Many coal-fired power plants along the Ohio River have cooling towers to lower the temperature of water before it is returned to the river. Some don't. One of those is the Stuart generation station in Ohio at f about Mile 404. The question is whether the water that's being discharged into the river is too hot for wildlife and for human health, too. A public hearing was conducted on that last week, with comments from both points of view.
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The Cave-In-Rock ferry is back in business now that the river is going down and the ramps have been cleaned. If I can ever scrape together the money and the time, I'm going back down that way, and crossing the river on the ferry will be high on my to-do list.
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The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources wants to change its bass fishing regulations for the Ohio River to make them consistent with Ohio's, thus reducing confusion for people who fish in the river. The DNR is proposing a 12-inch minimum.
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Finally, Adam and I went to Virginia Point Park at Kenova, W.Va., Friday evening to see what we could see. There were no boats running in the area save for a line haul boat far, far down the river heading away from us. But we did see two backhoes running, clearing mud off the parking lot at the boat ramp there. I went to another boat ramp Saturday evening, but it was still covered in mud.
Some people don't mind driving in that mud. I made that mistake once. First, when you have a layer of mud on asphalt, it's as slick as ice. Second, the mud gets up in your wheelwells, and it's a pain to clean out.
So I'l not play in the mud for now.
2 comments:
If a power plant has a cooling tower they are running a closed-loop system. The tower cools the water and then it is re-used. Most old plants use a once-through system; pull water from the river, run it through the condenser and then dump it back into the river, hotter than it was.
Forgot to mention that there are a few plants inland that have their own captive lake for use as a cooling basin. I know of some in Illinois, Indiana & Kansas but none in Ohio. The fishing is huge in the wintertime!
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