River Aire east of Castleford; Ferrybridge C, Eggborough and Drax. Drax takes its cooling water from the Ouse, but both Ferrybridge and Eggborough draw their water from the Aire. Both of these plants stopped generating in 2016, with Eggborough being a stand-by for capacity problems until March 2017. A hydroelectric power station was installed on the Brotherton Weir at Knottingley in November 2017. The £7.5 million project is expected to deliver 500 kilowatts per year and be operational for 100 years. Due to the Aire flowing through the former industrial landscape of West Yorkshire, it had a reputation as being heavily polluted.
Drax, North Yorkshire in 1441 when witnesses to her age gave depositions at York Castle, and she recovered her property out of wardship. It may be that those who held the land while she was a minor neglected it, so that there was little for her husband to pass on to their heirs. The survival of the priory until the Reformation might suggest that the area continued to be farmed. The main crops were wheat, grain, and metalcore. In 1667 Charles Read (1604–1669) founded Drax Grammar (now called The Read School) as a grammar school: It is an independent boarding school. Read was