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| Typical Injection Well --- NOT 2 MILES |
Water and Sewer Department says they are exploring the geology to find out if any formation below the Boulder Zone is better for injection of treated effluent. Hmm. I don't believe that for a minute (unless of course they already know it will leak at shallower levels).
Here is my theory, remember an energy company did the one in Tampa. I think this very deep well is being dug with our tax dollars for the benefit of gathering data for Florida Power and Light's Nuke Plant's injection wells. Or maybe worse: Fracking Crap.
I originally saw the drill rig in July at Virginia Key.
After they dig the deepest well in Florida and data is collected the well will be plugged. The injection well they will use goes to about 3,000 below the land surface and they will be injecting a mix of secondary treated effluent, leachate from the landfill and process water. That would be into the boulder zone.
How safe is injecting waste underground (there are 680,000 injection wells nationwide):
"In interviews, several key experts acknowledged that the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn’t always work.
“In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted,” said Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for 25 years as a technical expert with the EPA’s underground injection program in Washington. “A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die.”
There is also Fracturing Threats: see The Pitfalls of Florida's Karst Geology and industrial scale application of aquifer storage and recovery wells. Last but not least we get those pesky earthquakes.
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| Human Induced earthquakes from deep well injection |
After five years of construction, the $120 million Polk Power Station Regional Reclaimed Water Partnership Initiative officially entered into service in March. The project will allow Tampa Electric to collect reclaimed water from the city of Lakeland, treat it and use it for cooling water at the Polk Power Station.
“This public-private partnership is on the leading edge of innovative water use,” said Gordon Gillette, president of Tampa Electric. “It has far-reaching water-resource benefits that will be seen in Tampa Bay for multiple generations.”
The project includes a reclaimed-water pumping station and 15-mile pipeline between the city of Lakeland's wetland treatment system, east of Mulberry, and Tampa Electric's Polk Power Station. The project also includes a water-treatment system and two deep-injection wells – more than 1.5 miles underground – on Polk Power Station property.
This project will:
Minimize any future withdrawals of groundwater to cool Polk Power Station.
Clean up Tampa Bay by diverting treated wastewater previously discharged by the city of Lakeland. This will remove nitrogen from the water of Hillsborough and Tampa bays, which will help improve the sea grasses and populations of small fish, crabs and oysters.
Give the city of Lakeland greater capacity to use additional groundwater for drinking as the city grows.
Because of the combination of environmental benefits, the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) agreed to partially fund the project by investing about $45 million.
For many years, Lakeland discharged its excess wastewater into the Alafia River, which feeds into Tampa Bay. Through a 30-year agreement, Lakeland will instead provide about 5 million gallons per day of reclaimed water to the Polk Power Station, with the ability to expand to 17 million gallons a day. Water will be provided from Lakeland at no cost for at least the first 20 years.
22 comments:
This is for sewage. All the crap from the new boom of Brickell condos. This is so they can close the sewage pipe that dumps the crap 2 miles out to sea. It's cheaper than building a new plant. No worries though as Miami will be abandoned within 50 years from sea level rise. And the crap will stop flowing. The water has already breached the sea walls along the Bay. We will leave behind this and all our other garbage under the sea.
I know the 3,000 foot well is for sewage but why the almost 2 mile exploratory well???????????
I think that might be the deepest well in the entire country.
Some scientists have admitted that the injection wells in Miami Dade have not worked as planned allowing material to seep into areas it was not suppose to. These wells allow for less treatment of waste saving dollars today but at what cost long term? Can't this 10,000 test allow the earths heat to generate power without polluting?
Your suspicion about Turkey point test well is well founded. However it does not solve the cooling aspect of such an operation. Unless of corse they do it with fresh salty see water.
Is it possible the heat at 10000 feet will sterilize the sewage brew?
How about an added side benefit of raising South Beach and Fisher Island a few feet in the process?? All thanks to a distributed sewer bill. Hows that for taking care of corporate people.
See: "Injection Wells Get Federal Approval", July 11, 2000, Sun Sentinel.
You are looking for tests of the beach sand which will contain fecal bacteria. If Miami Beach or the county do not test the sand for bacteria you know why.
