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DRBC Approves Docket for Exelon's Limerick Generating Station

For Immediate Release

May 10, 2013

(WEST TRENTON, N.J.) -- The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) at its May 8, 2013 public business meeting unanimously approved a docket for water withdrawals and discharges from the Exelon Generation Company, LLC Limerick Generating Station (LGS), located in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, Pa.

The DRBC docket consolidates within a single approval all conditions relating to the surface water withdrawals required to meet consumptive (evaporative) and non-consumptive needs at LGS and the facility's surface water discharge to the Schuylkill River. The docket provides for an increase in the maximum daily withdrawal from the Schuylkill River and establishes a maximum monthly withdrawal limit, while maintaining the monthly water withdrawals from the previous docket. The water withdrawals will continue to be made primarily from the Schuylkill River. The docket also continues to contain restrictions on the consumptive cooling water withdrawals from the Schuylkill River and Perkiomen Creek under certain flow conditions. During those conditions, consumptive cooling water needs will continue to be met by augmenting flows of the Schuylkill River from Wadesville Mine Pool and the Tamaqua Reservoirs and/or diversions to the Perkiomen Creek from the Delaware River.

The docket approves the use of water from the Wadesville Mine Pool operations to augment natural flows in the Schuylkill River based upon experience gained from multi-year demonstration projects. Originally intended to run four years, the demonstration projects were extended annually between 2008 and 2013 to provide more time for data collection and for DRBC to consolidate its 12 docket and multiple resolutions into this single docket. Each annual extension resolution was the subject of a public hearing. In addition, DRBC conducted two public meetings each year throughout the multi-year demonstration period to review and discuss the most recent data and the results of the project. The DRBC docket has a term of five years.  

The docket also includes the continuation of the Restoration and Monitoring Fund, which was first approved by the commission in October 2004, as well as river and stream monitoring requirements. In addition, the docket includes an operation and monitoring plan. The approved docket (pdf 950 KB), a fact sheet (pdf 627 KB), responses to public comments (pdf 450 KB), and extensive archived information on the demonstration projects are available on www.drbc.net.

Due to the high level of interest in the project, the draft version of this docket was published on June 28, 2012, and the 120-day public comment period closed on October 27, 2012. DRBC and the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection held a joint information session and public hearing on August 28, 2012 in Pottstown, Pa. 

The DRBC was formed by compact in 1961 through legislation signed into law by President John F. Kennedy and the governors of the four basin states with land draining to the Delaware River (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania). The passage of this compact marked the first time in our nation's history that the federal government and a group of states joined together as equal partners in a river basin planning, development, and regulatory agency.

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Contact: Kate Schmidt, DRBC, 609-883-9500 ext. 205, kate.schmidt@drbc.state.nj.us

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