Indian Point Fire Causes Hudson River Oil Spill

Did you hear about the small fire this weekend out at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant on Saturday?

I'll be honest, I've always been a little weary of such a massive power plant being close to us and specifically in the Hudson Valley. However, I've always been a big supporter of clean and efficient energy such as nuclear power and it produces 25 percent of the power needed for New York City!

According to the News-Times, the small fire at the unit three power plant was caused by a transformer failure on Saturday. The owner of the plant, Entergy, says the unit shut down automatically after the fire was ongoing and eventually out.

News-Times reports that Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirmed that fluid and oil has leaked into the Hudson:

There's no doubt that oil was discharged into the Hudson River, exactly how much, we don't know.

It's not clear what caused the initial failure, but analysts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is on it.

Hopefully the amount of oil discharged into the river is able to be cleaned up in some capacity, although we don't consider the Hudson to be cleanest anyway!  Hopefully things stay under control at the plant as we don't want to see Indian Point floating down the Hudson any time soon.