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By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 06:24 p.m. EST, Mar 02, 2009
FirstEnergy Corp.'s Bay Shore Power Plant near Toledo is under fire from environmentalists for killing Lake Erie fish.
In a teleconference today, the Akron-based utility was slammed for annually killing as many as 46 million fish against the plant's water intake screens and an additional 14 million juvenile fish and 2 billion larval fish that are sucked inside the plant and killed by equipment.
Kristy Meyer of the Ohio Environmental Council and Sandy Bihn of the Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association called for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to fine FirstEnergy for the fish kills.
About 24,000 walleye and 12,000 perch are killed every day, said Bihn. ''Yet FirstEnergy pays nothing and does little to reduce the kills. ... It's wrong. ... That plant is a massive fish-killer.''
Such a fine should be paid by company shareholders, not its electric customers, they said.
FirstEnergy complies with all applicable rules and disputes the numbers of fish killed at the Bay Shore plant, said company spokesman Chris Eck.
The plant, in the Toledo suburb of Oregon where the Maumee River empties into Lake Erie, might have killed 50,000 walleye at a time when Lake Erie anglers were permitted to catch 10 million walleye, he said.
The coal-burning plant with four boilers uses about 737 million gallons of Lake Erie water per day.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is looking at what might be done to reduce the fish kills and to eliminate the plant's warm-water discharges to Lake Erie.
Screens and barriers are among the options being looked at to reduce the fish kills. A cooling tower costing as much as $97 million is among the options for cooling the discharges to Lake Erie.
The EPA hired a contractor, Tetra Tech Inc., to analyze fish data provided by FirstEnergy from 2005-2006 and to look at the company's options.
The EPA is looking at what might be done after the company's federal discharge permit expired last January.
The agency is proceeding cautiously because it is expected that new federal rules could be adopted soon, said Ohio EPA spokeswoman Dina Pierce.
The federal rules have been suspended since 2007 because of federal court rulings.
The EPA is holding a public hearing Tuesday in Oregon on the Bay Shore permit renewal.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
FirstEnergy Corp.'s Bay Shore Power Plant near Toledo is under fire from environmentalists for killing Lake Erie fish.
In a teleconference today, the Akron-based utility was slammed for annually killing as many as 46 million fish against the plant's water intake screens and an additional 14 million juvenile fish and 2 billion larval fish that are sucked inside the plant and killed by equipment.
Kristy Meyer of the Ohio Environmental Council and Sandy Bihn of the Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association called for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to fine FirstEnergy for the fish kills.
About 24,000 walleye and 12,000 perch are killed every day, said Bihn. ''Yet FirstEnergy pays nothing and does little to reduce the kills. ... It's wrong. ... That plant is a massive fish-killer.''
Such a fine should be paid by company shareholders, not its electric customers, they said.
FirstEnergy complies with all applicable rules and disputes the numbers of fish killed at the Bay Shore plant, said company spokesman Chris Eck.
The plant, in the Toledo suburb of Oregon where the Maumee River empties into Lake Erie, might have killed 50,000 walleye at a time when Lake Erie anglers were permitted to catch 10 million walleye, he said.
The coal-burning plant with four boilers uses about 737 million gallons of Lake Erie water per day.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is looking at what might be done to reduce the fish kills and to eliminate the plant's warm-water discharges to Lake Erie.
Screens and barriers are among the options being looked at to reduce the fish kills. A cooling tower costing as much as $97 million is among the options for cooling the discharges to Lake Erie.
The EPA hired a contractor, Tetra Tech Inc., to analyze fish data provided by FirstEnergy from 2005-2006 and to look at the company's options.
The EPA is looking at what might be done after the company's federal discharge permit expired last January.
The agency is proceeding cautiously because it is expected that new federal rules could be adopted soon, said Ohio EPA spokeswoman Dina Pierce.
The federal rules have been suspended since 2007 because of federal court rulings.
The EPA is holding a public hearing Tuesday in Oregon on the Bay Shore permit renewal.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
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akron, oh
Posted 08:45 PM, 03/02/2009
Sad....
A little off subject - heard that FE is announcing layoffs tomorrow.
Akron, OH
Posted 10:49 AM, 03/03/2009
I think the layoff is from thier fishing division.
