Climate Change Shareholder Proposals: NextEra Energy and its brethren push back? ... by gimleteye

In 2016, my wife and I filed the first shareholder proposal dealing specifically with sea level rise impacts to shareholders of a major electric utility. Although there have been plenty of global warming proposals from investors, ours specifically requested that NextEra, the parent company of FPL, advise shareholders of its vulnerability -- both markets and infrastructure -- to sea level rise. (Those interested, can read more by clicking this link.)

We were pleasantly surprised that in April 2017 our proposal garnered more than 20 percent of shareholders who voted; mainly very large institutional investors.

Leaving aside the question whether NextEra or ratepayers like you and me can weather a continuous financial storm, the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, represented by rapid sea level rise, it caught our attention that the conservative Manhattan Institute recently addressed the issue for its supporters. The Manhattan Institute primarily reflects the views of the fossil fuel supply chain, including electric utilities.

Here is its money shot:

The shift in institutional investors’ support for climate-change-related shareholder proposals in 2017 may augur a paradigm shift in the shareholder-engagement process—as activists target institutional investors themselves as a tactic through which they hope to influence corporate behavior. Institutional investors may be less sensitive to the full panoply of social-investing concerns, beyond climate change and gender, but these trends deserve careful attention in the future.

What does this mean for Manhattan Institute supporters from the ranks of corporate America and climate-change denialism? Based on past experience, we can extrapolate: more opposition to and perhaps even suppression of shareholder activists like us.


Climate-Change Proposals Break Through

By James R. Copland and Margaret M. O’Keefe

Mr. Copland is a senior fellow with and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute.
Ms. O’Keefe is the Manhattan Institute’s Proxy Monitor project manager.

The Manhattan Institute’s Proxy Monitor database, launched in 2011, is the first publicly available database cataloging shareholder proposals and Dodd-Frank-mandated executive-compensation advisory votes[1] at America’s largest publicly traded companies. Findings and reports by James R. Copland, Manhattan Institute senior fellow and director of legal policy, and Margaret M. O’Keefe, Proxy Monitor project manager, draw upon information in the database to examine shareholder activism in which investors attempt to influence corporate management through the shareholder-proposal process.[2] The conclusions in these reports are the authors’ own and do not reflect an institutional view of the Manhattan Institute.

Andrew Korge to Senator Flores: Give Back FPL Money. By Geniusofdespair

Flores will be a speaker at the meeting today on FPL's Nuke polluting cooling canals in Homestead.

Her oppenent Andrew Korge said in a letter, Flores should return thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Florida Power & Light.

He said State Senator Anitere Flores has failed to address the contamination of Biscayne Bay from Florida Power & Light’s nuclear plant at Turkey Point.

“Many of your constituents have been sounding the alarm about industrial wastewater from Turkey Point leaking into Biscayne Bay for years,” Korge writes, “But it was only last month, during an election year incidentally, that you took even the slightest action...”

FPL employees and affiliates donated $5,800 to the Flores campaign in 2015 says Korge, in addition to $55,000 to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee PAC and more than $3 million in recent years to the Florida Republican Party.

Eye on Miami on Idiotic Florida Power and Light Energy Policy: Solar 0.1%. By Geniusofdespair

FPL gets .1% of its power from solar energy in the Sunshine State. Not even 1%. One tenth of 1%. They are not trying with Solar Energy and it is an outrage. Do you care? I sure do. This flyer came with my FPL bill.

They should be humiliated instead they are doing bragging rights with the the flyer. Look at their claim that they are using clean fuel. Natural Gas, I don't think so. It is deadly getting it out with poisonous chemicals and once used it adds to the heating of the atmosphere -- global warming. Nuclear, it doesn't cool itself, it uses our fresh water and tritium is being found in the salt water around the power plant. They use 4.2% of coal. Really bad.  Didn't they collect EXTRA money in our bills for a few years for developing solar? Am I wrong on that?

From an FPL flyer sent with my electric bill. The black line on the chart is oil. The solar line? better blow up the chart so you can see it.

So it goes, the Sunshine State gets 1/10th of a percent of its power from the sun because of FPL's dismal record on caring about the community and big fat record on profit.

Screen shot of google search. They are grabbing the sun? Right at .1%. They want Fracking here very badly. Ohio has fracking, polluted wells and a new wave of earthquakes too! They blast underground to release the "natural" gas. Great for our limestone geology.

In fact, FPL is actually battling against Solar according to a September article in the Jacksonville Business Journal:

In a battle involving two solar-energy ballot initiatives, a political committee backed by major utilities collected $335,000 in August --- and had raised $798,000 in less than two months, according to a newly filed finance report.

The group, known as Consumers for Smart Solar, also had nearly $400,000 in the bank as September began.

I googled CONSUMERS for Smart Solar:

Not surprising, FPL and the Koch Brothers are financing the Solar Killer Amendment. I bet they have not one consumer as part of this campaign.

FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT Wants to Steal Our Water and that of the Everglades For Out-of-Date Technology. By Geniusofdespair

FPL Water Hogs

Someday we will be desperate for water like California is now. You will remember this notice at that time: Florida Power and Light wants 14 million gallons per day ADDITIONAL from the 100,000,000 gallons per day of fresh water they already get now.  NOTE: They didn't put the location of the wells on the map and they put the EVERGLADES in the wrong place.

You might ask, where is all the used water going to go? What are they pumping in and out over there? If they pump the hypersaline water under ground and then suck up brakish water they will compromise the hypersaline water they are pumping under it and probably pull it up or dislodge it into the bay. They already get a gazillion gallons per day for these canals and the canals are near 104 degrees.  The cooling canals are making the surrounding area's water salty. This is a super bad idea added to the rest of their super bad ideas. If the technology doesn't work anymore, don't add a bandage.  If they add brakish water as they intend, it increases the salinity and becomes salty quicker and sinks more readily.  The water under the cooling canals has twice the saline of bay water already.  When 6 and 7 come along, they want to send all that salty water to the bay. A utility unwilling to make solar power an option, will be getting 10% of our water -- come on. Let's get real. Enough is enough. All I can say is: JAPAN.  Read the SFWMD PDF
When you see these in the newspaper READ THEM (hit to enlarge them)

South Florida Residents Fleeced by Florida Power and Light (Next Error). By Geniusofdespair

As of January 2015 your rates went up on your FPL Bill. For instance, my bill has increased by about $11.

If you can't read the fine print it says: This rates summary reflects rates and charges approved by the Florida Public Service Commission. These are the biographies of the Commissioners.

Be sure to call them and thank them, especially for charging us for the nuke plants before they are built. Notice there are 2 nuclear charges.

Miscellaneous Charges on My January Bill - I Do Not Understand Any of These Charges and That is a Good Thing....for Next Error (really Next Era) the Parent Company.  Keep the People in the Dark.

View the full list of charges online.

Florida Power and Light in Trouble Over Turkey Point Nuke Plant. By Geniusofdespair

Even with anti-environmentalist Rick Scott at the helm, the State is FINALLY taking action against Turkey Point for the salinity of their cooling canals. How are they going to fix it? Well, Next Error, what are you going to do? I'll tell you what they are going to do: F--k up something else, maybe even Biscayne Bay.

