Safety concerns arising from Japan's nuclear crisis last year should not be considered as regulators decide on renewing a license for New York's embattled Indian Point nuclear power facility, a federal licensing board has ruled.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing board last week rejected legal challenges that environmental groups mounted against Entergy Corp.'s two Indian Point reactors in Buchanan, N.Y. Entergy's licenses for the reactors expire in 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Two environmental groups -- Riverkeeper and Hudson River Sloop Clearwater -- filed contentions with NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in August, arguing NRC failed to consider new information stemming from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex last year.

The groups said a final supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) the commission issued for Indian Point in December 2010 was flawed. NRC violated the National Environmental Policy Act by issuing the report without taking a "hard look" at new information related to Fukushima, they said.

But the licensing board said the groups failed to specify how the EIS was flawed and said they were raising "generic" issues that fall outside the relicensing process. "As a result, the contention fails to present sufficient information to show that it has raised a genuine dispute of material fact or law with the application," the board said.

Entergy has also argued that the accident in Japan is outside the scope of the proceeding because it is more likely to become the subject of a rulemaking.

Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River program director for Riverkeeper, said the case is concerning because it will be more difficult for environmental groups to raise site-specific concerns as new NRC rules related to the Fukushima accident take effect. Going forward, public comment periods will be limited to 20 days and the rules could take years to implement.

"This is the public's only real opportunity to inject itself and have public accounting of an NRC proceeding," Musegaas said. "It's more difficult during the normal oversight to raise concerns, nothing that's meaningful."

The relicensing process is also ideal because regulators are looking specifically at the Indian Point plant, which is located within 50 miles of 20 million people, Musegaas said. The Fukushima accident showed that radioactive contamination can travel far from a crippled reactor, he added.

Musegaas also pointed out that NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko has been arguing for Fukushima-related issues to be considered before new plants are licensed and has opposed approving licenses for the first new construction projects in Georgia and South Carolina in more than 30 years (E&ENews PM, March 30).

Musegaas said he is encouraged by the chairman's push to apply Fukushima findings to new projects and relicensing cases. "He clearly takes a different view of the other commissioners," he said.