By William Opalka

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved Entergy’s request to extend the time between leak tests at the Indian Point power plant to 15 years instead of 10.

NRC on Tuesday affirmed a decision by the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to extend the time between tests of the containment buildings surrounding Indian Point’s reactors. The commission approved a methodology for such extensions in 2008.

Entergy requested an extension for Indian Point’s Unit 2 in December 2014, prompting the state to intervene in May 2015.

The state had said Entergy’s petition “should be denied because it involves a significant safety and environmental hazard … and fails to demonstrate that it will provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public health and safety as required by … the Atomic Energy Act.”

The ASLB denied New York’s petition, saying the state had failed to demonstrate that the commission ignored its own safety requirements. “We find that New York has not demonstrated that the board either made an error of law or abused its discretion in declining to admit New York’s contentions,” NRC wrote.

The last test at Unit 2 was done in 2006 and, under prior NRC schedules, was to be performed last month. However, following the NRC ruling, the test will now be done in 2021.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said the plant should be closed due to its proximity to New York City. He has also ordered multi-department investigation of the plant after a series of incidents in recent months, including two unplanned outages and the discovery of elevated levels of tritium in test wells at the plant. (See NRC: No Further Leakage at Indian Point.)