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With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning

With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning Miami Herald 19 June 09 Florida Power & Light is seeking a zoning change at Turkey Point that most environmentalists know nothing about.

BY JOHN DORSCHNER

jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

After more than two million pounds of nuclear waste has piled up in South Dade over 35 years, Florida Power & Light is quietly seeking a zoning change to allow six acres of its Turkey Point site to be used for new above-ground storage casks.

Environmentalists have known for a long time FPL planned to use casks but they knew little, if anything, about the need for a zoning change, which generally allows for public discussion that could lead to modifications of the utility’s plans……………………………….

Environmentalists emphatically want a hearing. ”There are very important issues here,” said Reynolds. “Because this site is so close to the water, we’re concerned about rising water levels with global warming and storm surges from hurricanes.”

LAST CHANCE

A county hearing may be the environmentalists’ last chance to stop expansion of the storage area. Last month, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection gave its approval for the site change.

For more than 30 years, FPL has stored the Turkey Point waste in stainless steel-lined covered concrete pools. Those pools will be filled in the next two years, Veenstra wrote in an e-mail, and FPL plans to switch to dry-cask storage in silo-shaped structures six feet wide and 16 feet tall, consisting of ”stainless steel containers secured inside concrete modules,” two to four feet thick………………………………..The environmentalists’ main concern is protecting the water. ”You’re asking for all kinds of trouble with water intrusion,” said Oncavage of the Sierra Club. “You could have hurricanes on top of global warming — how high do you have to have the casks raised so they’d be safe from storm surge?”

With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com

June 19, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radioactive, wastes