Toxins tied to fish kill may have hitchhiked

Investigators weigh whether mining equipment is culprit

Sunday, October 04, 2009
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette

Dead fish rot on a rock where the water of Dunkard Creek left them near the village of Brave in Greene County.An invasive toxic algae, blamed for contributing to the massive Dunkard Creek fish kill along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, may have hitchhiked to the region aboard equipment used in Marcellus shale drilling.

That kind of transregional travel could put fish and aquatic life in the states' other creeks and watersheds at risk in coming years as thousands of new wells are drilled into the thick and gaseous layer of shale that lies a mile deep under much of Pennsylvania and the northern Appalachians.

It has been more than a month since fish started going belly-up on Dunkard Creek, and officials with federal and state environmental and fisheries agencies have yet to identify what killed the fish or assign blame.

The only official explanation has come from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which last week blamed alien golden algae for wiping out thousands of fish, mussels and other aquatic life in 35 miles of what had been one of the most biologically diverse creeks in either state.

But the West Virginia agency doesn't know how the algae got into the creek.

"We might never know how it got there," said spokewoman Kathy Cosco. "We are trying to determine if it's present already in other water bodies or has spread."

Investigators also are looking at the possibility that someone illegally dumped drilling wastewater into the creek.

The algae-as-hitchhiker theory is one being considered by federal investigators. It's part of the big puzzle federal and state agencies are trying to solve as they attempt to identify what many investigators say are "complex and multiple" causes for the ecological destruction.

The investigation continues to focus on extremely high levels of dissolved solids and chloride found in discharges from two Consol Energy mine-water treatment facilities on the creek, and low flow conditions -- possibly acerbated by tanker trucks that local residents have said they often saw withdrawing water from the creek. That combination created an aquatic environment conducive to growth of the algae.

"We do believe there is golden algae in the creek, but for it to thrive there must be a lot of stuff in the creek that shouldn't be there," said David Sternberg, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman. "There are other contributing factors."

Golden algae is one of a group of algae known as chrysophytes that are usually found in hotter, sometimes coastal, environments of the Southwest and South. It is the only chrysophyte algae that produces toxins lethal to fish, mussels, salamanders and other aquatic life.

"Our biggest concern is how the conditions were created in Dunkard Creek that allowed that algae to thrive," Mr. Sternberg said. "If we see a saltwater algae in a freshwater creek, we know there must be something very wrong."

The EPA also is "very concerned" that golden algae could spread throughout the northern Appalachian region where it might devastate other fisheries, Mr. Sternberg said.

Dr. John Rodgers, a professor at Clemson University who has researched invasive freshwater algae, made the initial identification of the algae in Dunkard Creek for Consol. He said its spores could be transported by animals, in boats, on people's shoes, in blown dust or in industrial equipment.

"[Drilling equipment] is certainly something you will want to look at. This is not an organism you want to trifle with," he said, adding that it has been blamed for wiping out bass populations in Texas.

"Certainly you want to think through the pathways it took to that stream and start working on it as fast as you can."

Last week, a long-awaited 18-month state environmental review of Marcellus shale drilling issues in New York said that floating and submerged aquatic plants could be transported by a variety of equipment used in the deep shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes to crack the shale layer and release the gas it contains.

"Invasive species may potentially be transferred to a new area or watershed if unused water containing such species is later discharged at another location," the report said. "Other potential mechanisms for the possible transfer of invasive aquatic species may include trucks, hoses, pipelines and other equipment used for water withdrawal and transport."

Texas origins?
The algae, prymnesium parvum, has been known to kill fish in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico since it first showed up in 1985 in the Pecos River in Texas. It also has been found in the Brazos River in Texas where gas well drilling companies are advised not to draw from the river during the algae's winter blooming season.

But the algae had not been found around the Mason-Dixon Line before. It is not known if Texas drilling equipment was moved to Pennsylvania; no states track the movement of drill rigs and tanker trucks.

