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NC WARN:
Waste Awareness & Reduction Network
NEWS
RELEASE
Contact: Jim Warren
October 11, 2007
919-416-5077
Legal Action Filed Against State Over New
Power Plant
Group says enormous water usage,
reliability must be addressed at Cliffside plant
DURHAM, NC – State regulators unlawfully granted a
permit allowing Duke Energy to use millions of gallons of water per day at
a controversial coal-fired power plant without analyzing the impacts of
drought, reliability and downstream users, according to a legal challenge
filed today by NC WARN. The watchdog group, including members living near
the Cliffside plant, is asking an Administrative Law Judge to suspend the
permit pending a contested case process where Duke would have to reveal
details of its water usage plans.
There are great disparities about water usage in
information provided by Duke. Withdrawal amounts range from 127 million
gallons per day (MGD) shown in the state permit, to 275 MGD. Duke says
that if its controversial new Unit 6 is built, by 2011 the plant would
withdraw far less water, but the amount being evaporated would double to 21
MGD.
“The numbers are all different, so the public
doesn’t have a clue as how much water Duke would be using overall, plus
the amount permanently removed from the river system,” said NC WARN
director Jim Warren today. “But we do know that Duke is one of the
biggest users.”
By comparison, the City of Charlotte uses about 113
MGD, and discharges its treated wastewater back into river systems, rather
than allowing it to evaporate it into the sky. Water not evaporated at
Cliffside is discharged back into the Broad River at higher temperatures
that can impact fish and other wildlife, and containing so-called
“acceptable” levels of pollution.
NC WARN says the state and Duke have not analyzed the
impact of drought and other climate changes on the volume and temperature
of intake water. Nor have they studied the secondary and cumulative
impacts associated with its withdrawal of water from and discharge into the
Broad River.
Coal and nuclear power plants depend on large volumes
of cool water to operate safely and efficiently.
The extreme droughts of 2007 and previous years
demonstrate the fragility of the river systems in North Carolina. With
accelerating climate change, water management is predicted to be a more
constant challenge.
“By paying billions to build Cliffside, Duke’s
customers would be stuck with a power supply that’s increasingly dicey,” Warren
cautioned. “It’s ironic that Cliffside – a huge global warming
machine itself -- could be thwarted by the lack of water resulting from our
changing climate.”
In the legal filing, John Runkle, attorney for the
nonprofit group, noted that the water permit specifically did not address
additional major impacts on the water quality and quantity in the Broad
River and its tributaries, such as the amount required by Duke Energy’s two
proposed nuclear plants downstream, which would each consume 40 to 60 MGD.
Nor did it address other uses and withdrawals of the Broad River, or a
proposed reservoir on a tributary that may provide cooling water for
Cliffside.
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