The Sierra Club and the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association have filed a suit in New York State Supreme Court in Queens County against the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the owners of the Ravenswood Generating Station.
The suit challenges the DEC’s failure to conduct an environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) in issuing a water withdrawal permit to the generating station.
Ravenswood has applied for a permit to withdraw 1.5 billion gallons of water per day from the East River in New York Harbor. The Ravenswood application is the first to be considered by the DEC under the state’s new water withdrawal permitting law and regulations.
“The Ravenswood plant has killed billions of fish through its antiquated cooling intake pipes over the decades and presents a myriad of other impacts on the estuary and on other water users,” said Roger Downs, the Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter conservation manager.
“To pass on this huge water withdrawal permit with no scrutiny of its environmental impacts is irresponsible and contrary to the requirements of SEQRA. It sets an unfortunate precedent for the handling of subsequent permit applications.
“DEC needs to conduct an environmental review for each water withdrawal permit application in order to fulfill the objectives of the new 2011 permitting law, which are to promote water conservation, ecological health and equity among all users.”
Gil Hawkins, president of the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association, said, “Our association has worked for many years to protect the Hudson River watershed, of which the East River is an integral part, from pollution and fish kills. New York’s new water withdrawal permitting requirements must be implemented responsibly or great harm may be done to the entire Hudson River system.
“Under the new regulations, 16 large power plants located across New York are scheduled to apply for water withdrawal permits this year, including the Ravenswood, Astoria, East River and Arthur Kill generating stations in New York Harbor, and the Indian Point, Danskammer, Bowline and Roseton generating stations on the Hudson River. The total maximum reported water usage of these 16 facilities is 10 billion gallons per day. The impacts of these withdrawals must be considered before permits are granted.”
The power industry uses more water than any other sector in the United States, withdrawing more than 200 billion gallons of water each day. Nearly all this water is used for “once-through cooling,” an antiquated technology where power plants suck enormous volumes of water to cool down their systems and then discharge it at an elevated temperature.
The full spectrum of aquatic species is impacted by once-through cooling, as are the other wildlife that rely on the complex food web—from phytoplankton to fish, birds, and marine mammals, including species that are threatened or endangered.
A single power plant can obliterate billions of fish eggs and larvae and millions of adult fish in a single year, and the heated water it discharges alters surrounding ecosystems, compounding the damage. The death toll of wildlife from power plant intakes is staggeringly high. Some areas face devastating economic impacts as fisheries are threatened and recreational uses are diminished.
Almost 40 years after Congress identified cooling water intake as a threat to our waterways and the life sustained by them, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to force the owners of power plants—the nation’s largest water users—to reduce their destructive impact.
In addition to violations of SEQRA, the suit asserts that the DEC has failed to comply with the requirements of the state’s Water Resources Protection Act, the public trust doctrine, the federal Coastal Zone Management Act, the NYS Waterfront Revitalization of Coastal Areas and Inland Waterways Act, the New York State Coastal Management Plan and the New York City Waterfront Revitalization Program.