Leroy Young, fisheries bureau director for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, declined to provide details about the commission's ongoing criminal investigation of the Dunkard Creek fish kill. But he said the golden algae is a concern.

"... Any kind of invasive is a concern," Mr. Young said. "This is a new thing and we'll be looking hard at it."

Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Texas-based Range Resources, one of the biggest drilling companies operating in the Marcellus shale, said Range hasn't moved any drilling rigs from Texas to Pennsylvania. Its water-transport equipment is based in Pennsylvania, and it has no wells in Greene County or West Virginia.

"Almost all of our water-storage units are leased or rented from local companies and the water trucks are all local subcontractors," he said.

The company, which has drilled 150 wells into the Marcellus shale, 45 of them horizontal wells, has been recycling all drill water for more than a year, Mr. Pitzarella added. Some smaller drilling companies among more than two dozen gas producers operating in the state may be using equipment brought here from Texas, he said.

Pennsylvania may have as much as 363 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth as much as $1 trillion deep underground in the Marcellus shale formations. Gas wells to tap those deposits are drilled 5,000 to 8,000 feet deep; each uses up to 4 million gallons of pressurized, chemically treated water to crack, or "frac," the shale and release trapped natural gas. Leftover wastewater contains high levels of chlorides, dissolved solids and fracing chemicals.

The use of fracing fluids and the drawing and disposal of well drilling wastewater have become environmental concerns. High levels of total dissolved solids in the Monongahela River last winter and this fall, which damaged equipment for some industrial water users and caused bad-tasting and -smelling water for residential water customers, was caused in part by discharges of drilling wastewater.

Last month, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., another Texas-based company with a long history in Pennsylvania, was ordered by the Pennsylvania DEP to temporarily stop its well fracing operations in Dimock, Susquehanna County, until the state can review three frac fluid spills. The company blamed faulty hose and equipment, and fully cleaned up all of the spills.

Declining quality
Although Dunkard Creek was a popular and productive warm-water fishery with good populations of bass, catfish and muskie until the beginning of September, its water quality has been in decline since at least 2002. Discharges high in dissolved solids and chlorides have poured into the creek from mine-water treatment facilities at Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 deep mine and its Loveridge Mine in West Virginia.

The West Virginia DEP granted orders in 2004, 2007 and 2008 allowing the company's treatment facilities to discharge unlimited amounts of chloride into the creek until 2013. Mr. Sternberg said the EPA only recently found out about those three administrative orders and is reviewing them.

"The Clean Water Act allows for compliance schedules negotiated by states," he said, "but by law water-quality standards and permit-effluent limits cannot be changed by an enforcement order."

The inability to pin down the fish kill's cause, and begin to address the problem has frustrated environmental, sportsmen's and watershed organizations.

"The players coming to drill here are new to Pennsylvania and may be bringing problems we could not foresee," said Jan Jarrett, president and chief executive officer of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, an environmental group that has campaigned for a state severance tax on gas well drilling.

"If that's the case, we need some protocols to make sure we don't have hitchhiker invasives. Right now the regulatory system is not nimble enough to address this."

Betty Wiley, president of the Dunkard Creek Watershed Association, said she lacks confidence in the environmental agencies of both states. Last week, a coalition of West Virginia and Pennsylvania watershed groups called on the EPA to take the lead role in the investigation of the fish kill and restoration of the watershed.

"The states haven't told us anything and this is a big problem," Ms. Wiley said, adding that she believes the West Virginia DEP traditionally has been lenient with coal companies. "I feel they are not capable of dealing with this thing in any way. We need the big guys to take charge"

The EPA said it won't do that. But last week it did order Consol to stop pumping wastewater from coal bed methane drilling operations into the Morris Run Borehole, which is attached to its inactive Blacksville No. 1 mine. Stopping that will help determine what impact that operation may have had on elevated discharges from Consol's Blacksville No. 2 treatment facility.

The EPA also proposed new limits on amounts of pollutants that can be discharged into West Virginia's Dunkard Creek watershed.

