Scuba diver John Vincent sensed something was wrong when, fishing for lobster one night off Playa del Rey, he felt a strange current.

It grew stronger. Seconds later, Vincent, 49, was swept into the mouth of a huge intake pipe for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Scattergood power plant.

He tried to kick against the flow, but it was no use: Down the pipe he went, clutching his flashlight and his limit of lobsters, a long, fast journey through the dark. "I was flipping out," he said. "My air supply was running out."

Vincent's misadventure was exceptional. Most of the organisms sucked into power plant intake pipes off the California coast are plankton and small fish.

But his story provides an unusual firsthand perspective on a process at the heart of a messy controversy coming to a head before the State Water Resources Control Board.

Every day, intake pipes such as the one that caught Vincent are permitted to suck in enough seawater to fill Lake Arrowhead, then spit it out again, a little warmer and a lot deader. The seawater is used for cooling mechanisms in power plants, and for decades, it has provided California's electricity generators with a cheap and convenient way to keep the lights on.

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