I have blogged before about problems with thermal pollution from the Florida Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station which is owned by Florida Power & Light (FPL) and is located at the southern tip of Florida on Biscayne Bay. FPL is planning on the construction of two additional reactors at Turkey Point to be completed by 2030.
The Biscayne and the Floridian Aquifers are two big aquifers under Florida which serve as the sources for drinking water for millions of Floridians. The lower part of the Floridian aquifer is known as the Boulder Zone. Currently, the state of Florida uses the Boulder Zone to dispose of untreated liquid waste. Environmentalists criticize this practice because of reports that say that contents of the Boulder Zone may leak into drinking water sources for millions of Floridians.
Now FPL has stated their intentions to pump water contaminated with radioactive materials into the Boulder Zone. The water would include water from cleaning the reactors and what is called "radwater" or radioactive water. FPL claims that there will be no impact on the environment from their plans.
The Citizens Allied for Safe Energy (CASE) watchdog group filed a legal petition late last November with respect to the FPL plan for dumping in the Boulder Zone. They demanded that FPL hold a public hearing to discuss their plan. FPL claims that their waste water in the Boulder Zone will be "hermetically sealed" and safe. CASE disputes that there can be any such "hermetically sealed" section of the Boulder Zone and that the FPL plans are a serious threat to drinking water in the area.
The CASE petition cites environmental studies and statements by FPL engineers that say that dangerous radioactive materials cesium-137, strontium-90 and tritium could leak from the Boulder Zone and migrate into the Biscayne Aquifer. The Floridian Aquifer is under the Biscayne Aquifer and it is under pressure. This can force water up into the Biscayne Aquifer that supplies water to millions of people in Florida.
There are tectonic faults under Biscayne Bay where Turkey Point is located that extend under the aquifers. Geological studies have shown that if there are waste water injection sites near those faults, the soil in that area could provide a migration path upwards from the Boulder Zone low in the Floridian aquifer to the upper level of Floridian aquifer which provides drinking water to millions of Floridians.
FPL claims that they will be carefully monitoring waste water injection for any sign of leakage. However, public trust in FPL is at a low ebb since lawsuits were filed over the leakage of waste water from the existing Turkey Point reactors into Biscayne Bay. FPL denied that there were leaks and refused to take responsibility for them which necessitated the lawsuits and resulted in a lot of negative publicity.
The petition from CASE was thrown out by the NRC because they said that the petition was filed too late. CASE has vowed to keep on fighting against the injection of waste water from Turkey Point into the Boulder Zone of the Floridian Aquifer. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to stop the FPL plans because the Republican Party dominates Florida politics and FPL is one of the largest donors to Republican state legislators.
