Potential cooling tower drift effects on native vegetation

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1977

OSTI ID:6356974

Curtis, C R; Lauver, T L; Francis, B A; Mulchi, C L; Douglass, L W

Cooling towers are used increasingly as an alternative means of dissipating waste heat from nuclear and fossil-fuel electrical power generating stations. If the water used for cooling was originally drawn from a saline source, such as an estuarine brackish river or the ocean, a certain amount of saline droplets will escape as drift from the cooling tower into the atmosphere. Once the drift is aloft it will be transported downwind and may be eventually deposited onto vegetative surfaces. The environmental effects of saline drift on soils, agricultural crops and native perennial trees are unknown. Data reported here cover a two-year leaf sampling program from 4 tree species located at 13 sites near a natural draft hyperbolic cooling tower at Chalk Point, Maryland. This tower is the largest in the US to use brackish water, and during 1975 it was in partial operation. Pre-operational leaf Cl/sup -/ data from 1974 is compared to the 1975 post-operational data obtained from Virginia pine, black locust, sassafras and dogwood. In addition, the foliar symptom that might develop from acute drift deposition is described for dogwood, ash and tulip poplar.

• OSTI ID: 6356974
• Report Number(s): CONF-770167-
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
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510200 -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AEROSOLS
AIR POLLUTION
COLLOIDS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COOLING TOWERS
DEPOSITION
DISPERSIONS
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
ESTUARIES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MASS TRANSFER
MECHANICAL STRUCTURES
NATURAL DRAFT COOLING TOWERS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
POWER PLANTS
SALTS
SEAWATER
SOLS
SURFACE WATERS
TOWERS
WATER