


October 12, 2011

BY EMAIL
   
   Lisa A. Biddle
   United States Environmental Protection Agency
   Office of Water (4100T)
   1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
   Washington, D.C. 20460
   
      Re: 	Proposed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Rule for Cooling Water Intake Structures at Existing Facilities and Phase I Facilities, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0667

Ms. Biddle:

Enclosed please find the October 2004 - October 2005 actual impingement data (raw) for species, with daily creel limits for recreational fishermen, collected at Alabama Power Company's ("Alabama Power") Electric Generating Plants.  You requested the data in a September 26, 2011 email to me and my colleagues in response to Alabama Power's August 18, 2011 comment letter to the above-referenced proposed rule.  The data was collected every two weeks during 25 separate 24 hour (daily) events at each facility's intake structure for a period of one year. 
Species
                                 Barry Intake
                               Greene Co. Intake
                                 Gorgas Intake
                                    Gadsden
                                    Gaston

                                   Unit 1-3
                                   Unit 4-5
                                   Unit 1-2
                                   Unit 6-7
                                   Unit 8-10
                                   Unit 1-2
                                   Unit 1-5
Paddlefish
                                       7
                                      54
                                       0
                                       0
                                       1
                                       0
                                       0
Alligator Gar
                                       1
                                       1
                                       0
                                       0
                                       0
                                       0
                                       0
White, Yellow, or Striped Basses
                                      78
                                      36
                                       3
                                       6
                                      92
                                       1
                                      14
Black Basses
                                      15
                                      58
                                       3
                                       1
                                      14
                                       0
                                       1
Bream
                                      161
                                      147
                                      64
                                      26
                                      62
                                      13
                                      63
Crappie
                                      653
                                     1702
                                       6
                                       2
                                      12
                                       0
                                       1

In its August 18 letter, Alabama Power requested that the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") establish a de minimis exception to its annual (12 percent) and monthly (31 percent) impingement mortality ("IM") numeric standards to prevent facilities that have already achieved reduced IM levels from being penalized over small quantities of IM instances.  Alabama Power referenced state creel limits to illustrate that, in some instances, regulated facilities are impinging certain species of fish at a rate less than one recreational fisherman is allowed to take from Alabama waters for a given year.  Alabama Power made the comparison with annual estimates derived from the raw data above.  Alabama Power maintains that this illustration is compelling and supports the establishment of a de minimis exception to the percentage IM standards.  However, Alabama Power is not advocating that any such de minimis exception for recreational fish or other impingible organisms be based on any state's creel limits.  Should EPA determine that a de minimis exception should be established -- which it should -- Alabama Power would like the chance to provide additional comments or help the agency develop that standard.
Thank you for requesting this additional information and for your consideration of Alabama Power's August 18, 2011 comments on the above-referenced proposed rule.  Should you have any questions regarding the enclosed data or another matter, please feel free to contact Charles Stover (cmstover@southernco.com), Tim George (tgeorge@southernco.com), or me.
Sincerely,




Mike Godfrey, Manager
Environmental Compliance
	(jgodfrey@southernco.com)