According to a Miami Herald article in September:

Hotter water can lead to saltier canals. This summer, salt levels have been about 50 percent higher than normal and twice the salinity of the nearby bay. Salinity is potentially more worrisome since the area’s salt front has already crept farther inland than in other parts of the county, threatening area drinking wells.

The state is currently revising its regulations on how the canals operate. Part of the revisions eliminate strict monitoring imposed when the plant was expanded. But county commissioners agreed Tuesday that the canal problems point to the need for even more monitoring.

The salinity was as high as 90, now they say it is about 60. The DEP wants it at 34.

Barry White had more to say to clarify what is going on:

FPL is regulated by Federal and State authorities.The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). Long ago the NRC gave regulation to the land side of Turkey Point Nuclear Units 3 & 4 to the FDEP. Currently Miami-Dade County and other local interests are challenging, or thinking about challenging, a ruling (Administrative Order/AO) issued by FDEP on December 23, 2014 directing FPL to take certain actions at Turkey Point to correct the problems in the cooling canals. Those filings would be before the FDEP which would be heard by a Florida State administrative law judge panel.

But Citizens Allied for Safe Energy (CASE) filed a motion before the Federal NRC in October, 2014 contending that the real problem is the uprate (increase in operating temperature) to Nuclear Reactors Units 3 & 4 done in 2012/2013; FPL’s own data show that the problems occurred after the uprate. But, because the State agencies (FDEP and SFWMD) can only issue orders regarding the land, not the reactors themselves, even if the reactors are the problem. And NRC Staff says they do not have control over the land, the State does.

On January 14, 2015 in Homestead CASE argued before three judges sent down by the NRC to hear its contentions that this finger pointing is the problem. There is responsibility without authority, and authority without responsibility. CASE held that the NRC has final responsibility for everything under the 1954 and 1974 Federal Acts which created them. The judges have 45 days from the hearing to rule. CASE suggested that the reactors be scaled back in their operation until an independent inquiry of scientists and engineers can determine what are the real problems.

Freshwater is the real problem; there is not enough to keep the cooling canals functional and to do what freshwater has done for eons; hold back saltwater intrusion, provide habitat for hatchling and juvenile sea life in the Biscayne Bay estuary and to provide fresh water for agriculture and to sustain human and plant life. Ultimately CASE would like to see no energy produced at Turkey Point with the land cleaned up and returned to nature, with renewable energy on our homes, businesses and institutions and energy conservation practiced widely.

Barry J. White
President
Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Inc./CASE

Miami Dade Payout to the Private Sector: Read it in the Miami Herald. By Geniusofdespair

Douglas Hanks of the Miami Herald says:

Florida’s largest local government spends more than $6 billion a year, offering a lucrative source of dollars for hundreds of vendors, contractors and grant recipients.

See the entire list of 500 in the Miami Herald. (Hit on the short list and it will keep going)  It will make you sick when you think about Library funding.  Hanks says further:

The list captures the end results of the yearly budget decisions that are getting underway this spring as commissioners and Mayor Carlos Gimenez decide how to allocate tax dollars. The dollars go to churches and schools administering county poverty and Head Start programs, contractors building county projects, service providers equipping county workers with phones, fuel, and other goods.

Florida Power & Light has a comfortable hold on the top position. The for-profit utility received nearly $370 million in Miami-Dade checks over 36 months, or an average of more than $300,000 a day. If Miami-Dade has a massive electric bill, it also digs deep to purchase fuel. MacMillan Oil, a Hialeah company, snagged the No. 3 spot with about $240 million worth of payments from Miami-Dade.

Do you now see why I don't want CULTURAL ENTITIES TO GET MORE MONEY! Look at number 7 and 11.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/15/4061294/the-miami-dade-500-who-gets-the.html#storylink=cpy

Does Anyone in Florida Follow the Nuclear Disaster STILL unfolding in Japan? By Geniusofdespair

2 1/2 Years and counting....

Why we are even considering expanding nukes at Turkey Point is beyond me with Daiichi still unfolding. A few days ago the New York Times reported that:

The operator of Japan’s tsunami-hit nuclear power plant sounded the alarm on the gravity of the deepening crisis of containment at the coastal site on Friday, saying that there are more than 200,000 tons of radioactive water in makeshift tanks vulnerable to leaks, with no reliable way to check on them or anywhere to transfer the water.

The latest disclosures add to a long list of recent accidents, leaks and breakdowns that have underscored grave vulnerabilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site more than two years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami set off meltdowns at three reactors.

Anyway, here is my question: how the hell would the Florida Keys evacuate past the plant? We all know most of Homestead is brain-damaged -- proof: their voting record (see glossy flyer below for an example of a candidate I consider unfit to serve that will probably win) but the nearly 100,000 people in the Keys need to get past the plant without getting radiated. They didn't vote nearly as badly as Homestead, they don't deserve radiation.

Besides, most of Homestead likes the nuke plant: Go figure. They don't even need evacuation, they can stick around and melt join in with their buddies.

Lynda Bell Puppet and Husband, Proud Nuke Supporter.

Remember, we are in hurricane territory also vulnerable by weather. The New York Times went on to say:

...it has become increasingly clear that the latest problems may be too large for the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, to handle.

Tepco has built nearly 1,000 tanks at the sprawling complex to store as many as 335,000 tons of contaminated water, the product of coolant pumped into the reactors to keep their cores from overheating, and groundwater pouring into their breached basements at a rate of 400 tons a day. This week, Tepco said one tank had sprung a huge leak.

400 tons is 95,600 gallons a day. 335,000 tons of water is 80,282,750 gallons. Where are you going to put 80 million gallons of toxic water (that is almost as much water used in New York City in a day)? What if it happened at Turkey Point? Lynda Bell's house is not water-tight. Also there isn't much room there for the 275,000 people that could be displaced (that is Japan's number), or the thousands of bags of contaminated topsoil that would have to be scraped off the land. Forget about staying at the Redland Hotel.

Click here for an outstanding new video of the Fukushima tsunami in 2011. Keep in mind: all those ordinary Japanese milling about as the waters receded, curious and captured on camera, had no clue their lives would be turned upside down and inside out in thirty minutes. We don't have earthquakes in South Florida, but if you think we are better prepared than this videographer for a black swan event at Turkey Point, dream on.

Video does not work on phone. Watch it on your computer.

The Miami Herald: As The Sea Really Rises ... by gimleteye

Mark the date: Monday, December 3, 2012. That's the day The Miami Herald opinion page noted science of climate change, including impacts of sea level rise, and planted its flag in favor of allocating taxpayer resources to the real costs to South Florida, as the sea rises. The immediate occasion involves the critical defects of the wastewater system serving 2 million residents, requiring a minimum $1.5 billion and probably a lot more.

What took so long? Let the Herald answer that question, please.

Readers deserve to know, because for decades scientists and conservationists have taken it on the chin from right-wing ideologues who successfully used the radical right message machine to throttle debate and thwart the advancement of public policies protecting future citizens, voters, and taxpayers.

