Mar 25 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Michael Burge The San Diego Union-Tribune



California's coastal power plants would have to cut the amount of ocean water they use to cool their generators by more than 90 percent over the next 14 years, under a proposed policy issued yesterday by a state environmental agency.

The policy, which has been five years in the making, aims to reduce the number of fish, fish larvae, seals, sea lions and reptiles pinned against screens or sucked into the state's 19 power plants along with water in a process called "once-through cooling."

Plants in San Diego County that would be affected are the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad, the South Bay plant in Chula Vista and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

The state Water Resources Control Board says power plants can draw as much as 15 billion gallons a day of from the ocean or estuaries, killing millions of fish and billions of larvae.

 The water board will hold a hearing on the policy May 4 in Sacramento.

Jonathan Bishop, the water resources board's deputy director, said the agency is telling the plants to make the changes to satisfy the federal Clean Water Act, which requires them to use the best possible technology to minimize effects on the ocean.

"By their nature (the power plants) suck in large quantities of water and in that process kill large quantities of marine life," Bishop said.

He said the state isn't telling the plants how to reduce the water draws, but has issued a schedule by which each must do so.

Encina has applied to the state to replace some of its old generators with an air-cooled plant, to modernize its operation and to meet the new requirements.

South Bay is being phased out.

Officials with Southern California Edison, which operates the San Onofre plant, have said in the past that they have met other stringent requirements to offset effects on marine life and it would be prohibitively expensive to build new equipment to meet the standards.

The company said in a statement that it's reviewing the new policy and "we appreciate the board's willingness to evaluate these concerns and work on policy solutions."

Bishop said the policy takes into account the state's two nuclear plants by ordering studies on the potential cost of meeting the new requirements. The other nuclear plant is Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County.

Power plants affected by the policy are often the oldest in the state. They produce 19,000 megawatts of power, or about one-third of California's generation capacity, according to the California Independent System Operator, which assures that the state has enough electricity to meet demand.

Some of the older plants are used less frequently than they were in the past, Cal-ISO spokesman Gregg Fishman said, because their generators are less efficient than those in newer plants.

Bishop said the policy considers the state's generation needs and would allow Cal-ISO to delay the changes in some instances to assure that enough power remains on the grid.

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