FPL has created an ungodly mess in Homestead at Turkey Point. It is a mess, though, that local officials in Homestead, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners are loathe to acknowledge. In fact, most elected officials in South Florida -- South Miami Philip Stoddard and Pincecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner stand out as exceptions -- fold over in the face of FPL's hot embrace.
Homestead is not the only place in the state of Florida where FPL has left its ginormous footprint. FPL wields great influence in the state capitol, where the legislature, Cabinet, and Rick Scott-appointed Public Service Commission rubber stamp its profit model. What FPL wants, FPL gets.
At the ballot box, a different story. There Florida voters sometimes object to what FPL wants.
Mostly, voters and ratepayers are dimly aware how FPL pulls its levers in Tallahassee. A few ways FPL is particularly objectionable: its refusal to support distributed solar energy at the consumer and business level, its support for the 60% supermajority requirement to amend the Florida constitution (that turned out to be a whopper of a mistake for FPL's own interests), and its commandeering of the Rick Scott and Adam Putnam Cabinet-level decisions forcing approval of state-licensing for two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point in defiance of sea level rise and climate change science.
Ratepayers are paying big-time for FPL's errors.
The most alarming of these is taking place in our backyard: the pollution of south Biscayne Bay -- a national park -- by two existing nuclear reactors at Turkey Point and the massive underground saltwater plume spreading westward toward farmland and drinking water wells serving millions of residents and visitors.
FPL violated its agreements with the state, for many years, and suppressed the science and data showing its cooling canal system had failed long before the issue attracted the attention of the media. For predictable reasons over recent decades, the mainstream media has tended to give FPL and its spokespersons the benefit of the doubt.
Now the corporation wants ratepayers to fund the cleanup of a broken cooling canal system. That's just wrong, especially since independent reviews claim that the cleanup proposed by FPL won't work.
If FPL were a good corporate citizen, it would have quickly agreed to build conventional cooling towers and replace the damaged industrial polluting facility. That could be the eventual outcome, but in the meantime, consumers are paying big-time for the smooth assurances of its spokespersons.
Expert: FPL knew about Turkey Point problems years ago, fix won’t work by Susan Salisbury, Friday Sept. 1 2017
Florida Power & Light Co. should have revealed years ago that extremely salty water from the cooling canals at its Turkey Point plant was intruding into the Biscayne Aquifer because reports indicated there was a problem, an expert witness has stated in sworn testimony.
Sorab Panday, principal engineer at GSI Environmental, Herndon, VA., also said that a $200 million 10-year clean-up project already in progress will not retract a massive underground saltwater plume that extends 5 miles west of the power plant.
FPL ORDERED TO FIX TURKEY POINT’S SALTY PLUME
The assertion was made in documents related to the cleanup of the nuclear power plant in southern Miami-Dade County. Juno Beach-based FPL is asking the Florida Public Service Commission to allow it to charge ratepayers for the initial costs of the cleanup that began in 2016. The issue is scheduled to be heard Oct. 25 in Tallahassee.
Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly, who represents all ratepayers in the case, said Wednesday, “They knew of or should have known that these problems were arising and taken action years ago, and not wait until now to come up with a fix that in Dr. Panday’s expert opinion, he doesn’t believe is going to solve the problem.
“Our position is that ratepayers should not have to pay any of these costs,” Kelly said.
The plant on the shores of Biscayne Bay about 25 miles south of downtown Miami has a 2-mile by 5-mile unlined cooling canal system. For more than 40 years the system has circulated billions of gallons of water daily to cool the plant’s two nuclear reactors, known as units 3 and 4. On average about 600,000 pounds of salt a day seeps from the canals into the groundwater.
FPL: Less natural gas would hurt consumers, increase coal use
The Biscayne Aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for about 3 million people, and that supply is threatened by the saltwater intrusion, some experts say. FPL officials have stated that the saltwater is not impacting drinking water. The Biscayne Aquifer serves as the source for Palm Beach County Water Utilities customers in the eastern part of the county.
Panday said in pre-filed testimony that his review of the available studies and data showed that FPL should have known about the salinity intrusion from the canals by at least 1992. Groundwater monitoring reports from engineering firm Dames and Moore in 1990 and 1992 documented that contaminated hypersaline water — water that is saltier than seawater — had traveled from the canals to the Biscayne Aquifer outside of FPL’s property.
Reports from 2003 to 2010 also contained salinity data that indicated the need to consider taking corrective action, Panday said. However, FPL and its contractors downplayed and ignored the data’s significance, he said.
FPL’s Mike Sole, vice president of environmental services, said in pre-filed testimony that after expanded groundwater monitoring began in 2009, it was later determined that corrective actions were required to address the hypersaline water’s impact.
