Entergy FitzPatrick causes oil spill into Great Lakes

U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary aerial photo of oil sheen on Lake Ontario caused by Entergy Nuclear's FitzPatrick atomic reactor, visible in backgroundNuclear power is not "emissions-free," as its proponents so often claim. In fact, sometimes it causes oil spills into fresh drinking water supplies...

As reported by the Democrat & Chronicle, Entergy Nuclear's FitzPatrick atomic reactor on the Lake Ontario shoreline in upstate New York just released up to 30 gallons of oil into that drinking water supply, utilized by many millions of people downstream in two countries.

The oil spill was not detected nor announced at first by Entergy, or the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), but rather by a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary air crew, who spotted the visible sheen on Lake Ontario's surface waters (see photo, above/left).

As reported by the article:

A boat crew from Coast Guard Station Oswego launched to take samples of the sheen and enforce a safety zone extending two miles to the north and two miles to the east and west.

That amounts to a 6 square mile surface area of Lake Ontario.

Entergy has a bad record of oil spills into New York's surface waters. In May 2015, its Indian Point nuclear power plant just upstream from New York City on the Hudson River, spilled oil into the surface waters. That spill, of thousands of gallons of oil -- and the turbine fire that led to it -- prompted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to rush to the scene to hold an emergency press conference.

(The Palisades atomic reactor in Michigan also spilled around 70 gallons of oil on the edge of the Great Lakes, this time Lake Michigan, a year earlier, in May 2014. However, Entergy claimed no oil made it into the Lake.)

(In early 2015, reports emerged of a two-month long leak of some 2,000 gallons of oil from the American Electric Power Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant, into Lake Michigan, some 30 miles south of Palisades, in Bridgman, MI.)

Lake Michigan is also the source of drinking water for some tens of millions of people downstream.

Of course, atomic reactors "emit" more than just oil spills into surface waters. They "routinely" discharge radioactivity into the air and surface waters, by design, which can then cause harm to human health and the environment downwind and downstream. (See the photo in the linked pamphlet, showing Entergy Palisades' liquid radioactive waste discharge pathway into Lake Michigan; the photo was taken by Gabriela Bulišová.)

Atomic reactors also have frequent unintended (or "accidental") spills and leaks of radioactivity into the environment. Beyond Nuclear published a major report about this in April 2010.

An example of this in New York is Entergy Indian Point's leakage of radioactivity (tritium, strontium, etc.) from high-level radioactive waste storage pools, which ultimately flows into the Hudson River, which has been underway for more than a decade.

Another example is Entergy Palisades' spill of 82 gallons of radioactive water into Lake Michigan in May 2013.