As everything regarding Virginia Key, things are not always what they appear to be. Just like the City's $23 million re do of the Marine Stadium ostensibly for the Miami Boat Show is really about private development to benefit private developers. You are right to be skeptical.
How does the Miami boat show aid private developers?
The County should ask the Legislature to repeal the ridiculous State Law that bans our ocean outfall operations. The treated effluent that is discharged to the ocean current is nothing but nutrient release, which the ocean is quite capable of absorbing. Concentrating treated effluent directly below the drinking water supply for South Florida is very questionable. The EPA approved of the ocean outfall solution decades ago. This deep injection "fix" is nothing but an expensive engineering make-work exercise without any legitimate need.
Deep Well Injection is a failure. Right next to Lion Country Safari is FPL's biggest plant in the U.S. It uses 21 MILLION Gallons of water per day. Its 3800 megawatts with a 36 inch 900 PSI gas pipeline and uses diesel for backup 18.9 Million gallons of diesel is stored on sight. All of this is next to a mining operation which blasts everyday until 2032. The blasting is within 200 feet of the 18.9 million gallons of diesel and the 36 inch pipeline which doesn't have a shut off valve for 34.7 miles. The kicker all the waste water from this polluted nightmare is Deep Well Injected and there is no oversight on the effluent it's exempt as per FDEP like all deep well injection. The Arthur Marshall Wildlife Refuge (147.000 acres) is 1000 feet away and the J.W. Corbett (60.388 acres) is 1000 feet to the north. What needs to happen is a moratorium on building period. There are to many problems and to many condos. That is it the engineers are told to do something they do it but it is a band aid on a nuclear bomb. Builders need to pay for their mistakes putting 500 to 1000 people on an acre is insane but that is what they do when they build a condo. Builders want to take the risk they should pay for the resulting disaster. When these paid off commissioners give builders the keys to the kingdom they need to be accountable for the resulting problems. Florida leaders in the 50's 60's knew better but then Disney came the ACOE was told to straighten the Kissimmee River so it could drain faster into the Everglades. The greed of a few is destroying Florida hell the entire U.S.. Its time for everyone who wants a life to wake up and say hell no. Time for FPL's and the builders Ponzi scheme to come to an end. Then maybe we will survive without being poisoned or blown to bits.
Kudos for Alexandria! She and I are on the same page. Alexandria has addressed the big picture.The previous commentators remarks address this issue as mostly an isolated issue, with certain important points ignored completely.
Commentator #1 is ignoring the very real possibility of sewage leaking into the aquifer in the foreseeable future, not 50 years down the road when we're all gone.
Commentator #5, please do some research on the lack of feasibility of using salt water to cool nuclear generators. There is already a huge environmental problem which is ongoing, due to the accumulation of salty sludge and salt water intrusion into the fresh water supply in the Turkey Point area due to the operation of the nuclear facility.
As to the hope that heat may kill off the sewage bacteria,the bacteria may actually have an ideal breeding ground at certain levels,possible where leakage may occur. Temperature will vary at different depths of a deep injection well.
Commentator #9, you are really ignorant of the devastating effect of pumping very poorly treated sewage waste water into the ocean. The "nutrients" that you refer to have raised nitrogen levels to such an extent as to be slowly killing off the bay, esp. corals. Acidification is big part of this equation. All of this waste water is toxic, and it stinks something fierce. I've heard firsthand reports from reliable sources that the stench is unbearable at the point of outflow. It's loaded with chemicals such as chlorine, ammonia, urine, puke,blood and all manner of toxic and noxious elements. Ocean outfall is forbidden for these reasons, and Miami Dade continues to violate!
Sewage should be cleaned with water reclamation systems that have been available
for many years. No interest in using sustainable methods is ever demonstrated in Miami- Dade County. Instead, the environment is threatened with the highly questionable use of deep well injection.
Alexandria is spot on regarding a moratorium on new development until this (and other urgent environmental problems) are solved, and those solutions are 100% implemented with no more cry baby excuses!
Please send emails to the Commission if you really give a damn!
Oh my gosh! This HAS to be the comedy line of the century:
"Because of the combination of environmental benefits, the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) agreed to partially fund the project by investing about $45 million."
What a hoot!
