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### Volume IX, No. 4 

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### Effects 

### ofPowerPlants on Hudson 

### River Fish :: B5-s nZmz

In 1975,the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency issued State Pollution DischargeElimination System (SPDES) permits for four power plants in the southernportion of the Hudson River--Bowline Point Units 1and 2; Roseton; and Indian Point--that required these plants to be retrofitted with cooling towers. All these plants used the "once-through" system of drawing a continuous volume of water through the plants for coolingpurposes and discharging the heated water back intothe river. Cooling towers use a closed cooling systemwherein water is pumped through the plant and then allowed to cascade down within a tall tower, losing its heat load, whereupon it is cycled through the plant again. The power companies appealed this expensiverequirement and negotiations between EPA the power companies dragged on for 

### 5 years. In 1981,the Hudson River SettlementAgreement (HRSA) was signed. It allowed the power companies to continue operating these plants without cooling towers but imposed upon them extensive operatingrestrictions or modifications (e.g., scheduled plant outages, fine-tuning of water withdrawals, protectivehardware on intake screens) as well as mandating that the companies institutehatchery-based stocking of striped bass, the funding ($12million) of a long-termresearch program on the Hudson River @.e., the Hudson River Foundation for Science and Research), and the establishmentof a biological monitoring program to evaluate the impacts of power plants on the ecosystem of the Hudson River, especially fish populations. Over the ensuing decade, this agreement and its provisions were implemented.

In 1991,the HRSA expired and was renewed for one year, but environmentalgroups party to the original agreement immediately sued. This litigationwas suspended in 1992by a consent order which
was extended each year through 1998.During this entireperiod, the monitoring programs established under the original HRSA continued. In 1992,the DEC declared that the applications of the power companies for renewal of their SPDES permits were incomplete and that the companiesmust prepare a full EnvironmentalImpact Statement(EIS) for permit renewal as part of the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process. Eventually,in 1999,the power companies submitted an EIS which the DEC considered completeenough to submit to the public for review and comment. The official public

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comment period for this EIS ends on 24 June 

### 2000.

All the research information developed by the power companies clearly indicated that with the existing plants, using once-through cooling systems,the more power produced, the more water is used, and the greater the impact on fish stocksfrom impingement and entrainment mortalities.However new, more efficient (closed-cycle) technologies that will be required in proposed new plants have significantlyless impact because these technologies draw very little water from the river. The conditionalentrainment mortality rate (CEMR), the percent reduction in year class strengthof Hudson River fish as a result of power plants-related entrainment mortality, is estimated at 20-30% for most species examinedbased on short-term survivalrate (30-55%if 100% mortality is assumed from latent injuries.) For example, the population of American shad in the river might as much as double if the entrainmentmortalities caused by the operation of a single plant in the Albany area couldbe eliminated. Data presentedby Mr. Colquhoun on New York Harbor area power plants show entrainment in large numbers for many finfish species.

The federal Clean Water Act requiresthat "thelocation,design, construction,and capacity of cooling water intake structures,in connection with point source thermal discharges, shall reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact."New York law is similar. The utility choice option recognizes that relicensing existingplants is the equivalent of building new plants; the utilities don't have to constructexpensive cooling towers for an existingplant if the plant is to be taken off line in the next few years. However if they don't intend to rehabilitate an old plant, it must be shut down and its power production replaced by a new plant with coolingtower technology.

Mr. Colquhoun stated that all the new power plants would have either coolingtowers or some other
means to greatly reduce impingement and entrainment mortality of fish. Councilor Schwabrecalled an estimateby Dr. Philip Goodyear of Oak Ridge National Laboratory that the Indian Point 2 plant would kill 

### 50% of each year class of stripedbass spawnedin the Hudson River; Mr. Colquhoun agreedthat subsequent data confirmed this.

Mr. Colquhoun concludedthat the excellent utility monitoring data collected over the past 

### 25 years had created a unique ability to extrapolate and apply conclusions elsewhere. Mr. Colvin of DEC stated that the agency was interestedin expanding and applying this information on estimated Hudson River impingement and entrainmentmortalitiesof fish to other states and areas in the Mid-Atlanticregion beyond New York. For example,American shad are in trouble notjust in the Hudson River but along the entire East Coast. ASMFC is very interested in considering power plants as a source of fish mortality. The DEC made a presentation to the Commission, which subsequently created a working group to generate a set of scientific approaches to be used on a coast-widebasis for shad and similar estuarine spawnerswhen consideringutility applications in coastal states.

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