ASHBURY PARK PRESS (Neptune, New Jersey) 30 November 06 Yearly turtle toll at reactor may be limited (Nicholas Clunn)
Lacey: No more than five endangered and threatened sea turtle deaths per year would be allowed at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant if it is given permission to run for an additional 20 years, according to a report released Wednesday.
The overall impact of that number of deaths wouldn't jeopardize the existence of three protected species of turtles that are present off the Jersey Shore five months out of the year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service report.
The fisheries service prepared the report for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which could decide as soon as May whether to renew Oyster Creek's operating license. Without the renewal, Oyster Creek will close in 2009.
While much of the NRC's review so far has focused on safety, the agency must also determine whether the environmental drawbacks of continued operation outweigh the benefits of having a reactor that can power about 600,000 homes.
As part of that work, regulators were required to consult with the fisheries service, which said it would approve the renewal as long as the plant agreed to take certain steps to reduce turtle deaths where river water is sucked into the plant.
Rachelle Benson, spokeswoman for plant operator AmerGen Energy Co., said the company would review those conditions, but emphasized that Oyster Creek already has implemented some measures to save turtles that get into trouble. Some workers, she said, have been trained in how to rescue turtles using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"We take our environmental responsibility very seriously and we do have actions in place that already protect sea turtles," she said.
The report placed a limit on the number of dead turtles that can be found at the plant each year at five, one fewer than allowed now. If that figure is exceeded the plant would face heightened scrutiny. Dead turtles in this case also can include ones that float close to the plant after dying from another cause.
Julia Huff, a Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic lawyer representing a group of renewal opponents, said the fisheries service report was problematic because it did not have enough data to support its conclusion and the limits on turtle fatalities.
"I don't know how they reached their conclusions if they don't know how the sea turtle is doing overall," she said.
While the authors of the 61-page report admitted to lacking some information — they wrote that there is an absence of population figures on protected turtles in Barnegat Bay and off the Jersey Shore — they cited other data to back their conclusions.
The report looked at what would happen to the endangered Kemp's ridley and green turtles and the threatened loggerhead species.
According to the most recent estimate of Kemp's ridleys, there were about 3,000 adults in 1995. Population figures for the other two species were not listed in the report, but the authors stated in all three cases that the number of permitted turtle deaths represented a small percentage of the total number of each species.
It is unclear why the creatures enter the Forked River and encounter the plant's intake pipes, but some scientists believe the presence of prey, including blue crabs and horseshoe crabs, might be a reason, according to the report.
Turtles and other sea life can die in the intake canal when the rush of water heading into the plant pins the animal against a metal screen affixed to the front of the pipe.
Yearly turtle toll at reactor may be limited