Sole said that FPL has not violated any of the environmental permit requirements associated with the system and has worked for years with federal, state and local agencies to monitor any impacts and address issues as they were identified.
FPL is now in the mitigation and remediation phase and the canals’ salinity is already being improved, Sole said. The system is permitted as an industrial wastewater facility.
Prior to the cooling canals’ construction, saltwater had already intruded into the Biscayne Aquifer several miles inland, Sole testified.
“It was understood by the scientific community that saltwater intrusion in the area around the Turkey Point plant was due to many factors such as freshwater withdrawals by local communities, drought, drainage and flood-control structures, and other human activities,” Sole said.
Sole said it was also “well understood” that water in the unlined cooling canals would exchange with the saline groundwater below and that the canals’ salinity could increase.
Kelly, the public counsel, responded to Sole’s assertion that FPL has always done what it was asked to do, by saying, “I don’t know that anybody asked you to create a huge saltwater plume intrusion that could threaten the drinking water in the aquifer. I don’t think their position is reasonable.”
“If they had done something about it back in the ’90s or the early 2000s, quite possibly we would not be where we are today,” Kelly said.
FPL asserted in responses in the case that it wasn’t until 2013 that it became apparent that something needed to be done about the increasing salt concentrations in the Biscayne Aquifer and the plume’s westward movement.
In September 2016, under a consent order from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, FPL began a project to inject 15 million gallons a day of hypersaline polluted groundwater from beneath the cooling canals into the boulder zone. The boulder zone is 3,200 feet below the surface. The water is removed through wells drilled into the aquifer.
FPL is also freshening the cooling canals by adding up to 14 million gallons a day of less salty water from the deeper Floridan Aquifer.
FPL projects the plume will be retracted to the plant site’s boundary in 10 years. DEP, the South Florida Water Management District and others signed off on the plan.
However, Panday said that his evaluation indicates that pumping wells will not be effective in retracting the plume, and that it would take 31 million gallons of water a day to freshen the canals to an acceptable salinity level.
FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said, “We are actively working at the site, and have a long-term plan we are implementing. We want to have the best plan possible. If folks criticizing the plan have ways to make it better, we are all for that.”
Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point Nuclear Plant
Home to Florida’s first two reactors
The reactors are cooled by an unlined 168-mile earthen canal system.
The extremely salty water from the canals has spread to the Biscayne Aquifer.
FPL has begun a 10-year plan to
•Remediate an underground plume of salt water
•Reduce salinity levels in the canals
FPL wants customers to pay the $200 million cost.
Homestead is not the only place in the state of Florida where FPL has left its ginormous footprint. FPL wields great influence in the state capitol, where the legislature, Cabinet, and Rick Scott-appointed Public Service Commission rubber stamp its profit model. What FPL wants, FPL gets.
At the ballot box, a different story. There Florida voters sometimes object to what FPL wants.
Mostly, voters and ratepayers are dimly aware how FPL pulls its levers in Tallahassee. A few ways FPL is particularly objectionable: its refusal to support distributed solar energy at the consumer and business level, its support for the 60% supermajority requirement to amend the Florida constitution (that turned out to be a whopper of a mistake for FPL's own interests), and its commandeering of the Rick Scott and Adam Putnam Cabinet-level decisions forcing approval of state-licensing for two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point in defiance of sea level rise and climate change science.
Ratepayers are paying big-time for FPL's errors.
The most alarming of these is taking place in our backyard: the pollution of south Biscayne Bay -- a national park -- by two existing nuclear reactors at Turkey Point and the massive underground saltwater plume spreading westward toward farmland and drinking water wells serving millions of residents and visitors.
FPL violated its agreements with the state, for many years, and suppressed the science and data showing its cooling canal system had failed long before the issue attracted the attention of the media. For predictable reasons over recent decades, the mainstream media has tended to give FPL and its spokespersons the benefit of the doubt.
Now the corporation wants ratepayers to fund the cleanup of a broken cooling canal system. That's just wrong, especially since independent reviews claim that the cleanup proposed by FPL won't work.
If FPL were a good corporate citizen, it would have quickly agreed to build conventional cooling towers and replace the damaged industrial polluting facility. That could be the eventual outcome, but in the meantime, consumers are paying big-time for the smooth assurances of its spokespersons.
Expert: FPL knew about Turkey Point problems years ago, fix won’t work by Susan Salisbury, Friday Sept. 1 2017
Florida Power & Light Co. should have revealed years ago that extremely salty water from the cooling canals at its Turkey Point plant was intruding into the Biscayne Aquifer because reports indicated there was a problem, an expert witness has stated in sworn testimony.
Sorab Panday, principal engineer at GSI Environmental, Herndon, VA., also said that a $200 million 10-year clean-up project already in progress will not retract a massive underground saltwater plume that extends 5 miles west of the power plant.
