Help Promote Fisheries - Stop Needless Industrial Fish Kills In The Delaware

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Amy Roe writes ~ the best story yet on the refinery fish kills was written by a UD student for the student paper. This young man has a bright future in journalism. 

(UD Review) Martin Drake reports ~ More fish killed at Delaware City Refinery than at fisheries

www.udreview.com

(I am meeting Martin Drake this morning for coffee and a chat.)


Plus, the Coalition for Peace and Justice sent this along from the Sierra Club's New Jersey Chapter ~

Three industrial facilities on the Delaware River are consuming huge amounts of water and killing billions of fish each year under expired state permits.  Today we took legal action to force these plants to reduce their impacts on the Delaware River as part of the campaign to Stop the Delaware River Fish Kills.
The Delaware River is an essential habitat for a wide variety of fish, water fowl, and other aquatic animals and plants and we need your help to protect this local wildlife!
The Salem Nuclear Plant, the Mercer Generating Station, and the Delaware City Refinery each use outdated once through cooling systems which trap and kill fish as water is sucked in to cool the plant and then release polluting, super-heated water back into the Delaware.
Each year Salem kills 3 billion fish, larvae, and eggs, Mercer slaughters 70 million and the Delaware City Refinery destroys over 45 million.  Together the 3 facilities extract close to 4 billion gallons of water a day from the Delaware.
The Clean Water Act requires these plants to limit their impacts but each facility is operating under an expired permit for its cooling system that fails to impose essential limits.
Today the Sierra Club joined Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Delaware Audubon, New Jersey Environmental Federation, and other coalition partners to take action to legally force New Jersey and Delaware to issue updated permits for the plants.
Now we need your help: Write to NJ Governor Chris Christie and DE Governor Jack Markell urging them to require new permits for each facility that will better protect our fish and aquatic ecosystems.
Cooling towers are standard equipment on modern power plants.  They reduce the amount of water taken into the plant, and cool the remaining water that comes out of it, which results in reduced fish kills and a healthier and more diverse river ecosystem.  Modernizing cooling systems at older power plants like Salem, Mercer, and Delaware City Refinery will create jobs and net environmental benefits could be as high as $18 billion per year nationwide.
Email Gov. Christie & Gov. Markell today and urge them to STOP the Delaware River Fish Kills by issuing new permits for these facilities that requires an immediate upgrade to closed-cycle cooling systems!
Thanks for all you do,
Kate Millsaps
Conservation Program Coordinator

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