They could have used a little back up from the Fourth Estate.

In its OPED, "Yes to the sewer system overhaul", the Herald writes: "Critics and environmentalists have long questioned the wisdom of putting a waste-water treatment plant on the picturesque island (just as they wonder why it was a government dump site at one time). Now, say clean-water activists and other supporters of Virginia Key’s habitat restoration, is the time to get rid of that treatment plant once and for all. Their reasoning is that, in 50 years, the land the plant sits on will likely be under water thanks to the effects of climate change. This is science talking." There it is: this is science talking.

The Herald acknowledges "county commissioners hate raising water and sewer fees." What The Herald does not say, is that the reason is not out of concern for taxpayers. If they were concerned for taxpayers, local government would not have allowed many billions of infrastructure deficits to pile up as they have. No. The reason county commissioners hate raising water and sewer fees is that it increases the cost of development and housing for its most important constituents in the building and development industries.

Those are the industries, by the way, who substantially contribute to the Herald's bottom line. We call it: The Growth Machine.

Now that the Herald acknowledges sea level rise and its costs, the city's only daily newspaper must help the community connect the dots to other decisions that need to factor in global warming: like Florida Power and Light's doomed plan to invest $20 billion in ratepayer money into two new nuclear reactors that will most certainly need to be decommissioned within the service lifetime of the project.

Local and state decisions favoring the new nuclear reactors are piling straight into the back of the Nuclear Regulator Commission's August moratorium on licensing new nuclear reactors and upgrades until the waste storage issues are solved.

If the Herald is serious about sea level rise, it needs to speak out now on the ill-advised plans for Turkey Point. That would lead the Herald to begin the long-avoided conversation about permitting more construction and development in wetlands and farmland and condos on the coast. And what about roadways and transportation infrastructure: as if the recent flooding of Alton Road or A1A in Fort Lauderdale on an ordinary high tide isn't enough of a red flag ...

But first, there is more pressing business: Art Basel Miami Beach. First things, first!

The Japan Nuke Disaster Could Happen in Miami Dade County. By Geniusofdespair

The Miami Herald Op Ed piece claims the Japan disaster at Fukushima could happen at Turkey Point. The authors say that the cascade of events in Japan, causing widespread radiation leaks, was the result of 3 electrical system failures and because the emergency generators failed. They say:

Turkey Point is just as reliant as Fukushima on offsite electricity, emergency electrical generators and batteries. Vulnerable equipment includes transmission lines, the switchyard, the cable spreading room and the control room. Electrical failures can be caused by accidents (explosions, fires, hurricanes, flooding) and by manmade incidents (sabotage, terrorism, hostile military actions).

Currently, Florida Power & Light (FPL) is trying to secure the permits and licenses to build two new nuclear reactors at the Turkey Point site, in addition to the two reactors already there.

These proposed reactors, essentially, are experimental. They are based on new designs from Toshiba/Westinghouse that have never been tested or operated commercially at full scale. This new reactor design, the AP1000, has drawn substantial criticism on safety issues. One major issue is that the steel inner-containment structure is barely strong enough to keep radioactivity from escaping during a “design basis accident.” This leaves little margin for error when the steel containment structure eventually corrodes and loses strength. Such corrosion is a common problem in older reactors.

Aside from safety they point to economic issues:

At a time when governments, businesses and families are struggling to reduce their debts, it is irresponsible to ask American taxpayers to provide billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees for unsafe nuclear power plants — plants that private investors will not fund because they are just too risky.


As the stomach turns, remember the Japanese Nuke Reactors have been leaking radioactivity since March (over 6 months now), here is recent news about Fukushima's Nukes:

Japanese officials said they have found, for the first time, small amounts of plutonium from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant as far as 28 miles away. At a Tokyo news conference, federal officials announced the first discovery of leaked plutonium outside the immediate vicinity of the power plant, as well as radioactive strontium in 45 spots as far as 50 miles from the reactors, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Yomiuri Shimbun said plutonium was found in six locations, all within the evacuation zone. It can take as long as 24,000 years for plutonium isotopes to degrade and lose half their radiation, the Journal said.

The government report said both elements were found at "extremely low" levels and recommended officials concentrate more on cleaning up high concentrations of radioactive cesium in the area. The cleanup cost at the nuclear site alone is estimated at $5 billion for the coming year, the Journal said.

Meltdown: not just a metaphor ... by gimleteye

Since we are on the topic of meltdowns, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz draws a parallel between the financial meltdown and the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan. The FPL lobbyists and executives who read our blog may believe it from Stiglitz if not from me: "Meltdown: not just a metaphor: Vested interests cause both our financial system and the nuclear industry to compulsively underestimate risk. This is an excellent OPED, I urge you to read it. (Click, read more)
Wednesday 6
April 2011

The consequences of the Japanese earthquake – especially the ongoing crisis
at the Fukushima nuclear power plant – resonate grimly for observers of the
American financial crash that precipitated the Great Recession. Both events
provide stark lessons about risks, and about how badly markets and societies
can manage them.

Of course, in one sense, there is no comparison between the tragedy of the
earthquake – which has left more than 25,000 people dead or missing – and
the financial crisis, to which no such acute physical suffering can be
attributed. But when it comes to the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, there is
a common theme in the two events.

Experts in both the nuclear and finance industries assured us that new
technology had all but eliminated the risk of catastrophe. Events proved
them wrong: not only did the risks exist, but their consequences were so
enormous that they easily erased all the supposed benefits of the systems
that industry leaders promoted.

Before the Great Recession, America's economic gurus – from the head of the
Federal Reserve to the titans of finance – boasted that we had learned to
master risk. "Innovative" financial instruments such as derivatives and
credit default swaps enabled the distribution of risk throughout the
economy. We now know that they deluded not only the rest of society, but
even themselves.

These wizards of finance, it turned out, didn't understand the intricacies
of risk, let alone the dangers posed by "fat-tail distributions" – a
statistical term for rare events with huge consequences, sometimes called
"black swans". Events that were supposed to happen once in a century – or
even once in the lifetime of the universe – seemed to happen every 10 years.
Worse, not only was the frequency of these events vastly underestimated; so
was the astronomical damage they would cause – something like the meltdowns
that keep dogging the nuclear industry.

Research in economics and psychology helps us understand why we do such a
bad job in managing these risks. We have little empirical basis for judging
rare events, so it is difficult to arrive at good estimates. In such
circumstances, more than wishful thinking can come into play: we might have
few incentives to think hard at all. On the contrary, when others bear the
costs of mistakes, the incentives favour self-delusion. A system that
socialises losses and privatises gains is doomed to mismanage risk.

Indeed, the entire financial sector was rife with agency problems and
externalities. Ratings agencies had incentives to give good ratings to the
high-risk securities produced by the investment banks that were paying them.
Mortgage originators bore no consequences for their irresponsibility, and
even those who engaged in predatory lending or created and marketed
securities that were designed to lose did so in ways that insulated them
from civil and criminal prosecution.

This brings us to the next question: are there other "black swan" events
waiting to happen? Unfortunately, some of the really big risks that we face
today are most likely not even rare events. The good news is that such risks
can be controlled at little or no cost. The bad news is that doing so faces
strong political opposition – for there are people who profit from the
status quo.

