.... For decades, electric power plants have quietly preyed on America's waterways and devoured our fisheries, but their actions have largely escaped government accountability. Now - after years of successful litigation brought by environmental groups - the federal Environmental Protection Agency and many states like California have the opportunity to do something meaningful to prevent this senseless slaughter.
How 'big' is this problem... epic
...power plants use water and kill on a massive scale fish, larvae and other aquatic organisms...
In New Jersey, the Salem Nuclear Plant - the nation's largest user of cooling water - withdraws more than 3 billion gallons of water per day from Delaware Bay, killing an estimated 845 million fish a year.
Combined, the 19 California plants using antiquated, once-through cooling technology are allowed to suck in 16 billion gallons of sea water every day and kill an estimated 79 billion fish, larvae and other marine life - including two dozen sea lions and a dozen seals - annually.
This killing surpasses many types of commercial and recreational fishing in some areas, and is completely unnecessary. Widely available and affordable technologies reuse and recycle cooling water, preventing fish kills almost entirely.
Most new power plants use closed-cycle cooling, which recirculates water and can reduce fish mortality by 95% or more.
But nearly 40 years after Congress first sought to solve this problem, the power industry continues its massive ecological destruction. Nationally, hundreds of outdated once-through cooling power plants remain on both fresh waterways and along our coasts.
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