Beefing up power plant threatens California refuge wildlife

The Moss Landing Natural Gas plant is undergoing a massive overhaul

From Rusty Dornin
CNN

MOSS LANDING, California (CNN) -- Water from the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, 15 miles north of Monterey, California, has flowed through the Moss Landing Natural Gas Plant for 50 years.

The aging giant of a power plant is getting an overhaul, however, that will make it the state's largest power generator, supplying power to 2.3 million homes.

Moss Landing's demand for water to cool its massive turbines will, of course, rise dramatically.

"Every day Duke (Energy) will take 333 football-sized fields of water that are 10 feet deep," says Carolyn Neilsen, a former docent at Elkhorn Slough who petitioned the state to review Moss Landing's permit. "It's incredible."

Water sucked into the plant is returned to the ocean 30 degrees warmer -- and that worries environmentalists who fear that increasing the intake into the plant will sterilize any creature that lives in the area.

"Everything that lives in that volume of water," says the Sierra Club's Patricia Matejcek. "Young fish, clams, diatoms -- will be killed."

Environmentalists wanted Duke Energy to build cooling towers at Moss Landing, to recycle and cool the water before it's returned to the wetlands -- as plants up the coast on the San Francisco Bay do.

But Duke said no -- with a cost of $30 million to build and another $20 million to operate, the company said it simply couldn't afford it.

Local groups seal deal with power company

Environmentalists fear the overhaul will disrupt the ecological balance at Moss Landing

Environmentalists say the Mighty Moss, as it's known along California's coast, got a break on the approval process as regulators faced the state's mounting energy crisis. The process took 14 months, fast for a plant that size. Getting a permit for smaller plants in the state takes just three weeks.

Environmentalists fear a process going that quickly is bound to let problems slip through the cracks. But in this case, four local environmental groups -- not the Sierra Club and other national groups -- signed off on the Moss Landing renovation plan.

"At the 11th hour we were able to work out a deal with Duke)," says Kaitilan Gaffney of the Center for Marine Conservation.

Duke Energy will spend more than $8 million expanding the wetlands and donating to local environmental groups, as well as set up an independent monitor to assess any damage to the environment.

"This will more than compensate any potential impact a new power plant will have on the habitat," said Duke's Tom Williams. "The state is in an energy crisis. The new plant is cleaner and more efficient than virtually any plant in the country today."

But the deal has made other environmentalists more nervous, fearing that in a power-hungry state, taking what they can get may be the only option.