Salem Generating
Station
The Largest Predator in the Delaware Estuary
The
Salem Nuclear Generating Station, located on an artificial island on
the Delaware River in New Jersey, consists of two nuclear-powered units
operated with once-through cooling. The Salem facility withdraws up
to three billion gallons of Delaware River water each day — needlessly.
That means that each year, a startling three billion fish are sucked
in and killed by the station.
In both 1994 and 2001, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
issued a permit to Salem allowing it to continue to operate its once-through
cooling system. Rather than require that the plant’s owner, PSE&G,
install technology proven to reduce fish kills by upwards of 95 percent,
the agency settled for relatively minor modifications to the plant. These
included a slight reduction in daily water intake (from 3.2 to 3 billion
gallons), minor changes to its intake screen and a study to determine
the feasibility of using underwater sound machines to keep fish away
from the plant’s intakes. In addition, Salem was required to implement
the so-called wetland enhancement program in the Delaware Estuary.
The reduction of water intake would have no sizeable impact on the numbers of
fish chewed, swallowed and spit from the Salem facility, and small changes to
the intake screens would barely skim the surface of the problem. PSE&G saw
the wetland enhancement as the crucial back door, industry’s way out of
its cooling water conundrum. EPA (under White House direction) has used wetlands
mitigation to relieve power pants of their legal obligation to install technologies
to reduce fish kills. But just how effective are these wetlands programs in replacing
the millions of fish lost to the plant each year?
Wetlands Program a Farce and a Flop
In the past decade-plus PSE&G has claimed to have restored 12,500 acres of
wetlands in New Jersey and Delaware. An impressive feat, it seems, but two fundamental
flaws lay at the core of PSE&G’s wetlands-based approach to reviving
the fish population.
First, when PSE&G pitched the idea of mitigating wetlands in lieu of going
to closed-loop cooling system, they failed to demonstrate if their wetlands restoration
would increase the fish population. Specifically, PSE&G concentrated on restoring
the fish’s food and habitat — without determining whether these were
limiting factors for the aquatic communities in the first place. But the prevailing
belief by fisheries scientists was that there was no need to address food and
habit because they were not limiting the fish population in the river.
Second, even if food and habitat restoration were essential to revive Delaware
River fisheries, PSE&G’s method of wetlands restoration was constructed
on a false premise. PSE&G rid the wetlands of one type of grass — phragmites — and
replaced it with another — spartina — in the hope that the new habitat
would increase fish populations. But studies show that spartina has not provided
more usable food, shelter and cover to the aquatic or terrestrial species of
the Delaware Estuary.
In 2003, Delaware Riverkeeper conducted a study based on PSE&G data. Riverkeeper
found that the new spartina-dominated sites have not increased fish utilization,
and in some cases, fish are more abundant in sites that have not been “restored” by
PSE&G. PSE&G’s own data proves that phragmites eradication has
not increased fish reproduction or utilization of those wetlands.
Even worse, to reduce the coverage of phragmites on the wetlands, PSE&G has
poisoned valuable marshland. Through the program PSE&G has applied over 22,000
pounds of herbicides to 2,500 acres of sensitive marshland. Phragmites reduction
on these sites requires annual herbicide treatment. So once PSE&G’s
permit terminates and herbicide applications cease, these areas will likely be
overrun by neighboring stands of phragmites.
The End of “Feel Good”
Environmental Projects
PSE&G has been given over a decade to carry out an alternative strategy to
mitigate the impacts of Salem, but has failed to demonstrate the program is of
any benefit to the environment and the people of New Jersey. The Salem experience
proves that allowing industries to undertake “feel good” environmental
projects — designed to create a façade of action rather than use
existing and proven strategies to reduce environmental injury — is pure
folly. The Clean Water Act requires facilities like Salem to minimize their adverse
impact on the environment, not through mitigation, pretty press pictures or education
but through concrete technological action.
When PSE&G convinced then-New Jersey Governor Christy Whitman to reverse
a previous decision to require closed cycle cooling it was a political coup for
the power industry nationwide. The power industry has spent the past decade green-washing
the decision.
The Clean Water Act permit for Salem is once again up for renewal. New Jersey
has an opportunity to issue a permit that will protect the Delaware Estuary ecosystem
and to finally hold PSE&G accountable for the two decades of harm they have
been inflicting and to send a message to the nation that the fish belong in the
river. EPA must enforce the law and Salem, the largest predator in Delaware Bay,
needs to be called to account.
The Death Toll at Salem
According to PSE&G’s 1999 permit renewal, Salem annually kills:
• Over 59 million:
Blueback Herring
• Over 77 million:
Weakfish
• Over 134 million: Atlantic Croaker
• Over 412 million:
White Perch
• Over 448 million:
Striped Bass
• Over 2 billion:
Bay Anchovy
The Death Toll at Salem according to PSE&G’s 1999 permit renewal