We have seen two of the big risks in recent years, but have done little to
bring them under control. By some accounts, how the last crisis was managed
may have increased the risk of a future financial meltdown.

Too-big-to-fail banks, and the markets in which they participate, now know
that they can expect to be bailed out if they get into trouble. As a result
of this moral hazard, these banks can borrow on favourable terms, giving
them a competitive advantage based not on superior performance, but on
political strength. While some of the excesses in risk-taking have been
curbed, predatory lending and unregulated trading in obscure,
over-the-counter derivatives continue. Incentive structures that encourage
excess risk-taking remain virtually unchanged.

So, too, while Germany has shut down its older nuclear reactors, in the US
and elsewhere, even plants that have the same flawed design as Fukushima
continue to operate. The nuclear industry's very existence is dependent on
hidden public subsidies – costs borne by society in the event of nuclear
disaster, as well as the costs of the still-unmanaged disposal of nuclear
waste. So much for unfettered capitalism!

For the planet, there is one more risk, which, like the other two, is almost
a certainty: global warming and climate change. If there were other planets
to which we could move at low cost in the event of the almost certain
outcome predicted by scientists, one could argue that this is a risk worth
taking. But there aren't, so it isn't.

The costs of reducing emissions pale in comparison to the possible risks the
world faces. And that is true even if we rule out the nuclear option (the
costs of which were always underestimated). To be sure, coal and oil
companies would suffer, and big polluting countries – like the US – would
obviously pay a higher price than those with a less profligate lifestyle.

In the end, those gambling in Las Vegas lose more than they gain. As a
society, we are gambling – with our big banks, with our nuclear power
facilities, with our planet. As in Las Vegas, the lucky few – the bankers
that put our economy at risk and the owners of energy companies that put our
planet at risk – may walk off with a mint. But on average and almost
certainly, we as a society, like all gamblers, will lose.
That, unfortunately, is a lesson of Japan's disaster that we continue to
ignore at our peril.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/06/japan-nuclear
power

The Point About FPL Turkey Point Nuclear? It is on top of a sponge ... by gimleteye

An uncontrolled flow of highly radioactive water is seeping into the sea and groundwater surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Over the weekend, Japanese workers tried to plug a crack around the concrete base of a storage facility at Unit 2 where radioactive water had pooled, with no success. This morning's news: radioactive iodine has been detected at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility. What would happen if radioactive water were spilled from crippled nuclear reactors at Turkey Point or its external storage pools for spent fuel? We know the answer. (Please click, read more)

In 2007 we reported on the impact of 1992 Hurricane Andrew on the two nuclear reactors, Unit 3 and Unit 4. The NRC wrote in its 1993 summary, "Hurricane Andrew is historic because this is the first time that a hurricane significantly affected a commercial nuclear power plant. The eye of the storm, with sustained winds of up to 233 kilometers per hour (km/h) [145 miles per hour (mph)] and gusts of 282 km/h (175 mph), passed over the Turkey Point site and caused extensive onsite and offsite damage. The onsite damage included loss of all offsite power for more than 5 days, complete loss of communication systems, closing of the access road, and damage to the fire protection and security systems and warehouse facilities. However... the units remained in a stable condition and functioned as designed."

But what if the storm had been sprawling and the storm surge knocked out roadways and infrastructure surrounding the plant, and what if the backup power generation failed and sufficient cool water could not be supplied to the reactors or the spent fuel rod pond? Hurricane or black swan event: we know what would happen if radioactive water was released in significant quantities at Turkey Point.

We have the answer because Turkey Point is releasing highly saline water, the byproduct of steam generation, that has been pushing westward for many years. According to its 1972 license and subsequent amendments with the state, FPL is obligated to contain its superheated outflow water within a system of cooling canals, 168 miles long and compressed into a serpentine formation within its 11,000 acre facility in South Dade. Neither FPL nor the state of Florida, through the South Florida Water Management District, can live up to its legal commitments with respect to this issue.

At the Fukushima nuclear plant, cracks in concrete armor are providing a direct convection route to the sea. There would be no such struggle to contain a leak at Turkey Point with a radioactive spill because the rock bed underneath Turkey Point, called Karst formation limestone, and the entire region is full of holes as a sponge. Radioactive water would follow the same path that the highly saline water is demonstrably following now: westward into the porous aquifer underlying farmland, industrial rock mines, and suburbs. (In fact, it is through the release of trace amounts of a radioactive isotope called tritium. FPL calls the issue "harmless" and is otherwise silent on this subject, too.)

FPL is pushing forward two new reactors through a permitting process that the Miami Dade county commission should have held up until important safety questions including coolant water supply were answered. When the unreformable majority had a chance to hold up the application, it rolled over like a spayed spaniel.

Draw that exclusion radius around Turkey Point. In Japan, the radius for evacuation is 20km or 30km depending on who you trust. Here, a whole number of FPL executives and lobbyists live within that radius and are paid big bucks for gambling that everyone else can live with the risk they have imposed. The final nature of that risk was well described in an Orlando Sentinel editorial last weekend by a retired chemist living in Gainesville, Lee Bidgood. "Even more ominous than the cancer is the threat to future generations — that's what you ought to be really afraid of." The problem, of course, is that future generations don't show up on 20 year depreciation schedules or in compensation plans for advocates and executives charged with nuclear power investments.

Bidgood is right: "It's the genetic damage, the possibility of sowing bad seeds into the gene pool from which future generations are drawn. There will be a buildup of defective genes into the population. It won't be noticed until it's too late. Then we'll never root it out, never get rid of it. It will be totally irreversible."

Recently, UK Guardian writer Thomas Noyes asked the question whether nuclear energy is being priced right. "The total costs of coal may be high, but the total costs of nuclear power are, in any meaningful sense, incalculable... I don't see why I or anyone should apologise for advocating developing energy resources that don't blow up and take their investors with them." Or grandchildren who will be saddled with the expense of decommissioning nuclear reactors built at sea level before the ratepaying base of FPL disappears from South Florida, entirely, under the pressure of climate change.

A disaster, they say, could never happen here unless it does in which case sitting on porous limestone will lead to questions: what were voters drinking when they elected officials who supported nuclear power in South Florida?

FPL's good investment. By Geniusofdespair

Looks like FPL will get the nod to raise rates by 1 billion over 5 years. Their cost: They hired 30 State lobbyists and doled out campaign contributions to State legislators and Governor candidates of $4 million. The bills say they don't need approval of State regulators. It will stifle any competition and we don't get to sell power to the grid. They invest $5 million or so between lobbyists and campaign contributions and they get back $1 billion in return. Screwed; us not them. Money well spent; them not us. They are getting all powered up for the two new nuclear reactors: At our expense.

Also your insurance rates are going to skyrocket.

So Rick Scott and the legislature are going to let business run wild while we pick up the tab. And forget about if you are injured: They are curbing lawsuit awards too! Privatizing jails, f--king teachers, the police union, and State workers, soon your job will be caught in the cross-hairs. They talk about lower taxes as they raise our electric and insurance bills, what good is that? Oh, it helps business.

