Florida Senate Committees to Hold Public Workshop Friday to Discuss Threats from FPL’s Polluting Turkey Point Cooling Canal System
The public is encouraged to attend and voice their concerns about the polluting cooling canal:
TODAY
4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Miami Dade College, Homestead Campus
Room F-222
500 College Terrace
Homestead, FL 33030
Directions
Two Florida Senate committees will jointly hold a workshop on Friday, April 29 from 4-8 p.m. at the Homestead campus of Miami-Dade College to discuss Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point cooling canals. Due to an antiquated, problematic cooling canal system, the utility’s aging Turkey Point nuclear reactors are polluting Biscayne National Park and the Biscayne Aquifer upon which three million Miami-Dade residents rely on for drinking water and recreation.
The water-intensive Turkey Point power plant includes two nuclear reactors and is located in Miami-Dade County near Homestead, Florida. The facility is one of Florida’s biggest water users and discharges up to 3 million pounds of salt and other contaminants directly into the Biscayne Aquifer each day. Additionally, at least 60 million gallons of water evaporates each day, water sorely needed for Everglades Restoration and sea-level rise mitigation efforts.
FPL has been under scrutiny from a variety of municipalities and elected officials as well as diverse community interests including the national parks, local environmental organizations and businesses – all demanding immediate action to force FPL to stop this contamination and implement measures to fix these serious problems.
The Senate Communications, Energy, and Public Utilities committee, meeting jointly with the Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee will hear presentations from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, Miami-Dade County (DERM), the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and others and discuss the cooling canal concerns.
The public can speak at the meeting by attending in-person.
About Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Founded in 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices that work to address the impacts of global climate change and ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at www.cleanenergy.org.
6 comments:
Okay gimleteye, come pick me up and drive me to Hudstead.
Other People, I heard they are serving dinner at this meeting and cupcakes with sprinkles. Also there will be wine and cheese.
Just cancelled my pre-existing plans to learn some facts on the matter. Let's hope others do and that there are some facts presented!
Standing room only! I saw a lot of dancing around hard questions by the Senators... I guess they flew down here to play soft ball with FPL.
This goes back to the old saying, "Are you gonna believe what I say or believe what you see?"... FPL did a great job of avoiding the whole truth. There was mention of a lot of misinformation being given out in the community. Like FPL isn't a propaganda machine in it's own right.
This meeting was supposed to be about "the cooling canals only".
The man from the NRC said that he could not talk about the cooling canals.
What a joke!
The NRC rep stated why he couldn't talk about much---because of all the pending litigation that it is involved in due to the activities of its licensee, FPL.
Overall, I was struck by: 1) the bs spewed by FPL and the softball follow-up questions asked by the state politicians who are directly or indirectly funded by FPL; 2) the narrow focus on the saline plume, to the exclusion of the other polluting FPL activities and no mention of sea level rise; 3) the hurried and patronizing manner of the chairman in an attempt to get it over with; 4) that the greatest threat posed to FPL and its nuke operation may come from a litigious rock miner (Atlantic Civil); 5) the preparedness of local mayors from Pinecrest and South Miami and a conservationist, Ms Reynolds; 6) the anger and disappointment of the citizenry towards the state legislators in not fulfilling their roles as public stewards.
The legislators pretended to care about the issues and became indignant whenever it appeared as though they weren't believable. Another example of political corruption and ineffective governance. Thanks Florida pols. Do your job for the people, not your owners!
I wasn't there but I saw in the herald that commissioner Levine Cava asked some tough questions and gave the bad guys at FPL a hard time. At least somebody is saying something.
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