Utility's bottom line: Killing fish a positive
Firm promotes lethal hot-water discharge
By Michael Hawthorne
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 8, 2007
Faced with the prospect of a multimillion-dollar tab to help revive Chicago-area rivers, the owner of four coal-fired power plants is pushing a plan that would keep the urban waterways too hot for fish to survive.
The aging Midwest Generation plants suck up nearly every drop of the Chicago and Lower Des Plaines Rivers to cool their massive equipment, then churn it back out as hot as bathwater, sometimes hotter than 100 degrees. Illinois has banned the process at newer plants because it can kill fish or discourage them from sticking around.
State regulators are proposing new temperature limits that could force the utility to spend up to $800 million on equipment upgrades, which would curb the amount of warm water pumped into the waterways. But the power company's executives contend there are more benefits than drawbacks from keeping the rivers hotter than normal.
They even suggest that killing all of the fish in the rivers might be a good thing.
The debate reflects changing attitudes about waterways that for decades have been seen as little more than industrialized sewage canals linking the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system. Once considered off-limits to humans and wildlife alike, the rivers are the cleanest they've been in years. But federal, state and local officials say improvements in water quality might not be good enough.
more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0705080172may08,1,1064404.story
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