We are getting screwed so many different ways, I don't know where to turn.

Reactionary farmers in South Dade most at risk from nuclear power at Turkey Point ... by gimleteye

Property rights extremists in South Dade have long fueled the battle against environmental protections and government "interference" through regulations governing zoning (ie. Urban Development Boundary), wetlands, and public lands like Everglades National Park. They have been friends to the monster next door: two aging and vulnerable nuclear reactors at Turkey Point whose failing cooling canals are speeding the intrusion of highly saline salt water into fresh water aquifers. Never mind a nuclear meltdown: there is no plan to reverse the salt water intrusion that is expanding toward South Dade farmland and residential areas. With a recent uprate of the nuclear power facility, the salt water intrusion will likely increase in velocity. (But hey, what do I know: I'm not a nuclear engineer.) The inconvenient fact of salt water intrusion has raised alarm of a nearby rock miner, ACI. But rock miners, as an industry, and farmers too are so locked into their opposition for environmental rules and regulations, what is happening at Turkey Point seems more like an act of God than of men who don't have the courage to prevent certain devastating consequences of industrial practices could have been contained by better rules and laws, a long long time ago in Miami Dade and the nation. The hubris is worthy of a Greek tragedy. (But no one goes to the theater unless it is a revival of a Broadway sequel at the Performing Arsht Center.) One of the saddest details of the nuclear catastrophe in Japan is the extent to which farmers in the region -- including farmers who have been on their land for more than 15 generations-- are finished. According to The New York Times, "At least one farmer has been pushed over the edge. The newspaper The Asahi Shimbun reported recently that a 64-year-old farmer in Sukagawa, a city in Fukushima, killed himself one day after the government imposed a ban on the sale of cabbages from the prefecture." 15 Generations. Count them, South Dade farmers.

Farming that values and is respectful of land and environmental values should be treasured by all consumers and taxpayers. Unfortunately, that counts out the farmers who are property speculators in South Dade and who turned South Florida's last rural landscape into a junior version of Kendall. It all happened in a heartbeat during the late, great land rush and housing bubble. No one went to jail for it, but there should have been laws. (Instead, what the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott are now poised to do, is use the Depression to give a "free get out of jail" card to every farmer and land speculator in the state to build whatever they want, whenever they want to, eviscerating what remains of growth management.) Environmentalists were as powerless to stop the South Dade land bankers and farmers (Bill Losner, James Humble, Bob Eppling et al), as the fresh water lens supplying fresh water to agriculture and people can resist the salt water plume generated by the existing nuclear reactors at Florida Power and Light. Too bad, you won't read or hear this view about the reactionary extremist farmers in the mainstream press. Read about the fate of Japanese farmers as reported in The New York Times by clicking 'read more'. Imagine, if it happened here how quickly those same farmers who belittle environmental protections in Miami-Dade would be screaming bloody murder.
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March 29, 2011
Japan Nuclear Crisis Erodes Farmers’ Livelihoods
By MICHAEL WINES
TOWA, Japan — If Japan’s leaders regard the collapse of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex as this nation’s greatest crisis in decades, Saichi Sato has a different perspective. From where he sits in this leafy village of 8,000 about 25 miles from Daiichi, he says, this is the greatest crisis in 400 years.

Mr. Sato, 59, is a 17th-generation family farmer, a proprietor of 14 acres of greenhouses and fields where he grows rice, tomatoes, spinach and other vegetables. Or did grow: Last week, the national government banned the sale of farm products not just from Towa, but also from a stretch of north-central Japan extending south almost to Tokyo, for fear that they had been tainted with radiation.

Already, Mr. Sato stands to lose a fifth of his income because of the ban. If the government cannot contain the Daiichi disaster, he could lose a farm that his family has tended since the 1600s.

“Even if it’s not safe, I need my fields for my work,” he said. “I have no other place to go. I don’t even want to think about escaping from my land.”

Here and elsewhere in Fukushima Prefecture, the region hit hardest by the nuclear crisis, farmers are worried about their future — and convinced, like Mr. Sato, that the government is not on their side.

In interviews, several said they believed that leaders in Tokyo had mishandled the Daiichi disaster, sending conflicting signals on radiation dangers that fed panic among citizens. And they nurse a grievance, justified or otherwise, that in this moment of national peril the powers that be have thought first about Tokyo and only later about the hinterlands that are hurting the most.

And they are clearly hurting. Japan depends heavily on foreign suppliers for most food, but up to 80 percent of all vegetables are locally grown. Fukushima’s 70,000 commercial farmers produce more than $2.4 billion worth of spinach, tomatoes, milk and other popular foods a year.

The government’s ban on produce sales last week stopped that industry — and those in three adjacent prefectures to the south, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma — in their tracks. Across the region, farmers are dumping millions of gallons of milk and tons of ripe vegetables into pits and streams, unable to sell their products legally on the open market.

“I can’t keep going for too long,” said Kenzo Sasaki, 70, who milks 18 cows on a farm outside the city of Fukushima, the local capital. Mr. Sasaki estimates that he is losing nearly $31,000 — not including the cost of feeding his herd — for every month that the sales ban continues.

Across town, Shoichi Abe, 62, milks about 30 cows in his own dingy barn. He has been unable to sell his 1,100 pounds of daily production since the March 11 earthquake damaged the milk-processing plant at the local farm co-op.

Now the government has extended that prohibition indefinitely.

Mr. Abe said, “It’s costing us 70,000 yen a day” — about $860.

“We have no income,” he said, “and the truth is that we don’t want to continue this. All the agriculture is gone. The consumers don’t want to buy products from Fukushima Prefecture, so we can’t sell them. It’s the rumor problem.”

To a person, the farmers say their products are safe to eat and drink. None of the growers interviewed had been visited by anyone seeking to monitor radiation on their land. The government’s radiation readings — to the extent that they have been publicized — have been ambiguous at best.

The government has ordered residents to leave a zone within 12 miles of the stricken Fukushima nuclear complex, while American regulators have suggested that people stay at least 50 miles away from the plant. Officials in the city of Fukushima, about 40 miles from the stricken reactor, have regularly posted analyses of radiation levels in drinking water — levels that approached official safety limits early on, but that have since dropped.

Outside the city, however, readings have been spotty, and some local residents feel overlooked. “They found radiation in the water in Tokyo, so they announced about Tokyo,” said Miyoko Abe, 57, the wife of a Fukushima diary farmer, referring to radiation reports that caused a run on bottled water in Tokyo last week. “But we know nothing about water north of Tokyo. The government is trying only to protect Tokyo.

“Maybe the prime minister is hiding in the nuclear shelter,” she said. “We don’t see him anywhere.”

More confusing to growers and consumers alike is the opaque official stance on what is safe and unsafe to buy and eat. The National Health Ministry, which had no limits on radiation in food, scrambled to set safety standards after the Fukushima crisis erupted. The new provisional rules, modeled on international criteria, generally deem a food unsafe if consuming it daily for one year would be likely to cause health problems.

