LCVSD Local Environmental Issues of Concern |
EnergyPower generation degrades California's air quality, can impact critical habitat if poorly sited, and power plants are often located in disadvantaged communities, raising environmental justice concerns.
Every year electric generating and industrial plants withdraw more than 100 trillion gallons from U.S. waters for cooling which represents 38% of all water usage in the country. The overwhelming majority of organisms in this massive volume are killed by being entrained into the facility or impinged on intake screens. This mortality has stressed and depleted aquatic, coastal and marine ecosystems for decades, and has contributed to the collapse of some fisheries.
A single large power plant can utilize hundreds of millions or billions of gallons of cooling water per day before discharging the heated effluent directly into a lake, river or ocean, devastating these ecosystems. California is home to more than a dozen antiquated power plants using environmentally devastating wet cooling technologies.
California needs a comprehensive renewable energy plan that will be more protective of the environment, public health and long-term economic stability.
Possible Solutions
- Support statewide environmental groups that have proposed legislation to phase out the use of archaic water (or 'wet') cooled plants in favor of dry-cooled plants. Plants that use dry cooling have no visible plume and a have much smaller water requirements. There is no water evaporation, no thermal or chemical discharges to local waters, and no particulate air emissions. Dry cooling reduces water impacts by orders of magnitude beyond even the most efficient closed-cycle wet cooling system.
- Work with local elected officials to demand that San Diego's wet-cooled plants, including the South Bay Power Plant, are upgraded to dry-cooled technologies that minimize impacts to local communities and ecosystems.
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Resources, Organizations & Links
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The League of Conservation Voters must hold elected officials accountable
for these environmental issues of concern. |
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