The Charles River Watershed Association is receiving an Environmental Merit Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 11th for the creative settlement a discharge permit for the Kendall power plant in Cambridge, MA.  Also receiving this “team” award are Conservation Law Foundation, which represented CRWA in the permit challenge, GenOn Kendall, LLC, the plant owner, and MassDEP.  EPA’s award is given for exceptional work and commitment to the environment in 2010.

The revised permit for the power plant will vastly reduce the discharge of heated water into the Charles River Lower Basin, allowing the river ecosystem to return to health.  CLF and CRWA argued that the plant’s massive water intake from the Charles River and its discharges of heated water back into the river were killing fish, as well as their eggs and larvae.   

Kendall will now capture most of the heat generated by the plant and distribute it as steam to heat buildings in the city of Boston through a new pipeline to be built underneath the Longfellow Bridge over the next several years. The combination of a new co-generation turbine and expanded pipeline will allow Kendall to drastically reduce the amount of water it extracts from the Charles River, take more heat out of the plant, and double the amount of steam it can sell.  In a separate agreement negotiated by CLF and CRWA, GenOn will contribute $50,000 per year for five years to CRWA to aid in restoring shad and river herring in the Charles.

“This is an innovative, energy-generating, and river friendly solution,” said Robert L. Zimmerman, Jr., CRWA’s Executive Director,  “We thank CLF’s Peter Shelley and GenOn for thinking outside the box to reach this settlement, which demonstrates what industry and environmentalists can accomplish when they work together."