Japanese officials began by banning the sales of only certain foods, including spinach and milk, which are especially prone to absorbing radiation. But the ban was later extended to a broad range of produce, even as officials stressed that the radiation level in any single product was not dangerous for anyone who consumed it at ordinary levels.

Farmers say the ambiguity has effectively shut down their sales. “We think we’ll lose 80 percent of our income,” Ryuji Togashi, who runs a Towa-area farmer’s co-op store, said last weekend. “We’ve been damaged by rumor. People think that all our vegetables are affected by radiation. We can’t even sell the products that aren’t affected.”

The central government has promised that farmers will be compensated for their losses, and Fukushima officials have urged growers to keep records documenting crops that are thrown away and milk that is dumped. But how farmers will be paid, and how much, remains in limbo.

The government has said that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the Fukushima reactors, may be held liable for farm losses, but the utility has yet to address the issue. Farmers say the government’s record on compensating them for losses from other problems like bird flu and mad cow disease does not inspire confidence.

“What the government offers is much less than what we expect,” said Mr. Sasaki, the dairy farmer. “It has always been like this. But this time, we’re on the edge.”

At least one farmer has been pushed over the edge. The newspaper The Asahi Shimbun reported recently that a 64-year-old farmer in Sukagawa, a city in Fukushima, killed himself one day after the government imposed a ban on the sale of cabbages from the prefecture.

The farmer, who was not identified, was reported to have lost his house in the earthquake but had a field of 7,500 organically grown cabbages ready for harvest when the prohibition was announced.

“Vegetables in Fukushima are finished,” his son quoted him as saying.

Miami Dade political candidates and nuclear power ... by gimleteye

It is horrible what is unfolding in Japan, with news alternately hopeful and dismal. Tokyo Electric Power, that owns the nuclear reactors, is using the same shuck and jive that we are accustomed to from FPL. IE: permit now, worry later. For the most part the mainstream media has been silent on the question: do the candidates in Miami Dade for mayor and county commissioner support new nuclear at Turkey Point? Do they trust FPL? Are they prepared to pledge that they will volunteer as first responders inside the reactors if workers are needed to clean up the mess when cooling reactors at Turkey Point fail? Click 'read more', for the latest from the Washington Post:
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Radiation levels at Japan nuclear plant reach new highs as conditions worsen for workers

By Chico Harlan and Michael Chandler, Sunday, March 27, 9:49 AM

TOKYO — Workers were evacuated Sunday from one of the contaminated turbine buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after a massive spike in radioactivity measurements. But the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the facility, said hours later that the reading was a mistake.

A Tepco official said leaked water from the unit 2 reactor will be retested in an effort to determine the level of contamination. Tepco had initially detected levels of radioactive iodine-134 at 10 million times higher than normal in the reactor’s cooling system, and they didn’t recognize the error until hours later, officials said. A similar pool of standing water, measured from the turbine building in the No. 3 unit, shows contamination levels some 10,000 times higher than normal.

The latest setbacks in the operation to stave off a full-scale nuclear meltdown at the crippled facility have underscored the confusion and highlighted the immense challenges for the several hundred workers in a desperate battle to restart the critical cooling systems. Seventeen workers have been exposed to high levels of radiation, including three who were hospitalized last week, as technicians conducted highly nuanced electrical work in dark conditions that one nuclear industry expert termed “hellish.”

Japanese authorities say efforts to control Fukushima’s overheated reactors will take months and during that time radiation will continue to leak into the environment, extending a nuclear emergency that already ranks as the most serious in a quarter-century. Some 700 workers now shoulder the responsibility for limiting the crisis, amid potentially lethal radiation levels, and Saturday the chief of Japan’s nuclear agency called on Tepco to improve its worker safety.

A series of setbacks -- with evidence of rising contamination in and around the plant -- have tempered optimism from one week ago, when engineers began work to restore power to the first of the damaged reactor buildings. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Sunday that a new measurement of seawater taken some 1,000 feet from the facility showed an iodine level 1850.5 times the legal limit, higher than a reading taken the previous day.

Tepco said it miscalculated the radioactivity measurement in the unit 2 turbine building because the data for iodine-134, which was announced earlier, was in reality the data of cobalt-56, which has a longer half-life. Despite the erroneous reading of the water, conditions remained dangerous in the turbine building, with airborne radioactivity measuring four times the occupational limit for workers.

The dangers in unit 2 merely add to the growing challenges. Radioactive water is pooling in four of Fukushima’s six turbine rooms and engineers have no quick way to clean it up, though they have begun efforts to do so in unit 1.

To stabilize the facility, workers are trying to repair the elaborate cooling system, necessary to keep the reactor cores and spent fuel pools from overheating. But for the moment, they are conducting this work in dark, steamy conditions. They must wear respirators, face masks and bulky suits. Nuclear safety experts say they must shift out of the most dangerous areas every 30 minutes to an hour, to prevent radiation overexposure. Meantime, they’re racing to repair motor pumps the size of automobiles. Their environment resembles a cavern of cables. Some of the equipment was damaged during the March 11, earthquake and tsunami. Other equipment has been corroded by saltwater, which was poured into the facility during earlier efforts to cool the reactors.

“To a layman, you’d be scared to death,” said Lake Barrett, a nuclear engineer who directed the cleanup of Three Mile Island. “You’re working with saltwater around your feet. This is not the way electricians usually work.”

Barrett added that cleanup of the radioactive water will eventually require Japanese authorities to use mineralizers or ion exchange columns, used in decontamination. Barrett said there could be 1 million gallons of radioactive water pooling in the Fukushima facility — the result of days of spraying thousands of tons of seawater.

“It will take them years, probably, to get rid of all that water,” Barrett said. “The science is known. But it is a Herculean task.”

The number of workers at the Fukushima plant fluctuates from day to day, ranging between 500 and 1,000. But Tepco employees account for only a part of the labor force. Last Tuesday, for instance, there were 700 people at the plant, a nuclear agency official said. The figure included 500 Tepco employees, 100 subcontracted workers, and 100 members of Japan’s Self Defense Forces or the Tokyo Fire Department.

Three workers from the electrical engineering firm Kandenko were injured Thursday while trying to lay an underground cable at the No. 3 unit. They stepped in radioactive water, and two of the employees who were hospitalized with “significant skin contamination,” according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Association.

The workers' legs were exposed to two to six sieverts of radioactivity, the IAEA said. Those exposed to more than one sievert often experience temporary sickness, including vomiting. Higher exposure levels can quickly become life-threatening, but the National Institute of Radiological Science said that the two employees will likely be released from the hospital Monday.

Tepco spokesperson Yoshimi Hitosugi said that the utility company did not know about the contaminated water in the No. 3 unit until the injuries occurred. "There was no water in No. 3 the day before when our staff checked same place," Hitosugi said. “So we thought it would not be problem on next day.”

One subcontracted worker who laid cables for new electrical lines March 19 described chaotic conditions and lax supervision that made him nervous. Masataka Hishida said neither he nor the workers around him were given a dosimeter, a device used to measure one’s exposure to radiation. He was surprised that workers were not given special shoes; rather, they were told to put plastic bags over their street shoes. When he was trying on the gas mask for the first time, he said the supervisor told him and other subcontractors, “Listen carefully, I’m only going to say this one time” while explaining how to use it.

