GET WET! & OAPB Work to Help St. Lucie River

Oxbridge Academy senior Robbie Linck, of Palm Beach, interns at BioTools and helps unlock mystery to cause of toxic algae bloom in St. Lucie Estuary.

Oxbridge student helps unlock mystery of toxic algae bloom

When people ask Robbie Linck, a senior at Oxbridge Academy, how he spent his summer vacation, they won’t get the usual answer of a family trip or a part-time job. The aspiring young scientist spent his summer as a research intern at BioTools, a Jupiter firm, conducting scientific research to help unlock the mystery to the cause of the recent toxic algae bloom in the St. Lucie River and estuary. He will present a paper on his finding in October at the American Water Resources Association’s annual Water Resources Conference in Portland, Ore.

Mr. Linck is one of four Oxbridge Academy students who interned at the biotech firm. The others are senior Gabrielle Gray-Case, junior Sarah Garelick and sophomore Alexa Perry.

“My internship functions as a way of assisting my research into the St. Lucie River Watershed,” said Mr. Linck, 17, who lives in Palm Beach. “The data I extract through the water evaluation I’m doing at BioTools will be used as part of my presentation at the annual Water Resources Conference in October as well as for the paper I’ll be publishing this winter.” Mr. Linck uses BioTools’ “Bio-Raman” microscope to determine the presence or absence of sugars within water samples collected from the St. Lucie watershed.

Mr. Linck’s research involves analyzing water samples taken from the watershed contributing flows into the St. Lucie estuary to determine the presence of sucralose, an indicator compound for the presence of human feces. His findings could help determine if improperly functioning septic systems are a major contributing factor to the algae growth in the area waterways.

He’s “an amazing student,” says Oxbridge science teacher Teresa Thornton. “Working with the Get Wet Organization, Robbie and other Oxbridge students assisted middle school students with collecting water samples in a number of private wells around the St. Lucie Estuary. His research involves analysis of those water samples and then analyzing the results and modeling the watershed dynamics to determine potential impacts. It’s the beginning of long-term research,” she said. “Once we have more samples, it could assist the government in decision-making regarding practices that have an impact on the water quality in that area.”

In addition to the practical applications of his research to add to the body of knowledge being used to pinpoint the source of algae growth in the St. Lucie River, Mr. Linck is developing proficiency within a professional bio lab. “I’m gaining valuable experience using specific instruments in my research, the likes of which can almost exclusively be found within pharmaceutical companies and collegiate laboratories,” he said.

BioTool research scientist Juanita Sanchez is supervising the aspiring scientist’s work. “I like the way that Robbie approaches the issue,” she said. “He has so many questions about our methods and techniques. He has done a lot of independent research himself and that takes him to another level. He’s one of the students I will always remember.” ¦

For full article: http://palmbeach.floridaweekly.com/news/2017-08-17/Top_News/Oxbridge_student_helps_unlock_mystery_of_toxic_alg.html

EPA’s Environmental Financial Advisory Board Meeting

The board, which advises the EPA on finance, will meet on August 22-23, in Overland Park, Kansas. On the agenda are public-private partnerships for water infrastructure, financing for failing septic systems, lead pipe replacements, and more.

Poland Spring Water is committing ‘colossal fraud,’ lawsuit says

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A lawsuit claims that Poland Spring Water is deceiving consumers with evergreen labels that say their bottle contains “100 percent natural spring water” that hails from Maine.

The class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Connecticut claims that parent company Nestle Waters North America is bottling common groundwater that doesn’t meet the federal definition of spring water.

A Nestle Waters representative says the water meets all relevant federal and state regulations for spring water.

Nestle Waters settled a 2003 Connecticut lawsuit claiming Poland Spring’s water was not sourced deep in the Maine woods.

The lawsuit comes as the Stamford, Connecticut-based company embarks on an expansion in Maine amid rising demand for bottled water.

Nestle is seeking state approval to source water from a public water district well in Lincoln.

FOR MORE INFO: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/18/oland-spring-water-is-committing-colossal-fraud-lawsuit-says.html

Army Corps gives input in Florida-Georiga water war

By Lloyd Dunkelberger, News Service of Florida;

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a key player in Florida’s decades-old legal fight with Georgia over water flow in the Apalachicola River, has weighed into the pending case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The federal agency’s comments, which were filed in a brief Monday, are important because a special master has recommended that Florida’s claim for relief be denied because the Corps, which controls water flow through the region in a series of dams and reservoirs, was not directly involved in the lawsuit.

“Because the Corps is not a party, no decree entered by this court can mandate any change in the Corps’ operations in the basin,” Ralph Lancaster wrote in his special master’s report in February. “Without the ability to bind the Corps, I am not persuaded that the court can assure Florida the relief it seeks.”

