As part of a legal settlement, the Environmental Protection
Agency has proposed a rule change that could force many nuclear plants to
modify their cooling systems in an effort to protect fish.
The proposed rule affects a broad swath of nuclear plants
and other industrial facilities that rely on water bodies for cooling. Per a
release Monday from the EPA:
“Existing facilities that withdraw at least 25 percent of
their water exclusively for cooling purposes and have a design intake flow of
greater than 2 million gallons per day would be required to reduce fish
impingement under the proposed regulations … [operators] may conduct
monitoring to show the specified performance standards for impingement
mortality of fish and shellfish have been met, or they may demonstrate to the
permitting authority that the intake velocity meets the specified design
criteria. EPA estimates that more than half of the facilities that could be
impacted by this proposed rule already employ readily available technologies
that are likely to put them into compliance with the proposed standard.”
Existing plants that intake more than 125 million gallons
each day would be required to study what actions are needed to reduce the
number of fish and other marine life sucked into their cooling systems. Further,
any plant seeking to add units or obtain an uprate would be required have
cooling technology that amounts to the closed-cycle systems that use cooling
towers.
The Nuclear Energy Institute estimated that new rules
could affect 62 power plants. It opposed the rule change, noting that cooling
towers are not feasible at all sites and that numerous studies have shown that
nuclear plants have little impact on fish.