When Hishida finished his work shift, an official scanned his whole body for radiation. He came up clean, except for the very tip of his beard. He was sent into a shower where he lathered up and scrubbed his beard. He was tested again and passed.

A few days later, still worried about the extent of his radiation exposure, he trimmed his beard.

harlanc@washpost.com

Staff writer David Nakamura and special correspondents Kyoko Tanaka, Akiko Yamamoto and Kato Tetsuya contributed to this report.


© 2011 The Washington Post Company

Nuclear disaster could never happen in Miami, but if it did... By gimleteye

I am upset with FPL's "charm offensive" on its record at Turkey Point with nuclear power and plans for two new reactors to cost in excess of $20 billion. Here is a very sobering message, I hope all ratepayers take to heart. What to do? Write your US senators and President Obama. Tell them: there is no role for nuclear power at sea level on hurricane-vulnerable coastlines.

Survivor's Message for Japan: 'Run Away as Quickly as Possible'
Mar 22, 2011 – 1:23 PM

Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in
the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant
in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told
to report to the wrecked, burning plant in the northern Ukraine.

It was just four days after the world's biggest nuclear disaster spewed
enormous amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and forced the evacuation
of 100,000 people.

Manzurova and her colleagues were among the roughly 800,000 "cleaners" or
"liquidators" in charge of the removal and burial of all the contamination
in what's still called the dead zone.

Courtesy of Natalia Manzurova
Natalia Manzurova, shown here in 1988 in the "dead zone" of the Pripyat, is
one of the relatively few survivors among those directly involved in the
cleanup of Chernobyl.
She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was
less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. The plant workers lived
there before they were abruptly evacuated.

Manzurova, now 59 and an advocate for radiation victims worldwide, has the
"Chernobyl necklace" -- a scar on her throat from the removal of her thyroid
-- and myriad health problems. But unlike the rest of her team members, who
she said have all died from the results of radiation poisoning, and many
other liquidators, she's alive.

AOL News spoke with Manzurova about the nuclear disaster in Japan with the
help of a translator on the telephone Monday from Vermont. Manzurova, who
still lives in Ozersk, was beginning a one-week informational tour.

AOL News: What was your first reaction when you heard about Fukushima?
Manzurova: It felt like déjà vu. I felt so worried for the people of Japan
and the children especially. I know the experience that awaits them.

But experts say Fukushima is not as bad as Chernobyl.
Every nuclear accident is different, and the impact cannot be truly measured
for years. The government does not always tell the truth. Many will never
return to their homes. Their lives will be divided into two parts: before
and after Fukushima. They'll worry about their health and their children's
health. The government will probably say there was not that much radiation
and that it didn't harm them. And the government will probably not
compensate them for all that they've lost. What they lost can't be
calculated.

What message do you have for Japan?
Run away as quickly as possible. Don't wait. Save yourself and don't rely on
the government because the government lies. They don't want you to know the
truth because the nuclear industry is so powerful.

Courtesy of Natalia Manzurova
Natalia Manzurova, now 59, has suffered a variety of ailments since she
worked at Chernobyl, but she says she is the only member of her team still
alive.
When you were called to go to Chernobyl, did you know how bad it was there?
I had no idea and never knew the true scope until much later. It was all
covered in secrecy. I went there as a professional because I was told to --
but if I was asked to liquidate such an accident today, I'd never agree. The
sacrifices the Fukushima workers are making are too high because the nuclear
industry was developed in such a way that the executives don't hold
themselves accountable to the human beings who have to clean up a disaster.
It's like nuclear slavery.

What was your first impression of Chernobyl?
It was like a war zone where a neutron bomb had gone off. I always felt I
was in the middle of a war where the enemy was invisible. All the houses and
buildings were intact with all the furniture, but there wasn't a single
person left. Just deep silence everywhere. Sometimes I felt I was the only
person alive on a strange planet. There are really no words to describe it.

What did your work as a liquidator entail?
First, we measured radiation levels and got vegetation samples to see how
high the contamination was. Then bulldozers dug holes in the ground and we
buried everything -- houses, animals, everything. There were some wild
animals that were still alive, and we had to kill them and put them in the
holes.

Were any pets left in the houses?
The people had only a few hours to leave, and they weren't allowed to take
their dogs or cats with them. The radiation stays in animals' fur and they
can't be cleaned, so they had to be abandoned. That's why people were crying
when they left. All the animals left behind in the houses were like
dried-out mummies. But we found one dog that was still alive.

Where did you find the dog and how did he survive?
We moved into a former kindergarten to use as a laboratory and we found her
lying in one of the children's cots there. Her legs were all burned from the
radiation and she was half blind. Her eyes were all clouded from the
radiation. She was slowly dying.

Were you able to rescue her?
No. Right after we moved in, she disappeared. And this is the amazing part.
A month later we found her in the children's ward of the (abandoned)
hospital. She was dead. She was lying in a child's bed, the same size bed we
found her in the kindergarten. Later we found out that she loved children
very much and was always around them.

How did working in the dead zone begin to affect your health?
I started to feel as if I had the flu. I would get a high temperature and
start to shiver. What happens during first contact with radiation is that
your good flora is depleted and the bad flora starts to flourish. I suddenly
wanted to sleep all the time and eat a lot. It was the organism getting all
the energy out.

How much radiation were you subjected to?
We were never told. We wore dosimeters which measured radiation and we
submitted them to the bosses, but they never gave us the results.

But didn't you realize the danger and want to leave?
Yes, I knew the danger. All sorts of things happened. One colleague stepped
into a rainwater pool and the soles of his feet burned off inside his boots.
But I felt it was my duty to stay. I was like a firefighter. Imagine if your
house was burning and the firemen came and then left because they thought it
was too dangerous.

When did you discover the thyroid tumor?
They found it during a routine medical inspection after I had worked there
several years. It turned out to be benign. I don't know when it started to
develop. I had an operation to remove half the thyroid gland. The tumor grew
back, and last year I had the other half removed. I live on (thyroid)
hormones now.

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Why did you go back to Chernobyl after getting a thyroid tumor?
Right around the time of my operation, the government passed a law saying
the liquidators had to work for exactly 4 1/2 years to get our pension and
retire. If you left even one day early, you would not get any benefits.

Really? That seems beyond cruel.
It's why the nuclear industry is dangerous. They want to deny the dangers.
They kept changing the law about what benefits we'd get because if they
admitted how much we were affected, it would look bad for the industry. Now
we hardly get any benefits.

Did your health worsen after you finally finished work at Chernobyl?
I was basically disabled at 43. I was having fits similar to epileptic fits.
My blood pressure was sky high. It was hard to work for more than six months
a year. The doctors didn't know what to do with me. They wanted to put me in
a psychiatric ward and call me crazy. Finally they admitted it was because
of the radiation.

