News-Record.com

As the AP and Bloomberg report, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case that has to do with whether the EPA can or should regulate water withdrawals by power companies. From the AP story:

The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to let the nation's older power plants draw in billions of gallons of water for cooling without installing technology that would best protect fish and aquatic organisms.

Lawyers for the government and electricity producers urged the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that says the Clean Water Act does not allow the government to pit the cost of upgrading an estimated 554 power plants against the benefits of protecting fish and aquatic organisms when limiting water use.

[snip]

Environmentalists want the decision upheld, an outcome that could prompt the EPA to require existing power plants to install the same technology it requires at all new plants. Known as closed-cycle cooling, it recycles water using less from waterways to cool machinery.

You can find a whole passel of legal briefs by clicking here and scrolling down the Entergy case. You can read a transcript of the arguments by clicking here.

Might this be relevant to North Carolina?

A spokeswoman for Duke Power said she didn't know and they'd have to look at the case.

But here's why I think it might be relevant to Duke, Progress and other power generators here:

(Click to enlarge.)

That's a graph from this presentation on water use heard by the General Assembly's Environmental Review Commission last month.

That big orange line? It represents 9 billion (yes, with a B) gallons of water power plants extract from North Carolina waterways every year. That's more than is withdrawn for all other uses in the state, including drinking water and hydro-electric power, combined.

Power companies will tell you that most of that water goes back into lakes and rivers, which is true. But it gets strained, heated up, shoved through industrial machinery and spit back out.

(And right here would be a good place to acknowledge that if you're reading this, you're most likely using a computer sucking up power from a plant like the one I'm describing, so let's not kid ourselves - we all like the lights coming on.)

At any rate, North Carolina has some power plants of a certain age (old) pumping out the juice and I'd be surprised (to the point of falling out of my chair) if they were all outfitted with the latest water conservation devices.

So if the Court goes against power utilities and the Bush Administration here, it could prompt the EPA (soon to be headed by an Obama Administration appointee) to require some expensive retrofits. (Of course the fish and those of us who like to catch and eat them might appreciate the extra steps, as, I’m sure, would the other critters who live in the lake.)

I'll report back here if Duke gets back to me on the applicability to their particular situation.