Nuclear panel OKs FPL wastewater injections

In a blow to those opposed to Florida Power & Light’s license application to build two nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point plant, a federal panel has agreed that the environmental impact of injecting treated, reclaimed wastewater into deep wells will be “small.”

The proposal calls for millions of gallons of wastewater containing at least four contaminants from the proposed Turkey Point 6 and 7 nuclear units’ cooling system to be injected into 13 deep wells into the Boulder Zone underlying the site overlooking Biscayne Bay south of Miami.

Intervenors have asserted that wastewater injected into the Boulder Zone, which begins at 3,030 feet below ground, could migrate up to the Middle and Upper Floridan Aquifers. The Floridan Aquifer System supplies water to millions of people and is the major source of groundwater supply in Florida.

“We’re pleased, but it is one step in a long and detailed process,” FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said Tuesday. “We continue to seek the federal licenses, and that is still our focus.”

The National Parks Conservation Association, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and MiamiDade residents Capt. Dan Kipnis and Mark Oncavage legally intervened in the federal licensing proceedings in 2010.

“From our perspective, the disappointing decision by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board doesn’t change the fact we still have serious concerns about the expansion proposal and its potential threats to Biscayne National Park and Everglades restoration,” said Caroline McLaughlin, Biscayne program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Sara Barczak, SACE’s high risk energy choice program director, said the intervenors are evaluating whether to appeal the decision.

At a May hearing in Homestead, the intervenors asserted that the project’s final environmental impact statement is deficient. The chemical concentrations of ethylbenzene, heptachlor, tetrachloroethylene and toluene in the wastewater may adversely affect the groundwater should they migrate from the Boulder Zone to the Upper Floridan Acquifer.

In a 42-page ruling issued July 10, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said the NRC staff has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that the environmental impacts of the proposed deep injection wells will be “small.”

The reasons? The wastewater is unlikely to migrate to the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and even if it did, the concentration of each of the four contaminants would be below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s primary drinking water standard and would pose no known health risk, the board wrote.

SACE’s expert Mark Quarles argued that FPL needs to conduct seismic-reflection surveys, which would provide a better way to show if upward migration could occur. The method has been endorsed by the federal U.S. Geological Survey.

Since the new reactors are not likely to be built before 2031, there is plenty of time to do such studies, Barczak said.