Florida Power and Light Nuclear at Turkey Point: where promises turn to salt ... by gimleteye

The nuclear disaster in Japan is unfolding according to events inside the crippled reactors that could never be imagined by people who live within its poisoned radius. In a similar accident at Turkey Point, more than a million people could find themselves in the same state of bewildered disbelief from places of refuge far, far from their homes and possessions. Consider the formation of hundreds of thousands of pounds of salt within the damaged reactors as salt water boils off. Here in South Florida, FPL -- the operator of two aging nuclear reactors with plans for two more moving forward supported by the county commission-- insists that nothing similar could happen and that its reactors are operating at the highest levels of safety. Wrong, on both counts.

FPL Turkey Point has a history of safety problems at the edge of Biscayne National Park. Its current design, to cool the superheated water from the reactors, depend on a "radiator" of cooling canals immediately adjacent to the plant. FPL also built a perimeter canal whose promised purpose was to prevent salt water intrusion. Indisputably, the perimeter canal has failed, sending an underground flood of salt water toward population centers in South Dade.

This salt water front threatens farming and drinking water wells. Rock mining is particularly vulnerable because the contamination of crushed rock by salt renders it unusable for construction. FPL not only denies the nuclear power plants are causing this problem, it has failed to abide by terms of prior agreements and commitments with the state of Florida, represented in this instance by the South Florida Water Management District.

Salt and broken promises at Turkey Point: not only do these reactors continue to run, they have recently been "uprated" to create more power... and speed the intrusion of salt water inland through the Biscayne Aquifer. As far as the two new reactors are concerned, plans for emergency backup power include the use of water directly from Biscayne Bay. In the case of an accident at Turkey Point requiring salt water to cool the plants-- if a hurricane causes power outages to stop the flow of fresh water-- Biscayne Bay and communities surrounding its waters could be at direct risk. FPL asks neighbors to stay cool, calm and collected, but based on its current operations, the company has already violated the public trust.

God's Whim, Nuclear Reactors, and the ethics of the Miami-Dade County Commission ... by gimleteye

It takes a nuclear disaster to flush out the hypocrisy of elected officials who suddenly appear concerned about public health and welfare related to nuclear power. Just wait. On Monday, the questions from the mainstream media to Miami Dade county public officials will start pouring in: could the same thing that is happening in Japan, happen here? Then you will hear a lot of hemming and hawing. How we are not in an earthquake zone. How we have adequate back up power even in the event of a major hurricane. How FPL is working closely with regulators to ensure the highest degree of safety at Turkey Point.

What exactly is happening in Japan with failure of nuclear reactors, is the question. The public in Japan is not being informed. The "experts" recruited to appear on CNN and Fox News have talking points not worth their weight in air. When a nuclear reactor fails, not even the nuclear scientists-- much less politicians-- can tell you what exactly is going to happen next.

So: would you in the same situation, with Turkey Point possibly melting down, stay or flee? Based on what I know about ethical behavior of our county officials and FPL related to nuclear power, the first hint of a problem at Turkey Point, my family is in a car headed to Palm Beach and points north. I'm not waiting for FPL to "get its story right" or for the evacuation routes to be impassible. (for more detail, see our archive under "Turkey Point" and "Florida Power and Light")

Yesterday I suggested that Miami-Dade County Commissioners suit up and fly to Japan to be involved in hands-on efforts to prevent the reactors from melting down, giving them a taste of what it is like to be in the vicinity of God's whim. I volunteered that EOM readers should contribute to their airplane fares. Yes, our county commissioners have done the bidding for two creaky, aging nuclear reactors owned by a private corporation, Florida Power and Light, that are already threatening public health and property through unplanned infection of salt water into the drinking water aquifer.

What is tragically unfolding in Japan is instructive about nuclear power facilities particular to Miami, at sea level and straight in the path of the occasional Category 5 hurricane. Tomorrow FPL will say, the opposite. Expect our elected officials to have "no comment". Will you trust them? Do you trust the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that has given FPL a free pass to avoid the thorniest questions about inserting two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point? Nuclear reactors are safe until they are not safe. Once the tipping point flips from "in control" to "out of control", you are not going to get any better information than the citizens living in the vicinity of the failing reactors in Japan.

When things go wrong at Turkey Point, Miami-Dade county commissioners will vanish like smoke. Then, from a somber command center, a mayor and officials will gather around a podium with the seal of Miami-Dade County in the background. They will tell everyone to stay calm. FPL will push out its spin that everything is in control-- like the desperate problem of salt water intrusion in Homestead and Florida City-- until it is not.

One solution: criminalize decision-making by politicians that kills people and wrecks property. It would go something like this: for permitting a nuclear power plant that subsequently fails, politicians responsible for votes allowing permitting decisions at the time, shall be stripped of all their assets, held in bank accounts or trust, and property. The right for the public to reclaim shall extend two generations so that grandchildren, too, would be required to forfeit their possessions, held in name or trust, based on decisions their grandfathers or grandmothers made as public servants. If you didn't vote for the decision that resulted, ultimately, in loss of life and property, then you are not penalized. On their rescue mission to Japan, our Miami Dade County Commissioners could work out the exact text.

Japan nuclear plant disaster: rescuers should include the Miami Dade County Commission ... by gimleteye

The Miami Dade County Commission, lead by Pepe Diaz and Joe Martinez and Natacha Seijas, has rolled over for FPL every step of the way to construction of two new nuclear reactors at sea level in South Dade. Between a hundred year hurricane and sea level rise, it is a certainty that Turkey Point will-- one way or another-- be cut off from electric supplies required to operate back ups. Your elected officials see no problem with this, so I suggest sending the Miami Dade County Commission and let them put on the suits and gear to go in and get some on the ground experience by visiting the failing reactors in Japan. Let them get a taste of their own medicine. As for the seriousness of this video that just appeared on the net, I watched on CNN last night a shill for the nuclear industry explain how what was happening in Japan is not so bad. That the main problem is not radioactive emissions into the atmosphere, he said, but "fear". Since "fear" is something we can easily overcome, I say let's pay for the plane tickets for the Miami Dade County Commissioners to go to Japan right away.

For FPL Bigwig Jeff Bartel, corporate responsibility is whatever he wants ... by gimleteye

There is nothing more appalling in public life than the way electric utilities force ratepayers to pay for megaprojects costing billions, like new nuclear power at Turkey Point, that put the hammer on local government in ways that distort democracy beyond recognition. Care about wetlands protection, water quality, water supply in South Florida? FPL makes it up, on the spot.

Here is a specific demonstration how FPL executives act like royalty. Last week, FPL Vice President for Compliance and Corporate Responsibility Jeff Bartel strong-armed local city commissioners in Coral Gables to approve, on appeal, a variance for his home in Hammock Lakes. The affluent area has site-specific zoning, but Mr. Compliance got his variance from compliance and approval to double square footage. Most people never have a chance at any variance in the Gables. For me, I'd just like to walk my dog off leash once and a while.

So how did Bartel demonstrate his "responsibility"? He did it by putting five well-known attorneys/lobbyists in the front row at the city commission, facing two city commissioners who are up for re-election, including Greenberg Traurig's black hat land use lobbyist, Lucia Dougherty. Compliance is not in the eye of the beholder: it is in the eye of owner of the beholder. The oligarchy is alive and well in Florida.