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REGULATORY AGENCIES, NEPCO AGREE TO MEASURES ON BRAYTON POINT POWER STATION

Release Date: 04/03/1997
Contact Information: Mark Stein, EPA, (617)565-3169 John Rodman, Massachusetts EOEA, (617)727-9800 (ext. 217) Peyton Fleming, RIDEM, (401)277-2771

BOSTON -- Under an agreement signed today, the Brayton Point Station Power Plant will have to meet strict new seasonal and monthly caps on both its cooling water intake flow and its heat discharges to Mount Hope Bay. The New England Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the New England Power Company today signed the agreement imposing new restrictions on water discharges from the Brayton Point Station in Somerset, Mass., located on Mount Hope Bay.

The agreement is geared to returning the plant's heat discharges and cooling water intake levels to pre-1985 conditions. A Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management report issued in October 1996 concluded that an increase in the power company's operations 10 years ago coincided with a massive decline in Mount Hope Bay's finfish populations, such as winter flounder, tautog, windowpane flounder, menhaden, scup and others. Finfish population in the bay has declined by 87 percent since 1985.

The flow restrictions will help minimize the amount of fish, fish larvae and eggs, and other marine life that are destroyed or injured by being drawn into the plant's cooling water intake system. The heat discharge limits will help reduce the plant's contribution of heat to the bay, which can affect water temperatures which, in turn, can affect the suitability of the marine habitat for fish.

Today's agreement is viewed by the participants as an interim step designed to reduce facility impacts by approximating discharge and intake levels in existence prior to 1985, a period when Mount Hope Bay's fishery appeared to be healthy, until a new permit is issued by the EPA and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The new permit, currently scheduled for issuance in July 1998, will take advantage of ongoing scientific research and analysis by the agencies and the New England Power Company into water quality conditions in the bay, conditions of the fishery and the plant's effect on the bay.

"Today's agreement imposes tough new limits that represent a strong first step for protecting the Mount Hope Bay fishery," said John P. DeVillars, administrator of the EPA's New England office. "With these immediate protections in place, we must now focus our efforts on developing the scientific foundation for the 1998 discharge permit. If we determine that even more stringent conditions are needed for the permit, we are firmly committed to putting them in place.

"All parties here -- the company, the Commonwealth, RIDEM and EPA -- came together in good faith, and with an exemplary professional approach, fashioned an agreement of which we can all be proud. Everybody in the negotiations deserves credit for that," DeVillars said.

"This is a major step forward. We have cut the heat output and the cooling water intake of Brayton Point Station in today's agreement. For the first time since the fish decline began in 1985 there are limits on the operation which provide environmental protection equivalent to the time when there was a healthy fishery in Mount Hope Bay, " said Massachusetts Environmental Affairs Secretary Trudy Coxe. "The next step is writing a new permit which brings advanced technology and the best possible science to work at Brayton Point to reduce environmental impacts of the plant even further. Of course Brayton Point is not the only influence on the bay and other impacts there need to be reduced as well."

"This agreement is possible because all of us decided to work together to get immediate environmental benefits for Mount Hope Bay, while we work out the new permit for Brayton Point Station," said Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner David B. Struhs. "Rather than waste time debating who was to blame, we focused on fixing the problem."

"I'm pleased that this problem, identified in a DEM study, is on its way to being addressed through substantive operational changes at the power plant," DEM Director Timothy R.E. Keeney said. "This agreement will reduce flow withdrawals and summer thermal outputs by 20 to 30 percent, which should begin to improve fishery conditions in the bay."

"We are committed to working with our regulators on finding a solution that protects Mount Hope Bay and enables full operation of Brayton Point Station. We will be looking for the scientific research and analysis and potentially advanced technologies to help us accomplish this goal," said NEPCO President Jeffrey D. Tranen.

The pact announced today calls for the power station to adhere to separate limitations during summer and non-summer months in recognition of the various spawning and migration seasons of the bay's finfish, as well as the differing effects that water temperatures can have on water quality at different times of year.

From June through September, the plant's maximum heat rejection for each month will be capped at 3.4 trillion British Thermal Units (Btu), while the total for the four-month period will be capped at 13 trillion Btu. For the other eight months of the year, the maximum monthly heat rejection will be capped at 4.1 trillion Btu, with the total for the period not to exceed 29 trillion Btu.

In addition, during the months of October through May, the station's cooling water discharge flow will be capped at a rate of 925 million gallons per day, while seasonal flow rates will be limited to an average of 1.08 billion gallons per day during the months of June through September. In order to satisfy the tighter flow limit in the non-summer months, the station will shut down pumps in one of its cooling water intake structures, thus "piggybacking" the cooling requirement for this unit with cooling water from the other cooling water intake structures.

Also, the power station agreed to continuously operate the "travelling screens" at the plant to help minimize the numbers of fish destroyed in the plant's intake screening systems.

Finally, the agreement sets out a list of studies that New England Power will conduct and submit for government agency review that may help determine the appropriate conditions for the new permit due to be issued in 1998. These studies include investigations into water temperature and dissolved oxygen conditions in the bay, fish population monitoring and an evaluation of power plant cooling technologies.