On March 8th JRWA filed a legal challenge against Entergy's operations at Pilgrim Nuclear Plant. One of the significant issues at hand is the number of fish that get sucked into the plant's cooling system. Those of us who follow the annual Jones River herring run are well aware of how imperiled river herring are in the Jones and beyond. River herring are the third most impinged (sucked into the grates) species at Pilgrim. In fact, based on Pilgrim's monitoring data, river herring have been impinged at Pilgrim every year from 1980 to 2010. The total number of river herring impinged in this time period was estimated at 92,001 (68,489 alewife + 23,512 blueback herring). Peak impingement years included:
- 1995 when alewife alone was the greatest single species impinged at the plant and total river herring impinged was 41,128 individuals (39,884 alewife + 1,244 blueback herring)
- 2010 when alewives were the second most impinged species (after Atlantic silversides) at an extrapolated total of 12,680 fish plus an additional 271 blueback herring. This is more than three times greater than the total number of fish estimated for the entire 2010 Jones River river herring population.
You can read more about the legal filing, including testimony from JRWA's Exectutive Director and Ecology Program Director, by clicking here: Cape Cod Bay Watch
No comments:
Post a Comment