The Indian Point nuclear power plant, 40 miles upriver from New York City, caught fire after a transformer explosion on Saturday night, and while "the transformer fire in and of itself was not dangerous," Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Sunday, it did release thousands of gallons of oil into the Hudson River.
"The plant's fire suppression system automatically sprayed water on the transformer fire," explained Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But "oil made its way into the drains and into the water. Several thousand gallons may have overflowed the transformer moat." Nobody knows exactly how much found its way into the water, but the damaged transformer contained 80,000 gallons of oil.
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