NRC approves environmental review of Turkey Point project
Federal regulators have finished a seven-year environmental impact study of Florida Power & Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point expansion project in Florida, although a safety and legal challenge remain.
In the 1,200-page review, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) say the plan to build two reactors at the Turkey Point site, located about 25 miles south of Miami, would not do damage to the local ecosystem, which includes the historically and culturally significant Florida Everglades. The agency concluded there were no environmental issues which would prevent the issuance of a combined license to build and operate the plant.
The NRC said it developed the turnkey environmental impact statement (EIS) jointly with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District. The Corps says it will use the findings of the EIS to determine if a federal permit would not run afoul of the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899.
The approval comes as FPL deals with ongoing problems with the site’s existing nuclear reactors. In March, a study by the City of Miami found high levels of a radioactive isotope linked to water from the power plant’s cooling towers. The study said sampling from December 2015 and January of this year found tritium levels 215 times higher than normal in ocean water, confirming suspicions that Turkey Point’s aging canals had been leaking radioactive material into the nearby Biscayne Bay.
FPL says it expects to complete a new well this month to freshen the canals and stop saltier water from migrating. FPL senior director Steve Scroggs told the Miami Hearld an injection well has already been dumping leaky canal water into a boulder zone below the Biscayne aquifer that supplies fresh water to the region.
“So as of September, we are draining about 15 million gallons a day of hypersaline water from under the cooling canals and disposing it back in the deep well,” he said. “That’s about 7 million pounds per day of salt from the groundwater underneath the cooling canals.”
The overall licensing review also includes a final evaluation for safety, which the NRC is still working on. Additionally, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is also conducting a hearing on a legal challenge to the application by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and other environmental groups.
“The thought of plopping down two new reactors and having no environmental impact, it’s mind-boggling,” said Sara Barczak, a director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, to the Herald. “It’s one of those locations where you just scratch your head and you think this is not the right place for this.”
-
Most popular related searches
Customer comments
No comments were found for NRC approves environmental review of Turkey Point project. Be the first to comment!