How many others are chewing up game/forage fish??
Lake Erie’s First Energy Bayshore power plant may be the biggest fish killer in the Great Lakes.
Studies conducted in 2005 and 2006 and released earlier this year show 46 million fish caught against the screens ― 126,000 a day, and 2.2 billion ― 6 million a day, mostly larval fish ― that go through the screens. But it doesn’t end here and this may not be the worst of it. Power plants, and there are scores of them in the Great Lakes, chew up our game and forage fish as well as related eggs and larvae, every day of the year, 24/7. Industrial facilities — power plants, oil refineries and factories — to cool their generators and other equipment.
The largest of these plants suck in several billion gallons of water each day, killing enormous numbers of aquatic organisms at all life stages, aquatic life on an almost unimaginable scale, while also trapping larger adult fish and wildlife on intake screens. Microorganisms, floating fish eggs and larvae are drawn through heat exchanging equipment and dumped back into waterways dead. Fish, sea turtles and marine mammals are pinned againstintake screens. A trillion fish are killed each year.
Like giant vacuums, power plants suck in massive amounts of water from our waterways, indiscriminately devour aquatic life and spew heated, lifeless water downstream.
To illustrate, Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant near Two Rivers, Wis., closed down for three days because their warm water discharge attracted a school of alewives approximately 100 yards wide and over a quarter mile long, clogging their water intake screens.
Oak Creek, Wis. power plant, a part of Wisconsin's largest utility, was embroiled in a lawsuit brought on in part by Racine's S.C. Johnson & Son. University of Michigan water scientist David Jude, who was hired by S.C. Johnson & Son ― a party to the Supreme Court lawsuit ― to investigate the potential impact, said the plants' intake valve system, the hot water and construction would hurt the lake's food chain. "It's probably going to kill all the aquatic life in some places," Jude said. "This is bigger than any other power plant on the Great Lakes, so it's sort of unprecedented."
The Wisconsin DNR went ahead and approved their building permit anyway, including allowing the plant to draw 2.2 billion gallons of water from Lake Michigan each day, then return it to the lake 15° warmer.
Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that cooling water intake structures reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact to aquatic organisms that are impinged (being pinned against screens or outer part of a cooling water intake structure) or entrained (being drawn into and through cooling water systems). Phase II of the 316(b) rule for existing electric generating plants was designed to reduce impingement mortality by 80-95% and, if applicable, entrainment by 60-90%.But, are these water intake plants adhering to the Clean Water Act; this critical segment of federal regulations that so affects our nation’s precious and not unlimited aquatic resources? The first of future articles on this subject, we will be visiting the issue more in depth.
Source: Great Lakes Basin Report
Another Related Article: http://www.westernlakeerie.org/bayshore_press_0908.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment