Water and Power in the Northeast

Water has become an increasingly critical factor in the siting and development of power generating facilities in the Northeastern United States. A combination of natural events, governmental actions, and public resistance to environmental change has placed serious constraints on the construction of new power plants of all types. This is particularly acute in the Northeast where the highly concentrated population places severe demands on available land and water resources. Recent experience in the Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehanna River Basins provides case histories of this trend. Among possible solutions are offshore plants, inland plants with storage reservoirs, upgrading of conventional hydroelectric capacity, development of pumped storage hydroelectric generation, and construction of energy complexes. Energy complexes that combine in a single site pumped storage hydro, cooling ponds for on-site thermal plants, water supply for downstream thermal plants, and other functions represent an attractive solution.