snd above santas regarded as acepabe by policymaker, There are ts ly 1 be costs associated with any contamination of drinking water, whether officially recognised limits are exceeded or not. ‘Analysis of impacts on water quality requires a great deal of site-specific dat, including: existing water quality; anticipated improvements in water quality over the life-span ofthe plant; flow rates in the receiving water body; possible uses of affected water over the life-span ofthe power plant, ‘emission rates from the cooling system; ‘emission rates from the FGD plant; mission rates from other activites onthe site Some data on emissions from West Burton'B' were given in Section 2.3.4. The River Trent at ‘this point is not currently used for the public water supply, and there are no plans to do so in ‘the future. Although it is a class 2 river, nominally suitable for drinking water after advanced ‘treatment, use for this purpose seems unlikely because of high levels of nitrate and suspended solids. 133 Impacts on the physical environment 133.1 Use of transport systems ‘The US team identified road damage as one ofthe most significant exemalies associated With the operation of their reference coal and oll plants (ORNLARFF, 1992). They used the following equation Small eal, 1988) to determine the number of axle passages (N) foreach type of ade ) that road would withstand before resurfacing was required: ~AD+ DL)” hth ‘weight borne by axle j (in thousands of pounds); the type of axle weight, L, = 1 for single axles and 2 for tandem axles; road durability (dependent on thickness of base and surface layers); ‘structural coefficients describing the durability of rigid and flexible pavements ‘This issue is much less important forthe Lauffen and West Burton reference sites because rail and barge transport are the prefered methods for bulk material anspor. The transferability of the equation given above to Europe has not been assessed. If analysis of this type is required in Europe, national transport bodies/experts should be consulted, Damage to the rail system should be intemalised through charges made by the railway ‘company. The sitution with respect to effects of barge trafic is less clear and may vary ‘peetly between countries. Movement of material by rail or barge may be partially financed by government subsidy. po POSes none 319