Consol spokesman Joe Cerenzia said the company had stopped pumping into the Morris Run borehole as directed and last week stopped discharging water from both of its mine-water treatment facilities. He said the company has several Marcellus shale wells in Greene County but none take water from the creek or discharge water into it or the Blacksville No. 1 mine.

Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09277/1003007-113.stm#ixzz0T7TsUpK3
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09277/1003007-113.stm

New rules would limit power plants' use of ocean water for cooling

Tribune file photo: Each day, more than 2 billion gallons of seawater cool Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant when it is running at full power.

Thursday, Jul. 16, 2009

State water officials have proposed a set of stringent new rules that are intended to eliminate or greatly reduce a harmful type of ocean-water cooling at power plants such as Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and Morro Bay.

It is unclear what effect the new rules would have on Diablo Canyon. They contain two exemptions for which nuclear plant operators could apply for reasons of safety or cost.

Known as once-through cooling, the process involves pumping massive amounts of ocean water through the cooling system to condense steam after it has passed through the electrical generators.

It damages ocean life in a number of ways including killing millions of larvae and, in some cases, sucking in and drowning seals.

The new rules are intended to force plant owners to use less damaging cooling methods by reducing intake of ocean water by at least 93 percent or finding other ways to reduce damage to ocean life.

Options available to plant owners include the use of giant radiators to condense the steam, called dry cooling, or using evaporation towers or other wet-cooling techniques that use substantially less water.

Officials with Dynegy, owners of the Morro Bay power plant, are hinting that the expense of complying with the new rules at older plants like the one in Morro Bay may be too great and the plant might close as a result.

The 50-year-old Morro Bay plant uses natural gas fired boilers. Although proposals have been made to renovate the plant, Dynegy is not moving ahead with those plans.

“But we would not want to speculate on the future of the Morro Bay plant,” added David Byford, Dynegy spokesman.

As it is, the antiquated plant operates “very seldom,” usually only during the summer when demand for electricity is at its highest, Byford said. The plant has contracts to sell power until 2013.

The State Water Resources Control Board proposed the new rules June 30. They are several years in the making and involved consultation with numerous other state agencies and stakeholders.

“The State Water Board staff’s intent with this draft policy is to assure that California’s coastal waters are protected while making certain that essential electrical power is available to Californians,” said Dorothy Rice, the board’s executive director.

Emily Christensen, spokeswoman at Diablo Canyon, said plant owners Pacific Gas and Electric Company are encouraged by the board’s commitment to electrical reliability and are reviewing whether to apply for either of the exemptions.

In one exemption, PG&E could argue that the rules conflict with Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety requirements. In another, the utility could argue that the cost of the new rules is “wholly disproportionate to the environmental benefits.”

In either case, the utility would have to propose alternate methods of reducing ocean impacts.

The Morro Bay plant would have until 2016 to be in compliance; Diablo Canyon’s deadline is 2022.

Ongoing disagreement The proposed rules are the latest chapter in an ongoing disagreement between PG&E and state water officials over once-through cooling.

Diablo Canyon’s water discharge permit has expired and the plant is operating under an extension while the two parties try to reach an agreement on how to offset the effects of ocean-water cooling.

The nuclear plant typically circulates nearly 2.3 billion gallons of seawater a day. This water carries with it an estimated 1.5 billion fish and crab larvae a day, according to state water board documents.

Many, if not all, of the larvae are killed by the nearly 20-degree temperature increase or are eaten by barnacles and other crustaceans that line the cooling water pipes.

The heated water has also altered the marine ecology of the plant’s water discharge cove.

PG&E biologists have argued that the effect of the larvae mortality is minimal because most would not reach adulthood under normal circumstances. State officials have proposed land conservation deals and the creation of artificial reefs as ways of offsetting the mortality but no deals have been reached.

Of the state’s 19 power plants that use once-through cooling, others have more dramatic impacts on wildlife. Some plants use narrow offshore pipes to draw in their cooling water.