Indeed this may bring (more) sewage contamination to Biscayne Bay sooner than we think. But what choice did elected officials have? A building moratorium? Hahahaha
Answer to the commentator above: the Miami Boat Show - with the $23 million infrastructure project for new sewer and electric lines, including two FPL substations- is just the upgrades needed to build a new Bayside Shopping village with hotels and parking garages, mega yacht marinas, ect.... ( all the requisite amenities of the 1 percent). And taxpayers have the pleasure of paying for it. First, with their "donated" public waterfront land and second, with their tax dollars of the future, as this is a debt that keeps growing.
What choice do we have? Stop shitting. There has to be a way....
There could be composting and collection of clean urine, as a Science project competition demonstrated about 5 Years back. That project was thought of for under developed country's. Kind of makes you think.
The"Tampa" project is actually near Brewster, south of Mulberry. We were initially told the deep drilling was to be a carbon sequestration demonstration. The rig hit a sink hole and everyone had to run for the fences.They almost lost the rig. Never let a good hole go to waste.
I've been a nurse since 1964 & a nurse practitioner since 1976. Mostly an academic I have had a practice with developmental challenged children & adults since 1980. I'm very much into illness prevention & wellness. I am conservative in composting, recycling, & returning to the earth as much as possible. Born in Miami 1942 I have witnessed the growth, pollution & raping of M-D county by Commissioners & developers alike.
I don't have to worry about sea level rise, I won't be here; my daughter (adopted) is a crack addict at 26 & in jail. Sea level rise, sinkholes (from fracking?), water pollution into the Biscayne aquifier (from deep wells such as FPLs Turkey Point polluting ones) and dying coral (discharge waste over the yrs)will be something for my daughter to worry about....and then there is her 4.5 yr.old son.
The world is becoming a smaller, more polluted (dirty diapers in parking lots) more dense (think MRSA/Polio/SARS & many more due to international travel & lack of immunizations). The next war won't be one of nuclear bombs I thinking, it will be a war over water rights and ability to have clean water to drink. Yes, urine can be recycled, but poop? I don't think so.
I once heard someone say that you can judge a civilization by what it does with it's sewage. Given the fact that methods are available to purify sewage,and reclaim the water, I'd give the County a D- for the method that is used here.
To do it right a site has to be designated away from the ocean and possible tidal surge. Aquatic plants or enzymes are used to clean sewage without chemicals. These methods are actually being used successfully in some progressive locations.
Politicians don't address the consequences of unlimited development. Even those who claim to be "green". The more people move here, the more liquid filth will be pumped into the ocean. The amount may be over 500 million gallons per day.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Thanks, Claudia, for your observations. Dirty diapers in parking lots!!!
How monstrously disgusting!!! People who are that gross really shouldn't be breeding.
This raises another topic. What happens to all the gazillion disposable, NON BIODEGRADABLE diapers? Back in the day, they were 100% cotton and washable.Same thing for senior citizens using adult diapers. This is a growing problem as more people age.
Bloggers, how about an article on this phenomenon?
I am particularly disgusted by the diapers thrown in the parking lots.... I swear I bought so many bags to throw diapers into (and then away) when my kids were young that I still have a supply in the garage from 30 years... And the diaper liners.... remember those? It was lightweight soft paper that went inside cloth diapers so you could easily dispose of the poop by putting it in sealed bags.
I don't let my animals poo in your yard, so why do you leave your child poopy diaper in the parking space or (super disgusting) in the shopping cart. People are nastier than pigs. At least pigs can be potty trained.
The distasteful subject of millions of filthy, non-biodegradable baby and adult diapers going into garbage dumps like Mt.Trashmore and stinky garbage hills covered with sod along side the Florida State Turnpike may seem off topic, but it really isn't. All of this excrement is leaching out into the environment, just as excrement will leach out of deep injection wells. It would be better if the diapers were made from an organic, biodegradable substance, and then burnt at one of the trash incinerator sites. Anyone have a better idea?
As for the human vermin who throw soiled diapers into parking lots and shopping carts, they deserve to be shamed! Take pictures of them and send to the media, people. There should also be misdemeanor charges with fines, and how about community service, like picking up dirty diapers in parking lots!
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