In its brief, the federal agency said it was possible that the U.S. Supreme Court could impose a water-use cap on Georgia without requiring the Corps to change its policies for handling the dams and reservoirs in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.

“It thus may remain possible to design a consumption cap that would provide Florida with additional water at some points without any alteration of the Corps’ operations, as Florida contends,” the Corps’ brief said.

But the federal agency also said a court ruling requiring more extensive changes in the water-flow policies in the region would have to be viewed as “part of the constellation of laws to be considered by the Corps when deciding how best to operate the federal projects in the ACF (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint) basin for their congressionally authorized purposes.”

“It is impossible to define the limits of the Corps’ ability to make those releases consistent without knowing the precise contours of the decree and implications for other project purposes and storage regimens,” the brief said.

The brief also warned there is the “significant and difficult question” as to whether any additional water releases would be permitted under the already approved “master manual,” an operating guide for the water-control system in the region.

The Corps agreed this year to provide 621 million gallons per day to Georgia cities from the Lake Lanier reservoir near Atlanta. Florida opposed that decision, and environmental groups and the state of Alabama are challenging the decision in separate lawsuits.

The Corps’ brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case is the latest step in the costly, protracted dispute between Florida and Georgia that resulted in a 2013 lawsuit alleging Georgia diverts too much water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system and that the diversions have damaged Apalachicola Bay and Franklin County’s seafood industry, including its signature oysters.

Georgia, which wants the Supreme Court to adopt the special master’s recommendation, has countered that any limits on its water use will undermine its economy, including the growth of the Atlanta area and the state’s agriculture industry in southeastern Georgia.

In a brief filed this summer, Florida asked the Supreme Court to reject the special master’s report and return the case for more deliberation.

Late last month, Florida’s entire congressional delegation, including the two U.S. senators, wrote a letter to President Donald Trump asking that the administration and the Corps remain “neutral” in the dispute.

“Rather than intervening in Florida v. Georgia, it is our hope that the (Corps) will instead take all steps possible within its existing authorities to manage vital basins, including the ACF, in ways that protect downstream ecosystems and the communities that rely on them,” the delegation wrote.

In Tallahassee on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said he had not seen the Corps’ brief but added, “I haven’t been enamored by the way the Corps of Engineers has handled this issue.”

Nelson said the Corps’ historic control of the water flow in the river basin has “starved” the Apalachicola River and Apalachicola Bay of the natural mix of freshwater and saltwater, which is critical to the oyster population.

Asked if he was confident that Florida would win a favorable decision from the Supreme Court, Nelson said: “I’m confident that at the end of the day the right thing is what should be done. The right thing is, all right, Georgia, you’ve got to start sharing your water like Mother Nature intended, instead of holding it all up for you.”

FOR MORE INFO: http://www.theledger.com/news/20170808/army-corps-gives-input-in-florida-georiga-water-war

GROUND WATER EDUCATION AND TESTING PROGRAM REACHES OVER 150 STUDENTS, OSSIPEE NH

June 9, 2017 Published in General

Students from eight classrooms in six schools across the Ossipee Watershed participated in Ground Water Education through Water Evaluation and Testing (known by its acronym GET WET), facilitated by Green Mountain Conservation Group’s Education Coordinator, Dr. Karen Deighan.

Sandwich Central School, Freedom Elementary School, Cornerstone Christian Academy, Ossipee Central School, K.A. Brett School and Molly Ockett Middle School all took part in this hands-on science based program that teaches local youth about groundwater and stratified drift aquifers.

GET WET provides students an opportunity to use the science they are learning in the classroom and apply it to their lives by testing their own well water.

Dr. Theresa Thornton founded GET WET specifically for rural areas that depend largely on private wells for drinking water. Students in the Ossipee Watershed learned how to collect samples of their well water following a protocol and then bringing it into the classroom to test their water for six parameters: pH, iron, conductivity, hardness, chloride and nitrates.

The program also helps students learn how to create a long-term database of groundwater quality data. When the testing was complete, students analyzed their data and found the latitude and longitude coordinates of their wells using Google Earth which allowed them to see their collective results in the form of graphs and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps.

Classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, Green Mountain Conservation Group staff and volunteers, including Noreen Downs and Maud Anderson helped guide students through these scientific procedures.

To learn more about GET WET or any of Green Mountain Conservation Group’s other educational programs, contact Karen Deighan at Green Mountain Conservation Group at 539-1859 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..”>education@gmcg.org. GET WET is partially funded through the Quimby Foundation and NHDES, Local Source Water Protection Grant funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

Read more at the Conway Daily Sun: http://www.conwaydailysun.com/community/6071-general/131711-ground-water-education-and-testing-program-reaches-over-150-students

Trump administration to propose repealing rule giving EPA broad authority over water pollution

Tidal saltmarsh in coastal Washington. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

President Trump’s administration will revoke a rule that gives the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority over regulating the pollution of wetlands and tributaries that run into the nation’s largest rivers, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Tuesday.

