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NEWS

New Jersey sets Salem nuclear plant permit date

Jeff Montgomery
The News Journal

New Jersey environmental regulators have agreed to issue a draft permit by June 30 for PSEG’s massive Salem nuclear plant cooling water intake and discharge pipes, potentially settling a lawsuit filed last year that contested years of inaction on the issue.

The deal, announced late Monday, sets the stage for what is certain to be a regional debate on the more-than-3-billion-gallon-per-day-maximum withdrawals now authorized to keep the two big Salem reactors cooled.

Opponents have long argued that PSEG is using the Delaware River as a big radiator with its present design, needlessly killing hundreds of billions of fish and other aquatic organisms every year by drawing in and using cooling water flows just once before discharge.

Operations at the nearby Hope Creek reactor recycle cooling water through the use of a cooling tower, reducing pumping from the river for that plant by 90 percent. But PSEG has said that similar plumbing for Salem could cost as much as $1 billion.

The Delaware Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club New Jersey and Clean Water Action all asked the state’s Superior Court to compel action on PSEG’s request to renew its five-year, federally required water pollution control permit, saying the company’s regular permit expired in 2006.

“NJDEP has taken a step in the right direction with its agreement to issue a draft permit by June 30, 2015, but their job remains unfinished until it ends Salem’s indiscriminate and unchecked fish slaughter,” said Maya van Rossum, who directs the Riverkeeper conservation group.

Larry Ragonese, press office director for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, said that state officials expect no problem meeting the deadline. The settlement calls for the lawsuit to be dropped afterward.

New Jersey was awaiting Environmental Protection Agency release of final federal regulations for cooling water intakes, Ragonese said. He added that state regulators believe the present cooling water system was “sufficient for Clean Water Act compliance, in our best professional judgment,” while the EPA worked through rulemaking.

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 463-3344 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.