The Green Fork is the official blog of the Eat Well Guide. Click here to Find Good Food.

There is little doubt that energy, water and food issues are interconnected. The post below from our friends at the Network for New Energy Choices exemplifies that the environment is a living, breathing entity upon which we have a tremendous and often negative impact. Fortunately, there are actions we can take to work towards a more sustainable future…

Long Island’s coastal waters are no strangers to trouble.  Rapid development, harmful algal blooms, invasive species and increasing water temperatures are just a handful of threats faced by Long Island Sound and the South Shore Estuary.  But one little-known menace is the effect that National Grid’s five Long Island power plants have on the region’s coastal ecosystems.

Steam electric power plants require enormous amounts of water to operate.  The five Long Island power plants can withdraw up to two billion gallons of estuarine water each day for condenser cooling.  Like giant vacuums, these power plants also draw in and kill over 10 billion fish and other aquatic organisms, including eggs and larvae, while trapping larger adult fish and wildlife on intake screens.

While the precise effects on the region’s coastal waters of destroying 10 billion eggs, larvae and juvenile fish is not yet fully understood, this needless fish kill is a direct affront to the ecosystem, to local fishermen who are required to practice conservation, and to the public that has invested millions of dollars in the restoration of Long Island’s coastal environment.

But it doesn’t need to be this way.  There are straightforward, proven technologies that can reduce and even eliminate the damage that National Grid’s power plants inflict on our coastal waters.  For example, closed-cycle cooling is the industry standard for new power plants.  It reduces water intake by over 95 percent, thereby dramatically reducing the amount of marine life destroyed.  Closed-cycle cooling is standard technology for new power plants – indeed, no one would even consider building a plant on Long Island without this technology today.  Closed-cycle cooling technology can be retrofitted onto older plants or, better yet, those plants can be repowered, so that their antiquated boilers and turbines are upgraded, reducing air pollution and minimizing aquatic destruction at the same time.

Recently, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released draft permits that would require two of National Grid’s power plants to reduce the number of fish they kill each year. The public is asked to comment on these draft permits, with a deadline of late September for one plant and early October for the other.  In the upcoming months, the DEC will release permits for the other three plants.

In conjunction with the release of the draft permits, Citizens Campaign for the Environment released a white paper and brochure detailing the effects of National Grid’s Long Island power plants on coastal fish.  Be sure to visit CCE’s website and learn what you can do about Long Island’s power plant fish kill.