Testifying before Congress, Pruitt — who earlier said he would recuse himself from working on active litigation related to the rule — said that the agency would “provide clarity” by “withdrawing” the rule and reverting standards to those adopted in 2008.

Pruitt, as Oklahoma attorney general, had sued EPA over the regulation, saying it “usurps” state authority, “unlawfully broadens” the definition of waters of the United States and imposes “numerous and costly obligations” on landowners.

A withdrawal was expected, based on the executive order Trump signed in February targeting the rule. But this is the first clear signal of how the EPA will act on the president’s order.

The current rule, known as Waters of the United States (WOTUS), unambiguously gives EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers authority that many think the agencies already possessed under the Clean Water Act. The 1972 law gave the agencies control over navigable rivers and interstate waterways, but a series of court rulings left the extent of that power ambiguous. The Obama administration sought to end a decade of confusion by finalizing the WOTUS rule, which took effect in August 2015, triggering protests from a variety of real estate development, agricultural and industrial interests.

The existing regulation covers wetlands adjacent to either traditional navigable waters or interstate waters, as well as streams serving as tributaries to navigable waters. The rule says that wetlands and tributaries must be “relatively permanent,” a phrase used in previous court opinions, which means they can be intermittent. Defining it this way extends federal jurisdiction to 60 percent of the water bodies in the United States.

Trump signed an executive order in late February calling on EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to revisit the regulation, a move he described as “paving the way for the elimination of this very destructive and horrible rule.”

[Trump, calling Obama-era clean water rule “a massive power grab” instructs his deputies to rewrite it]

The executive order instructed the agencies to change the interpretation of a 2006 Supreme Court decision on what falls under the federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. In the Rapanos v. United States decision, the court split three ways. Its four most conservative justices at the time offered a very constrained view that only “navigable waters” met this test. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who refused to join either the conservatives or the liberals, said in a concurring opinion that the government could intervene when there was a “significant nexus” between large water bodies and smaller, as well as intermittent, ones.

Trump’s executive order said that federal officials should rely on the dissenting opinion of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who argued the law should only apply to “navigable waters.” No court has ever ruled that this test is the single decisive threshold for triggering Clean Water Act protections.

“This proposal strikes directly at public health,” Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “It would strip out needed protections for the streams that feed drinking water sources for 1 in every 3 Americans.” She called it a “reckless attack on our waters and health.”

Pruitt told senators in testimony Tuesday that the Obama-era rule “created a situation where farmers and ranchers, landowners across the country did not know whether their stream or dry creek bed, in some instances, was actually subject … to EPA jurisdiction and EPA authority.” He said that “they were facing fines that were substantial as they engaged in earth work to build subdivisions — I mean, it was something that created a substantial amount of uncertainty and confusion.”

But Suh said that the repeal of WOTUS “would make it easier for irresponsible developers and others to contaminate our waters and send the pollution downstream.”

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that “from vernal pools in California to prairie pothole ponds in the Midwest, small wetlands provide essential habitat to hundreds of endangered species, birds and migrating wildlife.”

Foes of the WOTUS rule hailed the administration’s plans to revoke it.

“The West has finally won in the battle over the Obama administration’s WOTUS rule,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.). “This regulation would have been a disaster for rural communities in the West and across the country, giving Washington near-total control over water resources.”

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association chief executive Jim Matheson said that as written, the rule “would have increased costs and impaired the ability of co-ops to build and maintain power lines.” He urged EPA and the Army Corps to propose “a new common-sense rule.”

The administration’s push to revoke the rule has sparked nearly 500,000 public comments, many of which urge the federal government to preserve the existing regulation.

After taking comment on repealing the rule and reaching a final decision, EPA will have to craft its own proposed rule for defining which waters deserve federal protection under the 1972 law. That new regulation, which will be subject to public comment, will very likely be challenged in federal court by environmental and outdoors groups.

Jo Ellen Darcy, who co-authored the Obama-era rule as assistant secretary of the Army for civil works and now sits on the board of the advocacy group American Rivers, questioned why the new administration would revisit a regulation that received more than 1 million comments and drew on more than 1,200 peer-reviewed studies.

“By tossing out years of scientific study and public input, Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration are muddying the very waters the Clean Water Rule sought to clarify,” Darcy said.

Brady Dennis contributed to this report.

FOR FULL STORY: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/27/trump-administration-to-propose-repealing-rule-giving-epa-broad-authority-over-water-pollution/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_epawater-9pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3b55204d2b8f

Slashed Funds to Help Rural America Keep Farm Pollution Out of Drinking Water

Contact:

Alex Formuzis

(202) 667-6982

alex@ewg.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2017

WASHINGTON – Rural Americans were key to President Trump’s election, but the president’s proposed budget would reward their support by allowing more animal waste, toxic pesticides and fertilizer pollution in their drinking water, said EWG.

