The benthos of a coastal power station thermal discharge canal

Abstract

Kingsnorth Power Station, on the River Medway Estuary, Kent, discharges cooling water into a canalcomprising a 4 km creek system. A comprehensive investigation of the sublittoral benthic fauna of the discharge system was undertaken from January 1979 to September 1981. The benthic macrofauna was sampled monthly at five stations along the system and a sixth in the River Medway adjacent to the creek mouth (DC4); salinity, sea-bed temperature, sediment particle size, sediment redox potential, residual chlorine and meiofaunal numbers were measured. The macrofauna is significantly suppressed at sites along the discharge canal, representing a community with half the number of species as at station DC4, comprising dense populations of a few dominant opportunistic species tolerant of thermal stress (e.g.Tubificoides, Cauleriella), and not those characteristic of organic pollution stress communities. The latter are regular summer immigrants in the creek, but persist only in low numbers if at all in the winter (e.g.Polydora ciliata). This suppression is the result of a 10°C temperature front between the heated discharge water and ambient estuarine water, passing over the sea bed with the ebbing and flooding tide four times each day. The residual gradient of mean temperature along the discharge canal causes some changes in the dominance of those species not eliminated by the temperature front. These temperature effects are expected to be localized, mainly in the area of sea-bed impingement of the discharge water; they are predicted to occur at any thermal discharge in tidal waters where the heated effluent contacts the sea bed.