Government probes claim nuclear plant overheating Ebro river

Water authorities are investigating whether the nuclear plant at Garoña, Burgos, is heating up the Ebro River above permitted levels, as Greenpeace has denounced.

The environmental group hired a specialized company months ago to take water measurements near the plant, and the results show peaks of up to 30ºC, when regulations specify that the river water should not heat up more than three degrees above its normal temperature.

Plant managers said everything is in order and that an independent company has been conducting periodic checks without finding anything wrong in one of Spain's main waterways.

It was in fact the Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro, the agency that oversees all affairs relating to this northwestern river basin, that first alerted about a possible problem with the plant's cooling system in July 2009.

Greenpeace hired a consultancy firm called Anbiotek to take water measurements at the Sobrón reservoir, where the plant takes its cooling water from and returns it to. The last sampling, on August 29, shows a reference temperature of 18.1ºC that rose steadily up to 30.9ºC.