cancer from a little extra something in their drinking water?Sure, nuclear power CAN be safe when done properly. But as long as  Privatize the gains, socialize the risk  remains the status quo with no possibility of prison time for greedy executives, nuclear power will remain an existential threat to everyone living anywhere near  safe  power plants like Indian Point.Featured image via screen capture.