EPA settlement paves way for cooling towers

BOSTON – A settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Dominion Energy Brayton Point LLC, endorsed by the State of Rhode Island and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, paves the way for the Somerset plant to install new cooling towers to protect sea life in Mount Hope Bay and Narragansett Bay, the federal agency said.
Brayton Point Power Station is the largest fossil-fuel-burning power plant in New England. The settlement resolves a dispute that dates back to 2003, when the EPA issued a final discharge permit requiring the power station to make significant reductions in water intake from, and thermal discharge to, Mount Hope Bay.
The new agreement – ending all EPA and Dominion litigation over the discharge permit (called a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System or NPDES permit) – requires the energy company to fully implement the heat limits and flow requirements specified in the Brayton Point permit.
Dominion has agreed to retrofit the power plant’s existing “open-cycle” cooling system, adding a “closed-cycle” cooling system, the EPA said. (The current system “damages or kills many aquatic organisms by ‘entrainment’ and/or ‘impingement,’ in addition to elevating water temperature in the Bay,” the agency said.)