The company that owns the shuttered nuclear plant that once provided the bulk of New York Citys zero-carbon electricity is suing the state over a law passed last year specifically to block the Indian Point power station from carrying out routine releases of treated wastewater into the Hudson River, HuffPost has learned.

Virtually every nuclear power plant all over the world releases tiny volumes of a radioactive isotope known as tritium from its cooling water into surrounding waterways. Unlike the long-lasting and dangerous radioisotopes that form during the atom-splitting process, tritium an isotope of hydrogen laces into water, making it almost impossible to extract. Luckily, tritium, which has never been linked to cancer in humans, is too weak to penetrate skin and decays quickly in 12-year half lives, so power plants spew small amounts into the environment at rates indistinguishable from what naturally occurs from cosmic rays from space or what ends up leaked into waterways via dump neon signage.

When a nuclear reactor is generating electricity, these releases are a matter of routine operation. Once those plants shut down and the utility that runs them sells off the facility to a decommissioning company, the onus falls on firms, such as Florida-based Holtec International, to obtain new permits to resume releases of tritium. That means going through a regulatory process that includes public hearings, giving Americans who visualize all radioactive waste as the scientifically absurd caricatures of green glowing goop depicted on shows like The Simpsons fresh cause for panic.

Last August, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed legislation restricting discharges of any radiological substance into the Hudson River in connection with the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant.

Holtec now says that statute violates the federal law that gave the government in Washington complete control over how radioactive materials are regulated.

In litigation filed with the Southern District Court of New York on Thursday, Holtec said the Empire States law violates the federal statute giving the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissions sole authority over radiological discharges from nuclear power plants whether online or decommissioning.

The failure of New York State to respect Federal Law, and follow the facts and science of the issue, left us no other means for remedy, the company said in a statement shared first with HuffPost. The passage of the bill has already delayed the planned completion of the decommissioning of Indian Point an additional 8 years, which hurts the local communitys desire to see the project completed and the property returned as an asset for economic development in the region. We look forward to the legal process moving along on this important decision.

In a state press release announcing the passage of the legislation last year, Hochul and bipartisan New York lawmakers who praised the bill referred four times to the economic benefits of banning Indian Point from discharging wastewater. But Holtec accused the state of using the guise of economic issues to hide the real intent of regulating radiological materials, according to legal filings HuffPost reviewed.

Theyre welcome to sue, said state Sen. Pete Harckham (D), who authored the Senate version of the legislation.

He pointed to a 1983 Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of California regulators right to restrict nuclear power plants based on the economic toll that the facilities could take on the surrounding area. While he said locals only learned about the tritium discharges after Indian Point shut down, once they found out there was enormous outcry.

Now, he said, communities along the Hudson are being damaged with the knowledge that tritium is being released into the river. Neither Hochuls office nor the New York State Assembly lawmaker who introduced the statute Assembly member Dana Levenberg (D) responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

The lawsuit is the first major challenge in years to the states efforts to single out Indian Point while attempting to revive the nuclear power industry that still supplies most of New Yorks zero-carbon electricity.