I have talked about environmental problems resulting from the discharge of warm water from nuclear power plants in the past. In New England, there has been a battle raging for decades over the impact of the Salem nuclear power plant on the Delaware River. The once through cooling system essentially uses the Delaware River as a giant radiator.
A group called the Delaware Riverkeepers has charged that New Jersey's renewal of a federally required permit for Salem's two reactors cooling water intake systems would be "irresponsible." They base their claim on old and new economic and ecological research. These charges were leveled at a public meeting after the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection recently extended the period for public comments after being accused of deliberately leaving insufficient time for critics to assess the massive federal permit documentation.
The previous authority for the Delaware plant to draw water from the River expired in 2006. The plant continues to draw water while waiting for decisions on the "best available technology" to reduce loss of fish, heating of the river and other environmental problems caused by the discharge of warm water from the plant. Research has shown that billions of fish, fry, eggs and other organisms are caught, and/or injured or killed on the nuclear plant's cooling water intake guards. Even more are killed after being sucked into the plant's cooling water systems.
The Riverkeepers new estimates of economic losses of almost six hundred million dollars over twenty years are seventy times higher than past estimates from the company that operates the power plant of eight million dollar losses over twenty years. The Riverkeepers claim that there is only one nuclear power plant in the U.S. that does greater damage to aquatic life than the Salem plant.
New federal regulations are inclined toward the use of cooling towers and water recycling for cooling nuclear power plants. Existing plants are allowed to seek exceptions to the new regulations based on an assessment of costs and benefits and lower cost approaches that protect the environment.
The Riverkeepers says that the company that operates the plant and federal regulators have failed to accurately assess the damage done by the heated water leaving the Salem plant's cooling system. The discharge of the heated water was authorized decades ago by a waiver from the Delaware River Basin Commission. The company claims that it has complied with regulations and has done nothing improper.
Critics of the current cooling system at the Salem plant assert that a recycling cooling-water system could reduce the need for the Salem plant to draw water from the Delaware River by over ninety percent. It could cost eight hundred and fifty million dollars to retrofit the Salem plant with a cooling-water recycling system. Officials of the company that operates the plant claim that the cost could rise to as much as a billion dollars and retrofitting is too expensive to consider.
In view of the fact that climate change is leading to heating of the water in lakes and rivers, the estimated damage of the current Salem system could easily rise even higher than the River Keepers estimate. The operators and owners of the Salem nuclear power plant should change over to a recycling system or the plant should be closed.
