As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this news release.
Since
Oyster Creek was built in 1969, the plant's operation has resulted in
far-reaching and long-lasting environmental degradation in the nearby
waterways of Forked River, Oyster Creek and Barnegat Bay.
Oyster
Creek's once-through cooling system was designed in the 1960s. The
system intakes water from Forked River to cool the reactor and the
heated water, or thermal pollution, is then discharged into Oyster
Creek. The plant intakes and discharges an enormous amount of
water—over 1.4 billion gallons—on a daily basis. The water is taken
in at a speed of 1-2,000 cubic feet per second, which is the force of a
medium-sized river. The chlorine levels in the water are also 20 times
the lethal level of many types of aquatic life.
Despite
grates over the intakes, the water flushing creates a giant sucking
action that brings with it an assortment of aquatic life. Some of this
aquatic life is small, flows through the grate, and is killed in
process of cooling the reactor. This lethal effect is called
entrainment. Larger types of aquatic life, such as striped bass, white
perch, and endangered sea turtles, get pinned on the grate and often
die from, or are seriously injured by, the rush of oncoming water. This
lethal effect is called impingement.
The
plant has developed a record of killing threatened and endangered
species, specifically sea turtles, over the last ten years. From 1992
to 2000, the plant recorded 17 captures of sea turtles and six sea
turtle mortalities. Even though these figures are high, the problem
could be much worse. A 2001 Nuclear Regulatory Commission report found
discrepancies in the number of kills that Exelon reported to the NRC
and the number in the archive, and concluded the "inconsistent and
erratic availability of data on sea turtle captures at Oyster Creek
underscores a wider unreliability of information supplied to the
public."
In
addition to daily impingement and entrainment, Oyster Creek's daily
thermal pollution discharge often spreads a thermal plume over a
distance of over four miles across the entire width of Barnegat Bay.
The plume creates a "fry" zone for young larvae and spawn, and NRC
studies indicate that the thermal plume has increased the population of
tropical wood-boring species that serve as aquatic termites for boat
bottoms and home foundations.
And
as a result of this once-through cooling system, Oyster Creek has a
long history of massive fish kills when plant operators have failed to
turn off dilution pumps during planned or emergency shut-downs,
allowing millions of gallons of hot water to enter the Creek and the
Bay. In the 1972, the plant killed over half a million fish. Larger
fish kills have continued sporadically over the last three decades. The
most recent fish kill, in September 2002, was the largest fish kill
since 1985.
All
of the problems associated with Oyster Creek's cooling system put the
plant in violation of the Clean Water Act, which requires plants to
install modern pollution controls.
A
closed-cycle cooling system, which draws water into the plant for
cooling, re-circulates it, and expels the heat through cooling towers,
meets this requirement. This system reduces water intake and discharge
by over 95%, saving 13 million fish and shellfish and an estimated loss
of tens of millions additional larvae annually. The system will also
eliminate fish kills caused by thermal shock from the discharge, stop
the dumping of over 365 tons of toxic chlorine into the bay annually,
and create hundreds of jobs during construction.
Unfortunately,
the NJ DEP's current draft permit for Oyster Creek does not require the
plant to install a closed-cycle cooling system. Instead, the draft
permit describes a closed-cycle system as the "preferred alternative",
but also gives Exelon a fall-back option—the "restoration" of 3,500
acres of wetlands. This draft permit is unacceptable.
The
final DEP permit must require Exelon to install a closed-cycle cooling
system as the only method of fixing Oyster Creek’s water discharge
problem. Further, the permit must ensure that a feasibility study
regarding the installation of a closed-cycle cooling system is complete
within 3 months of the permit issuance. Based on EPA contractor
estimates, it would take 12-24 months to complete construction of a
closed-cycle cooling system for a medium-sized, 600 MW nuclear power
plant. Thus, the DEP permit must also require that construction of the
closed-cycle system be complete by July 2008.
Oyster
Creek has been degrading the local ecosystem for far too long. A permit
representing true environmental stewardship would require Oyster Creek
to install a closed-cycle cooling system.
