TVA alters river flow to cool plants

TVA alters river flow to cool plants

The Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA — The Tennessee Valley Authority is having
to alter the flow of the Tennessee
River to keep its Sequoyah and
Watts Bar nuclear plants cool
amid one of the driest periods in
years in East Tennessee.
The federal power agency cut
back peak-power production at its
Watts Bar hydroelectric dam last
week when the temperature
began to rise downstream in
Chickamauga Reservoir, which
provides cooling water for the
nuclear stations.
An internal TVA memo
obtained by the Tennessee Valley
Energy Reform Coalition, a
Knoxville-based watchdog group,
said the warm water reduced the
efficiency of the Sequoyah
Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga.
TVRC leader Stephen Smith
said Sequoyah lost the equivalent
of 15 megawatts of power, enough
to power 9,000 homes, during an
11-hour period on June 15-16.
TVA spokesman John Moulton
refused to confirm that. "We do
not discuss amount of power loss
for competitive reasons," he said
Wednesday.
However, he said a more con-
tinuous flow of water from the
Watts Bar Dam, along with cooler
air temperatures, cooled the
reservoir.
Under a lake management
plan adopted a few years ago,
TVA maintains a minimum flow
of water through its dams to
assure water quality.
While TVA hasn't changed the
amount of water being released, it
has stopped under the present
conditions from holding back
water at certain times for hydro-
electric power generation.
The agency must balance
water flow against demands for
keeping its lakes as high as possi-
ble for summer recreation. TVA
has agreed not to begin a seasonal
drawdown of the lakes until Aug.
1.
But the driest period in over a
decade is challenging that.
Since August, average rainfall
in the Tennessee Riverahed above
Chattanooga has been 10 inches
below normal. As a result, Notte-
ly Lake in North Georgia isn't
expected to reach its normal sum-
mer pool this year, and Cherokee
Lake in East Tennessee might
not reach its summer level until
this week.
"It is very dry and there is very
low runoff," Moulton said. "We
are definitely monitoring the situ-
ation.
"But as we stand right now, we
are continuing to provide mini-
mum flow and we are also keep-
ing the lakes at or above their
minimum summer level, with the
exception of one. If the dry weath-
er continues, we will continue to
look at it."
However, Smith said, "Sum-
mer has only now arrived so I'm
afraid the problem could get even
worse.
"TVA has a difficult balancing
act and so far they seem to be
doing OK," he said. "But there are
a lot of people who reside on the
reservoirs upstream who care
only about keeping their lakes
full or others who want to use the
river primarily for power genera-
tion.
"We need to make sure the
aquatic life is protected in the
summer," he said.