Hinkley Point C Fish Protection Plans Attacked By Environmental Organisations
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on New Civil Engineer.
This is the sub-heading.
Revised plans to protect fish from water intake tubes for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant on the Severn Estuary have come under fresh criticism from environmental organisations.
These three paragraphs outline the story.
EDF recenrly proposed plans to create a saltmarsh at the Somerset nuclear plant site as an alternative to an acoustic fish deterrent. This followed the Environment Secretary having ruled in 2021, in line with Environment Agency recommendations, that the plant should install an acoustic fish deterrent.
The plant is scheduled to circulate 120,000l of water per second from the Bristol Channel to the nuclear power station through 8km underground tunnels to provide cooling for the power station’s systems.
A group of environmental non-governmental organisations (eNGOs) issued a statement coordinated by Somerset Wildlife Trust saying Hinkley Point C “will have a significant impact on marine and migratory fish including already vulnerable Atlantic salmon, twaite shad and European eel over its lifetime”.
This Google Map shows Lake Michigan, which was where I came across another tale of fish and nuclear power.
Note the red arrow, which marks the DC Cook Nuclear Power Plant.
This second Google Map shows a close-up of the plant.
The power plant sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, from which it gets its cooling water.
In the early 1980s, after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, I was given a tour of two nuclear power stations of which this plant was one and Shippingport or Beaver Valley was the other. Both were Artemis customers and one of the projects they were using the software on, was to plan and document all the Three Mile Island modifications or TMIs.
But it’s the Cook power plant that I remember.
- I’d turned up at Benton Harbor Airport on a very cold, snowy evening and I remember that the Hertz representation had got all the cars running so customers could drive away in the warm.
- DC Cook was impressive and very well run, and it was a very good customer visit.
- The fishy tale, I heard there was that the warm water from the power station attracted the fish and that some locals in the winter took to fishing through the ice of Lake Michigan. Occasionally, they fell through the ice.
- I was told, that some locals felt that the plant should be shut because of this, but it’s still running forty years after my visit.
- Lunch was interesting, as we went to a Michigan version of the famous Rook restaurant in the Two Ronnies. Except that every dish on the menu had something to do with beans, as that is the area of the US, where navy (baked) beans are grown. They even had a bean savoury for afters!
This article from the Huron Daily Tribune is entitled Fish Force Michigan Nuke Plant Shut Down, where these are the first two paragraphs.
Officials shut down a nuclear power plant on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on Thursday after a large number of fish swam into the plant’s cooling-water system.
The two reactors at Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant were idled as workers removed the fish and monitored the cooling system. It wasn’t clear when the reactor would be restarted, owner and operator American Electric Power Co. Inc. said in a statement.
It does appear that Cook was suffering from fish in the system.
I hope this doesn’t predict more delays for Hinckley Point C.
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