Environmental groups fight FPL nuke water disposal plan
If Florida Power & Light’s proposed Turkey Point units 6 and 7 nuclear reactors are ever built, will it be safe to inject wastewater used to cool to the reactors into deep wells in the Boulder Zone?
FPL and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission say yes, but groups who oppose the reactors, which will cost a combined $20 billion, say no. They assert that injecting the wastewater underground could contaminate the Upper Floridan Aquifer above the Boulder Zone and threaten the water supply of 3 million South Floridians.
Mindy Goldstein, an attorney and director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law, said Tuesday that more studies are needed for the NRC to make an informed dec i sion about the pote nt i a l i mpac t o f pos s i bl e upward migration of wastewater.
“The NRC and FPL continue to wish away the problem, saying upward migration would not occur,” Goldstein said.
The issue is scheduled to be he a rd May 2 b e f o re t he U. S. Nuclear Regulator y Commission’s Atomic Safety Licensing Board at Homestead City Hall.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the National Parks Conservation Association and Miami-Dade residents Capt. Dan Kipnis and Mark Oncavage intervened in the licensing proceedings.
They assert an environmental impact statement issued last year is deficient.
The intervenors say that the chemical concentrations of ethylbenzene, heptachlor, tetrachloroethylene, and toluene in the wastewater injections could adversely impact the water supply should they migrate from the Boulder Zone to the Upper Floridan Aquifer.
In an environmental impact statement in November, NRC staff and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the effect of using up to 60 million gallons of reclaimed water each day from the MiamiDade Water and Sewer Department would be “small.”
FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said Tuesday that the treated Miami-Dade wastewater would be treated further, then used to cool the reactors. It would not come into contact with nuclear components before being injected into deep wells.
“The project has been one of the most discussed, most closely scrutinized projects in the history of the state of Florida,” Robbins said. “For SACE to claim something has not been discussed or adequately researched is false.”
On Tuesday, the intervenors referred to a 40-page 2015 study that found water could migrate from the boulder zone into the lower Floridan Aquifer through “tectonic faults” or cracks and through collapsed karst, the limestone layer that was formed millions of years ago from the remains of sea creatures.
FPL operates two nuclear units at Turkey Point, about 20 miles south of Miami.