Judge: Nuclear plant's wastewater discharge was wrong

Comment: The State of VA allowed this to happen, where was the NRC?

By Scott HarperThe Virginian-Pilot© February 24, 2009

The state for 30 years has wrongly allowed Dominion Virginia Power to discharge hot wastewater into Lake Anna from its nuclear power plant near Richmond, a judge has ruled.

Environmentalists hailed the decision Friday by Richmond Circuit Court Judge Margaret P. Spencer.

They said it should lead to first-ever regulations of atomic wastewater and cool parts of Lake Anna, a central Virginia landmark known to eclipse 100 degrees on summer days.

"This is huge," said Louis Zeller, science director for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

"We and lakeside residents have long believed that Dominion is guilty of thermal pollution."

Such pollution, he said, threatens human health, property values and aquatic life.

The court ruling also could complicate a billion-dollar proposal from Dominion to expand its North Anna nuclear power plant by building a third reactor on Lake Anna in Louisa County.

While Dominion has recommended an air-cooling system for the new reactor, the project still would influence lake levels and temperatures, said Harry Ruth, president of Friends of Lake Anna, a conservation group.

Since 1978, the state has considered a 3,400-acre section of the lake closest to the nuclear plant a "waste treatment facility," not a public body of water. As such, this westerly section, known as "the hot side," has been exempt from state water-quality rules.

Spencer turned this interpretation on its ear. The judge instructed the State Water Control Board to draft a new discharge permit for the nuclear station so that the lake never exceeds 89.6 degrees, said Robert Wise, a Richmond attorney representing the environmentalists.

Bill Hayden, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said Monday that state regulators soon will meet with the attorney general's office to discuss a possible appeal.

Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for Dominion, the state's largest electric utility, said the court ruling will be challenged to the Virginia Court of Appeals.

"The cooling lagoons are private water bodies," Norvelle said. "The whole reason for building them was to cool the steam that creates electricity at the power station. We wouldn't have built them otherwise."

Dominion sculpted the lake for the North Anna nuclear plant from piney forests between Richmond and Charlottesville in the 1970s. Since then, Lake Anna has grown into a tourist attraction and a popular residential area.

About two-thirds of the lake - "the cool side" - is regulated as a public waterway and hosts a state park. The other third, separated from the main lake by earthen berms, is not.

Wise, the environmental attorney, said federal law exempts small lagoons and flood ponds from water-quality regulations - but not a large body of water such as the "hot side," where people fish, boat and swim.

"We are thrilled the court agrees with us that the 'hot side' of Lake Anna is entitled to and deserves the full protection of Virginia and federal law," said Wise, a partner with Bowman and Brooke LLP.