These pipes create enough suction to draw in fish and marine mammals. The worst is the state’s other nuclear power plant, San Onofre in Southern California.

State records show that between 1978 and 2000, 64 harbor seals, 153 sea lions and four sea turtles were found dead in San Onofre’s intake structure. Power plants in Ormond Beach and Redondo Beach, both in Los Angeles County, have killed lesser numbers of seals.

Diablo Canyon avoids this problem because its intake pipes are large enough that the suction they create is weak enough that fish and animals can swim out of it. No marine mammals have died in Diablo Canyon’s intake structure although divers removed seven live sea turtles from the structure from 1985 to 2001.

A 60-day public comment period on the new rules begins Sept. 30. The state water board is expected to vote whether or not to adopt the rules late this year or early next year.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/786140.html

Judge rules Indian Point's fish-killing cooling process must stop

Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., is said to be responsible for killing fish, eggs, larvae and plants.


Comment: Nuke plants uses a huge amount of water and fish kills have been going on for years all the earth! Thank goodness for River Keepers! Will Virginia Rivers be protected from uranium mining and milling accidents? Will the Basin group sue the Canadian uranium company when they ruin our water, kill fish or animal?



BY Abby Luby
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Friday, July 3rd 2009, 4:00 AM

Officials at the Indian Point nuclear power plant - which has been called responsible for killing more than a billion fish each year - will have to figure out another way to cool its giant heated steam turbines, a state court has ruled.

The plant sucks in and returns more than 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water daily - 2 million gallons per minute - in a system that pulls in and kills fish, eggs, larvae and plant life.

The hot water flushed back into the river is fatal to some 1.2 billion fish every year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The cooling system doesn't use radioactive water from the reactor core.

Last week, acting state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly turned down plant owner Entergy's bid to overturn a year-old DEC decision that faulted Indian Point's water intake system for killing the fish.

The judge said Entergy's appeal was premature, stating: "Petitioner's claims are not ripe for review by the Court at this time."

The ruling now gives the DEC the green light to push for a new cooling system that would reduce fish-killing water usage by 95% at the Westchester County plant.

Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the court's decision determines how the utility company will "ultimately obtain a water-use permit that makes the most sense environmentally and economically for the area around Indian Point."

Entergy has balked at the $1.4billion price tag for the new cooling system. Nappi said the plant already has spent more than $100 million to protect fish by installing special screens to reduce the number of fish pulled inside.

The DEC estimates a new cooling system would cost $740 million, and $145 million a year to run - or 5% to 6% of Entergy's annual gross revenue.

Entergy makes more than $2 million a day - and more than $700 million a year - from electricity produced at Indian Point.

The court ruling was a victory for the DEC and the environmental group Riverkeeper, which have been waging court battles with Entergy for years over the fish kill. Riverkeeper's chief prosecutor is Robert Kennedy Jr.

Indian Point, 24 miles outside the city, is applying to renew its operating license and keep running until 2035. If the license is renewed, Riverkeeper and the DEC say, the power plant would be forced to build a cooling system if it wants to stay open.

Hearings on the new draft water-use permit for the plant, which would mandate closed-cycle cooling, are tentatively scheduled for next year.

Nappi said Entergy is weighing an appeal of the court ruling.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/03/2009-07-03_judge_rules_indian_point_fishkilling_cooling_process_must_stop.html#ixzz0KLg63lO3&C

Sign Petition : STOP MINES FROM USING CANADA’S PRISTINE WATERWAYS AS WASTE DUMPS

Comment: please sign the Petition below and all anti-uranium mining petitions across the world!!!

Sign Petition : STOP MINES FROM USING CANADA’S PRISTINE WATERWAYS AS WASTE DUMPS

Please click the link below to sign the Petition:

http://www.change.org/actions/view/sign_petition_stop_mines_from_using_canadas_pristine_waterways_as_waste_dumps

Targeting: Michael Ignatieff (Leader of the Liberal Party), Gail Shea (Minister of Fisheries & Oceans Canada) and Stephen Harper (Prime Minister of Canada)

Started by: BiLL Fowlie

STOP MINES FROM USING CANADA’S PRISTINE WATERWAYS AS WASTE DUMPS

Mining companies are discarding their toxic leftovers in our lakes right now!

