(Editor’s note: We’ve written about the dangers of Turkey Point in the past. Even Nuclear physicists have gone on record of the imminent dangers.)
South Florida sits on top of two large underground sources of water, the Biscayne and Floridan Aquifers. While Miamians get the majority of their drinking water from the upper Biscayne Aquifer, the government (of course) uses the lower portion of the Floridian to dump waste and untreated sewage. If you live on the planet Earth, that should really piss you off.
From the article:
“Environmentalists are concerned that Florida Power & Light now wants to dump full-on radioactive waste into that lower water table, called the Boulder Zone. “
Now, a small group of activists called Citizens Allied for Safe Energy (CASE) attempted to stop them, for obvious reasons, but their petition was shot down on Friday- for being too late in the application process. Nothing like government bureaucracy to make it possible to harm the environment; for our children and our children’s, children.
So, where is the full on radioactive waste coming from? The energy company’s (planned) nuclear reactors (2) at Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station south of Miami. They plan to be finished by 2030. FPL let the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission know that they planned to store contaminated water, used to clean the reactors- as well as radioactive waste- in the Boulder Zone. And sadly (it’s strange this isn’t even odd to type anymore) the NRC issued a report that FPL’s plan would pose “no environmental impacts” to the South Florida environment. Sure.
That’s why CASE filed a legal petition on November 28th demanding the NRC hold a hearing on FPL’s plan. Now, even though FPL is reassuring everyone that the waste will be “hermetically sealed,” anyone with eyes or ears has seen just what happens, over the last 5 years, when someone claims “It won’t leak,” “There will be no environmental impact because nothing could cause it to burst/break.” How stupid do they think we are? And should they leak, we’re talking about serious carcinogens like cesium, strontium 90, and tritium pouring into the drinking-water aquifers.
And CASE did their homework:
- Their complaint cited government and FPL’s own engineers data, admitting in separate hearings that waste could leak upward from the Boulder Zone into the Biscayne Aquifer.
- Also, the United States Ground Water Atlas, a government document, warns the Boulder Zone “is thought to be connected to the Atlantic Ocean, possibly about 25 miles east of Miami, where the sea floor is almost 2,800 feet deep along the Straits of Florida.”
- And, a 2015 study from the United States Geological Survey, reports numerous tectonic faults and other fissures under Biscayne Bay and the “Miami Terrace,” the seafloor immediately east of the Miami shoreline: “The strike-slip fault and karst collapse structures span confining units of the Floridan aquifer system and could provide high permeability passageways for groundwater movement. If present at or near wastewater injection utilities, these features represent a plausible physical system for the upward migration of effluent injected into the Boulder Zone to overlying U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated underground sources of drinking water in the upper part of the Floridan aquifer system.”
FPL’s credibility with the public is already akin to radioactive wastewater thanks to the leaking cooling canals from Turkey Point, and the company’s (alleged) refusal to take responsibility for the damage.
CASE isn’t done fighting but FPL is one of the largest campaign donors in Florida politics. So, good luck to them.
Ugh.