FPL ORDERED TO FIX TURKEY POINT’S SALTY PLUME
The assertion was made in documents related to the cleanup of the nuclear power plant in southern Miami-Dade County. Juno Beach-based FPL is asking the Florida Public Service Commission to allow it to charge ratepayers for the initial costs of the cleanup that began in 2016. The issue is scheduled to be heard Oct. 25 in Tallahassee.
Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly, who represents all ratepayers in the case, said Wednesday, “They knew of or should have known that these problems were arising and taken action years ago, and not wait until now to come up with a fix that in Dr. Panday’s expert opinion, he doesn’t believe is going to solve the problem.
“Our position is that ratepayers should not have to pay any of these costs,” Kelly said.
The plant on the shores of Biscayne Bay about 25 miles south of downtown Miami has a 2-mile by 5-mile unlined cooling canal system. For more than 40 years the system has circulated billions of gallons of water daily to cool the plant’s two nuclear reactors, known as units 3 and 4. On average about 600,000 pounds of salt a day seeps from the canals into the groundwater.
FPL: Less natural gas would hurt consumers, increase coal use
The Biscayne Aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for about 3 million people, and that supply is threatened by the saltwater intrusion, some experts say. FPL officials have stated that the saltwater is not impacting drinking water. The Biscayne Aquifer serves as the source for Palm Beach County Water Utilities customers in the eastern part of the county.
Panday said in pre-filed testimony that his review of the available studies and data showed that FPL should have known about the salinity intrusion from the canals by at least 1992. Groundwater monitoring reports from engineering firm Dames and Moore in 1990 and 1992 documented that contaminated hypersaline water — water that is saltier than seawater — had traveled from the canals to the Biscayne Aquifer outside of FPL’s property.
Reports from 2003 to 2010 also contained salinity data that indicated the need to consider taking corrective action, Panday said. However, FPL and its contractors downplayed and ignored the data’s significance, he said.
FPL’s Mike Sole, vice president of environmental services, said in pre-filed testimony that after expanded groundwater monitoring began in 2009, it was later determined that corrective actions were required to address the hypersaline water’s impact.
Sole said that FPL has not violated any of the environmental permit requirements associated with the system and has worked for years with federal, state and local agencies to monitor any impacts and address issues as they were identified.
FPL is now in the mitigation and remediation phase and the canals’ salinity is already being improved, Sole said. The system is permitted as an industrial wastewater facility.
Prior to the cooling canals’ construction, saltwater had already intruded into the Biscayne Aquifer several miles inland, Sole testified.
“It was understood by the scientific community that saltwater intrusion in the area around the Turkey Point plant was due to many factors such as freshwater withdrawals by local communities, drought, drainage and flood-control structures, and other human activities,” Sole said.
Sole said it was also “well understood” that water in the unlined cooling canals would exchange with the saline groundwater below and that the canals’ salinity could increase.
Kelly, the public counsel, responded to Sole’s assertion that FPL has always done what it was asked to do, by saying, “I don’t know that anybody asked you to create a huge saltwater plume intrusion that could threaten the drinking water in the aquifer. I don’t think their position is reasonable.”
“If they had done something about it back in the ’90s or the early 2000s, quite possibly we would not be where we are today,” Kelly said.
FPL asserted in responses in the case that it wasn’t until 2013 that it became apparent that something needed to be done about the increasing salt concentrations in the Biscayne Aquifer and the plume’s westward movement.
In September 2016, under a consent order from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, FPL began a project to inject 15 million gallons a day of hypersaline polluted groundwater from beneath the cooling canals into the boulder zone. The boulder zone is 3,200 feet below the surface. The water is removed through wells drilled into the aquifer.
FPL is also freshening the cooling canals by adding up to 14 million gallons a day of less salty water from the deeper Floridan Aquifer.
FPL projects the plume will be retracted to the plant site’s boundary in 10 years. DEP, the South Florida Water Management District and others signed off on the plan.
However, Panday said that his evaluation indicates that pumping wells will not be effective in retracting the plume, and that it would take 31 million gallons of water a day to freshen the canals to an acceptable salinity level.
FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said, “We are actively working at the site, and have a long-term plan we are implementing. We want to have the best plan possible. If folks criticizing the plan have ways to make it better, we are all for that.”
Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point Nuclear Plant
Home to Florida’s first two reactors
The reactors are cooled by an unlined 168-mile earthen canal system.
The extremely salty water from the canals has spread to the Biscayne Aquifer.
FPL has begun a 10-year plan to
•Remediate an underground plume of salt water
•Reduce salinity levels in the canals
FPL wants customers to pay the $200 million cost.
1 comment:
If FPL pays for fixing the (not) cooling canals, maybe they will think twice about new reactors?
Where would FPL be without the GOP?
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