SPECIAL REPORT * As their ocean-fed cooling systems kill off seals, sea lions and other creatures, coastal power plants are accused of operating . . .

Dozens of sea lions, seals and even threatened turtles sucked into power plants along Southern California’s coast are dying every year--and critics accuse the federal agency in charge of protecting these creatures of doing little more than recording the growing death toll.

Regional regulators have known for decades about marine creatures being drawn into power plants, yet little has been done to enforce federal laws that limit the death or even disturbance of sea animals, records and interviews show.

But officials from the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, say that the effects on burgeoning seal and sea lion populations are negligible and that their time and limited resources are better spent fighting larger threats to more sensitive species.

“Nowadays, everybody wants to protect every single animal whether it needs protection or not,” said Joe Cordaro, a biologist at the service’s southwestern regional office in Long Beach. “Common sensibility out there is lacking. Enough animals still need protection. We need to direct resources and money to them.”

Environmentalists challenge the agency’s philosophy, saying that its job isn’t to interpret federal laws.

“They ought to just enforce the law rather than playing God,” said Mark Massara, a Sierra Club attorney.

Although the problem is seen across the nation, it is particularly acute in Southern California, where several power plants depend on ocean water to cool the super-hot steam that powers energy-generating turbines. That requires intake pipes that extend far into the ocean. In the process of drawing in water, the pipes suck fish, crustaceans, marine mammals, turtles and other sea creatures into the cooling system.

Grates over the intakes are not practical because they would be constantly clogged with seaweed, barnacles and other marine life.

The largest facility, the San Onofre nuclear plant, has the highest death toll of all the state’s power plants--187 harbor seals and California sea lions have been found dead there since 1983, according to the Fisheries Service. Both species are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

The plant, just south of San Clemente, draws in 1.6 million gallons of seawater per minute for cooling and recycles it back to the ocean. About 3,200 feet offshore, water is pulled into the cooling system through openings in a large concrete inlet structure.

The 45-foot-diameter circular top of the inlet, intended to stop the water intake from creating a whirlpool, provides a hard surface that acts as an artificial reef, attracting invertebrates and a multitude of fish, said Kevin Herbinson, a marine scientist with Southern California Edison, the plant’s majority owner and operator.

Seals and sea lions, foraging for food, wander into the inlet and then into the 18-foot-diameter intake pipe. The pull increases, hampering their ability to swim out. About seven minutes later, the creatures find themselves in a dark, cavernous reservoir in the plant, Herbinson said.

The majority of fish and about half of marine mammals survive, in part because of innovative technology such as a floating marine mammal cage and a “fish elevator” that safely returns them to the ocean. But uncontrollable factors, from a creature’s strength to the length of time it has been holding its breath, determine the fates of the harbor seals and California sea lions. Animals that already are dead also get pulled into the pipes, Herbinson added.

San Onofre has the largest number of deaths because of its size and the amount of water it requires. It generates electricity for 2.5 million households from Santa Barbara to San Diego--about 20% of the region’s power. Ten harbor seals and California sea lions were found dead in its intake system last year through Nov. 30. In 1998, El Nino conditions spiked the death count to 35 marine mammals.

Smaller coastal plants throughout the Southland face the same problem on a smaller scale. For example, since 1983:

* At least 29 dead marine mammals have been found at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Scattergood steam plant in Playa del Rey.

* Twenty were found at the Ormond Beach generating system in Oxnard.

* Two were found at the Huntington Beach gas-powered plant.

Loggerhead and green sea turtles, which are listed as threatened species, also have found their way into cooling systems in Southern California. Fourteen turtles were drawn into intake pipes from 1983 to 1991, three of them dead, according to Fisheries Service statistics. The dead turtles were decomposed, Cordaro noted, indicating that they were probably already dead when pulled into the pipes.

Since 1972, federal law has required operations that kill or even disturb endangered animals to obtain a permit. A similar requirement was extended to include marine mammals in the late 1980s.

But the Long Beach regional office of the Fisheries Service had known of seal and sea lion entrapments for years before permits were required for operations that affect marine mammals. To take steps to rescue animals, the regional office made California power plants part of a statewide marine mammal stranding network in 1983.

Cordaro said that after the permits were required his agency saw no reason to veer from its established stranding network practice because power plants were reporting dead animals to the agency anyway.

Although that move helped live animals caught in plant operations, it did not resolve the issue of the dead animals. Those deaths were, and remain, unauthorized, said Ken Hollingshead, a fishery biologist with the national service.

“The regional determination at the time, though not the best solution in hindsight, was to get in there, rescue animals and get them back into wild,” he said. “There was less concern given to animals that were already dead.”

No permits were ever required for the endangered turtles because the utilities were already reporting the number of entrapments, officials added.

But environmentalists counter that the law is clear.

“Under the Endangered Species Act, if you’re a business like a nuclear power plant and your activities result in a take of an endangered species, you have to receive an incidental take permit,” said Andrew Wetzler, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Rodney McInnis, acting regional administrator for the Fisheries Service regional office, acknowledged, “There’s no legal basis for allowing the incidental take.”

However, biologists said the number of sea lion and harbor seal deaths has no significant effect on populations, which have increased dramatically since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

2 Views on Protecting Plentiful Animals

Off the state’s coast, the estimated California sea lion population is 167,000 to 188,000 and the estimated harbor seal population is more than 33,000. However, the act recommended special protections for the animals until they reach maximum sustainable populations.

“If a population is tenuous, to say the least, we . . . try to reverse that,” Cordaro said. But “people have gotten so attached to marine mammals that they want to save every one.”

“My personal opinion is that the Marine Mammal Protection Act has been very successful, but it may be time to stop protecting animals that are so numerous and so common,” he said.

California Coastal Commission Chairwoman Sara Wan disagrees, saying that the protections remain necessary to avoid backpedaling.

“They have recovered to some degree, but they haven’t recovered to pre-human levels,” she said. “What kind of way is this to behave--as soon as the poor creatures’ populations recover, we start killing them again?”

Wan said she is frankly appalled that the Coastal Commission was not told about marine mammal and endangered turtle entrapment when it was studying environmental damage at San Onofre. The panel learned in 1989 that the plant was sucking in and killing tons of fish and billions of larvae and eggs every year. Churned sand and mud near outtake pipes diminished water quality and killed nearby kelp beds and other marine life.

The commission ordered protective steps taken in 1991, but disputes delayed the creation of a concrete plan for years. In 1997, all sides settled on a four-component, $118-million mitigation program.

But Penny Dalton, assistant administrator of the Fisheries Service, said her agency is taking more steps to meet federal standards. In May, it authorized a small-take permit for Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in New Hampshire that allows 24 seal deaths per year--the first permit it has ever given to a power plant.

McInnis said the regional office will likely seek similar permits for California plants next year.

But critics say that the agency’s problems have deeper roots: its dual role of protecting marine resources and fishing interests.

“Left alone without criticism, it is unlikely that a bureaucracy like [the Fisheries Service] will spontaneously right itself and start obeying the law,” said Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Saving Sea Life

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Orange County uses seawater as a coolant. The plant includes elaborate mechanisms to keep fish and other marine life from being caught in its mechanism, but dozens of seals and other marine mammals are killed there every year.

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Source: San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times

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Animal Deaths

San Onofre accounts for a large portion of the deaths of seals and other marine mammals in Southern California power plants.

Power Plants

Seals and other marine mammals have been caught in power plants along California’s coast for decades.

Ormond Beach Generating System

Scattergood Steam Plant

Huntington Beach Generation Station

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station