FPL and Nuclear Power, county department heads fail the public, by gimleteye

On December 20th, Miami Dade County Commissioners will hold a special hearing whether or not to grant an “unusual” use permit to Florida Power and Light, to build two new nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear facility.

Why is this December 20th hearing important?

It will be the last occasion that your local elected representatives will have sole authority, with no input from other jurisdictions like the state or Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to halt FPL from moving other necessary permitting steps forward.

Why is it necessary to stop FPL now?


It is necessary to stop FPL now because the company has utterly failed to provide detail related to the two key aspects of its proposal of critical concern to the health, welfare and safety of Miami Dade county residents.

The first aspect has to do with water. Some of you may recall news that the county recently reached an agreement with the state of Florida, after years of negotiations, for a 20 year permit for future water use. The permit is tied to Miami Dade county’s promise to re-use its waste water stream, because the Biscayne aquifer is tapped out.

The new nuclear reactors proposed by FPL need between 60 and 90 million gallons per day of water for cooling purposes. In its “unusual” use permit, the corporation offers no details at all, where that volume of water will come from.

The second aspect has to do with the fact that FPL is planning to build a 300 acre footprint for the new facility to a height of 20 feet from sea level. The question where the fill will come from, at that volume required to put the new nuclear reactors 20 feet into the air, is not addressed at all in the permit application—despite clear environmental issues.

Why can’t FPL provide details, now?

The company says that it needs local approvals in order to go forward with a $100 million investment in the big engineering firm, Bechtel, to get the details. The company says these details will be provided during the state licensing process.

But there is no law or statutory reason that says the county must give a free pass to FPL, and it shouldn’t.

So why, then, in the absence of any detail on the two most critical issues to the public, did county managers simply wave the permit request through to the county commission?

Representatives on the Development Impact Committee said that they were assured by “conditions” agreed to by FPL, that the public’s interest would be protected. Those conditions, of course, were designed and drafted and re-drafted by FPL lobbyists—not county department heads.

So really, what was on display this week was the indistinguishable relationship between industry and your government.

It is not very often that one gets to see the picture so clearly and in such bright definition. Of course, there were no reporters from the mainstream media in attendance. And anyhow, when was the last time you read a story about the collusion of industry and government to conspire against the interests of citizens and taxpayers?

One supposes that government agencies protect the interests of people. But that is not what happened at the Development Impact Committee review, which voted unanimously to recommend to the county commission approval of the FPL permit request.

In an opinion piece recently published by the San Francisco Chronicle, Jon Block, nuclear energy and climate change project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes, "The most sensible strategy to reduce global warming is to quickly deploy the cleanest, fastest, lowest risk solutions first. Conservation and increased efficiency by energy producers and consumers are the cheapest and quickest measures by far."

The fact is that FPL and Florida's utilities have not lobbied for conservation policies at the state legislature. If anything, the electric utilities in Florida have been obstructionists.

Block continues, "Prudence dictates that we pursue many options to reduce global warming. As a part of that effort, nuclear power research should continue, but with a focus on enhancing safety security and waste disposal."

Call your county commissioner. Go to the December 20th public hearing at County Hall. Express your view that the prudent course of action is to deny FPL’s unusual permit request until the corporation tells the public the details that it has conveniently omitted.

For allowing this to move forward, without details, county department heads should be rebuked.