DNREC determines Indian River Power permit to require reduction

The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has announced its intent to issue a water-discharge permit to Indian River Power LLC’s Millsboro plant which will require a 95 percent reduction in cooling-water use when the plant goes from three generating units to operating a single unit in 2013 - as called for in a consent agreement the company signed earlier with the department.

Indian River Power LLC’s application is for re-issuance of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to discharge once-through cooling water, once-through service water, screen backwash and stormwater to Island Creek and Indian River from a generating station located at 29416 Power Plant Road in Dagsboro.

When the consent agreement was signed, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Secretary Collin O’Mara hailed it as “virtually eliminating the use of water and impacts on our fisheries from the Indian River power plant.”

Reduction of cooling-water use as DNREC would require in issuing the permit will eliminate more than 60 billion gallons of cooling water drawn annually from Indian River - which in turn will dramatically reduce fisheries impacts on blue crabs, bay anchovy, Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic croaker, winter flounder and weakfish resulting from water withdrawal from the river and discharge of the heated water back into the Inland Bays.

Indian River Power LLC will make significant reductions in the amount of water needed at the plant by eliminating units that do not have a closed-cycle cooling water system. Unit 4 - the newest and scheduled to be the plant’s last operating generator - is already equipped with closed-cycle cooling.

Indian River LLC submitted an updated application in 2004 for renewal of its NPDES permit. Working with DNREC, the company later agreed to retire Units 1, 2 and 3 at the plant.

The consent agreement with DNREC and the NPDES permit require the following schedule:

• Unit 2 was retired effective May 1, 2010, once-through cooling water (OTCW) intakes and discharges have already been eliminated

• Unit 1 retirement is scheduled for May 1, 2011 with OTCW to be eliminated 60 days later, by July 1, 2011 and

• Unit 3 retirement is scheduled for Dec. 31, 2013 with OTCW to be eliminated by March 1, 2014.

A factsheet for the NPDES permit can be found at: http://www.wr.dnrec.delaware.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/IRGS%20FactSheet_20100908.pdf.