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.
James Drax a royalist faction seized control of Barbados in 1650, James and William Drax were exiled from the island, along with other prominent parliamentarians. They returned to London, where they lobbied the House of Commons to send an expedition to retake the island. In 1651, Drax sailed in the fleet designed to re-conquer Barbados, and he was part of the team that went ashore to negotiate the surrender of the island. Restored to his estates and power, Drax once again took up a leading role in the governance of the colony. It is thought that Drax Hall, the impressive seventeenth-century manor