Tail Lake (Nunavut) and Scully-Wabush Lake (Newfoundland) have already been approved and the federal government is reviewing applications to okay 14 more.

Decisions on eight bodies of water will be made by the end of this year. Visit here for a map and list of all the mines/lakes currently under review.

Act now. Write your political representatives and tell them the use of natural, fish-bearing waters as mine dumps is not an option.

Industry had other disposal options. These lakes must not be sacrificed.

Trout Pond and Duck Pond (near Buchans, Newfoundland) were approved for destruction in this way in 2006.

These lakes used to contain Atlantic salmon and brook trout and were also home to otters. They are now essentially biological dead zones.

Since then, the requests from the international mining industry to use Canadian waters for their toxic waste disposal have increased at an alarming rate.

Why? Because it would save them tens of millions of dollars in operating costs over the life of their mine. Why build and maintain a tailings pond if you can simply dispose of your waste in a natural lake basin?

Let’s keep Canada’s precious water resources clean! Write to the decision makers today!

This petition ends on Aug 04.

Nuke plant was not required to inspect all pipes

Comment: can you believe the NRC did not require Nuke Plants to inspect pipes, pipes which contaminated water runs thru, back out to a lake or the ocean!! Leaks are a common problem with Nuke Plants, fish kills are too! The whole Nuke cycle ruins our water, air & land!!

May 7, 2009

By TODD B. BATES
Staff Writer

Nuclear regulators did not require the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey to inspect all of its buried pipes — two of which leaked radioactive tritium — before renewing the facility's license for 20 years, according to a federal spokesman.

Oyster Creek's buried piping inspection program is "not designed to be a 100 percent inspection, according to Neil A. Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Four monitoring wells at the plant are contaminated with up to about 300 times government limits for tritium in water. Tritium — found naturally in the environment and generated by nuclear plants — is a weak isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk.

The tritium has remained on site and is no threat to public or employee health, plant, federal and state officials have said.

Exelon, which owns Oyster Creek, inspected at least one of the two pipes with holes before its operating license was renewed, Sheehan said.

But it looks like the pipe was inspected in a different spot than where the hole was found, he said in an e-mail.

Plant officials discovered holes in the pipes, which carry radioactive water in a closed loop at the plant, after the license was renewed last month.

Within 10 years after a license is renewed, plants will do one or both of the following, according to Sheehan:

— Inspect portions of piping with a high likelihood of corrosion problems or piping with a history of corrosion.

— Take advantage of ongoing maintenance opportunities and inspect portions of piping if and when excavation work is done adjacent to it.

— Neither officials nor plant spokesman David Benson had a figure Friday on the amount of piping at the plant.

— Some piping was inspected before the license was renewed, according to Sheehan. — Oyster Creek's aging-management program is based on the results of inspections and operating experience at all 11 Exelon nuclear plants, Benson said.

It "isn't a static aging-management program," he said. "We use data from all the plants across the fleet to ensure every station has the most recent analysis and information for their programs."

Meanwhile, the "cause of the current leakage" at Oyster Creek has yet to be determined, according to Sheehan.

Leaks from the two pipes were stopped as soon as they were found, but "we're still checking" on whether there are other leaks, Benson said.

Enforcement officials in the state Department of Environmental Protection began investigating Friday whether Oyster Creek violated environmental laws regarding the tritium contamination, according to DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura.

She said she could not speculate on the fines the DEP could issue in this case.

Last year, Oyster Creek agreed to pay the state $67,859 for a fish kill in 2007 and another in 2006. The plant also reached a $1 million settlement with the state following a 2002 fish kill.

http://www.app.com/article/20090507/COMMUNITY/905070402/1277/LOCAL01&source=rss