TODD B. BATES
GANNETT NEW JERSEY
Friday, December 21, 2007

More than 3,300 fish have died following the unplanned shutdown of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey and the count was expected to rise, a state spokeswoman said Thursday.

"We anticipate there will be a collection boat on the water" again today, said Darlene Yuhas of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Meanwhile, the plant was "in the process of restarting," Oyster Creek spokeswoman Leslie Cifelli said late Thursday afternoon.

Operators manually shut down Oyster Creek's reactor at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday after one of the three pumps that feed water into the reactor tripped, according to a report on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Web site and a Wednesday NRC e-mail.

Before the shutdown, called a scram, the plant was operating at reduced power because another feedwater pump had been removed from service for planned maintenance, says the report from AmerGen Energy Co., which runs the plant.

The NRC's "initial reviews indicate AmerGen responded appropriately," according to an e-mail from NRC spokesman Neil A. Sheehan on Thursday. "Plant operators followed procedures and the shutdown was safely executed."

The plant withdraws about 1.3 billion gallons of water a day from its canal, which is linked to Barnegat Bay, for cooling.

Fish are attracted to the warm water discharged by the plant into the canal, especially in colder weather.

Oyster Creek's water intake system kills hundreds of millions of shrimp, small fish and other aquatic species each year, according to 1989 estimates cited by the DEP.

Nearly all the dead fish were bluefish, and earlier reports included a dogfish and a kingfish, according to Cifelli. They died from exposure to cold water.

Bluefish require water temperatures above 48 degrees, Yuhas said. The temperature in the canal dropped about 20 degrees after the plant shut down and was approximately 39 degrees earlier Thursday, according to Cifelli.

She believed that four collection boats owned by a plant contractor were on the water Thursday.

Just think how many bluefish eggs will not be hatched spawning season?? I hope they get fined up the A$$ for this happening.
Guppie