Hurry up with new nuclear power plants? What Florida Power and Light doesn't want you to know ... by gimleteye

Tritium sounds like the stuff of science fiction movies like kryptonite. It is a radioactive isotope produced through the generation of nuclear power, like FPL's Turkey Point facility in South Dade, and ends up in process water that can flow in unexpected directions.

According to sources, tritium has become a major point of contention between FPL and environmental agencies in the planning of two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point. It turns out that tritium, harmful in high concentrations, is useful in measuring water flow in low concentrations.

Water flow is a particular concern in South Dade, and really throughout coastal Florida, because of salt water intrusion toward drinking water wells. Just last week, water managers declared a high state of emergency due to drought and the fact that salt water is racing inland in South Dade; specifically in respect to Biscayne aquifer wells providing drinking water to the entire Florida Keys.

For many years, environmental permitting agencies have been on alert to another related issue: how extensive rock mining (for fill, for cement and other concrete products) in South Dade has provided convection routes for salt water intrusion inland through the shallow Biscayne aquifer. Among other considerations, that the massive canal cooling system used by FPL in its existing nuclear reactors is creating hypersaline sources of water that are tracking inland, underground.

The presence of tritium, even in minute quantities, in the Biscayne aquifer is a problem for FPL: first of all, this well known marker for fluid movement in water bodies would contradict its contention that building two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point-- and the related rock mining to elevate the reactors twenty five feet above sea level on three hundred plus acres-- will have no significant impact on either salt water intrusion or drinking water quality.

Studying the evidence and modeling salt water intrusion could have a big impact on the timing and permitting issues. It won't be so easy to explain to South Floridians why the presence of tritium is not a substantial concern.

Proof to the contrary would be extraordinarily expensive. Industrial water treatment facilities for people would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The impacts to agriculture in South Dade could be extraordinarily expensive.

At a recent Planning Advisory Board meeting, FPL's Steve Scroggs testified that the new nuclear facilities would "help" Everglades restoration. "If it does not work for the Everglades," he said of FPL's plans, "it will not work." Of course, how you measure what works or not is critically important. And if you don't measure-- by using tritium, for instance, to prove the point of water flow in local aquifers-- then you can just say anything you want and claim that it is true.

Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly the direction that FPL's corporate logic is flowing. And it wouldn't be the first time, in respect to issues of nuclear power and public health and welfare.