Other impacts

Cooling towers can be an environmentally-acceptable alternative to once-through cooling. Basically, a cooling tower exchanges consumptive water use and possible terrestrial effects for effects in the aquatic environment. There also is a loss in energy production. Because the balance of these effects is site-specific, each plant location should be examined to determine the appropriate cooling system. Studies at Chalk Point indicate that salt deposition from the natural draft cooling tower would not exceed 8 kg/ha/month (7 lb/acre/month) at the maximum point. Experiments to determine the sensitivity of corn, soybeans, or tobacco indicated that no significant effects occurred at deposition rates below 20 kg/ha/month (18 lb/acre/month). The routing of transmission lines deals with effects that may have aesthetic, ecological, health and physical implications. The aesthetic effects generally include trade-offs between visibility and environmental protection. Ecological effects can be both positive and negative and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The electrical effects are now well understood and are potentially significant only for locations within, or extremely close to the right of way. The health effects remain an area of controversy, mainly due to differing medical results from U.S. and Soviet studies