“President Trump has put a dirty-water bullseye on the backs of the very same voters who swept him into office,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at EWG. “If the president’s plan to cut programs that protect clean drinking water in farm country becomes law, his most ardent supporters will see even more manure, pesticides and nitrates fouling their drinking water sources than they do now.”

Recent image from a Nebraska rest stop.

Trump’s budget proposal seeks to eliminate or slash federal funding for a number of vital programs that help states and rural communities deal with water pollution, much of which comes from polluted runoff from corn and soybean fields and factory farms.

One water protection program targeted for elimination is the Environmental Protection Agency’s 319 grant program for nonpoint source pollution. Trump is calling for zeroing out its budget of $164 million. Under the program, rural communities “receive grant money to support a wide variety of activities” to help mitigate water pollution, including from agriculture and forestry operations.

EPA estimates that its nonpoint source pollution program has “partially or fully restored 674 water bodies” in the U.S. Success stories of this initiative abound for virtually every state in the country, including Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio and Michigan.

In Iowa alone, there are 124 nonpoint source pollution projects that are either ongoing or completed. Exposure to nitrates in drinking water has been linked to higher rates of thyroid, bladder and ovarian cancer, and can lead to so-called blue baby syndrome, which can be fatal to infants under 6 months old.

The original article: http://www.ewg.org/release/trump-budget-slashes-funds-help-rural-america-keep-farm-pollution-out-drinking-water

Nestle doesn’t believe water is a human right. Now they’re taking it.

A Nestlé bottled water factory in Stanwood, Mich., produces up to 1,200 bottles a minute and is served by seven nearby wells drawing up to 250 gallons of spring water a minute.CreditGary Howe for The New York Times

Where Nestlé Guzzles Water, Locals Doubt Claims of Negligible Impact

By STEVE FRIESSMAY 24, 2017

EVART, Mich. — The creek behind Maryann Borden’s house was once “a lovely little stream that just babbled along and never changed for decades,” she says. Now it is perhaps 12 feet across — half what it was, she reckons — with grassy islands impeding what used to be an uninterrupted flow.

“What happened?” Ms. Borden asked. “Nestlé happened. That’s what I think.” A lot of her neighbors think so, too.

Nestlé can pump more than 130 million gallons of water a year from a well near this northwestern Michigan town to bottle and sell. It’s a big business: Last year, for the first time, bottled water outsold carbonated soft drinks in the United States.

And now Nestlé wants more. It has applied to increase its pumping allowance at the well by 60 percent. The application, which the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is expected to rule on within months, has catalyzed opposition in part because of what Nestlé pays for most of the water it bottles: nothing. That is, it pays only a $200 annual permit fee to pump from wells it owns (like this one) or leases.

Continue reading the main story

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-8/html/container.html#eid=21060239

“Having anybody take away some of the very best water that should be going into the creeks and the Muskegon River and eventually Lake Michigan, that’s a big deal,” said Jeff Ostahowski, vice president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, who lives 25 miles from Evart. “That Nestlé does it for free? That’s just crazy.”

Actually, it is standard; landowners and commercial businesses have long had rights in much of the United States to use as much water as they want free if they drill and pump it themselves. Even customers on municipal water systems technically pay not for the water they use but for infrastructure and energy to deliver it.

Still, in a state where access to clean, affordable water, most notably in Flint and Detroit, has dominated the news, it offends many that a foreign company can profit from bottling so much for so little. Even in this deeply conservative corner of rural America, fear of environmental despoliation and a sense of being exploited is propelling many to denounce Nestlé’s demand for more.

Maryann Borden near her home in Evart, Mich. “I can’t understand how they can take so much,” she said of Nestlé’s water pumping. “How does it recover from that massive removal?” CreditGary Howe for The New York Times

Other major industries use far more water for the same $200 permit fee — Pfizer, for instance, used 6.9 billion gallons in 2015 for its medicine factory near Kalamazoo, according to state data — but most of that water is returned to the same watershed after use, Nestlé critics note.

The scale of Nestlé’s operation in this sparsely populated region about 180 miles northwest of Detroit is immense. The company packages an average of 4.8 million bottles of water a day — more than 3,000 a minute — with all lines running at a plant about 40 miles south of Evart, said David Sommer, the factory manager.

That plant draws water from nine wells, including two owned by the City of Evart for which it pays the local municipal water rate of $3.50 per thousand gallons. Two are on the factory site and the other five are scattered around two rural counties, including the White Pines well near Evart that is the subject of the increase request.

All that pumping produces the spring water Ice Mountain label sold across the Upper Midwest and the filtered water line Pure Life, a national line. Spring water, defined as coming from sources that flow naturally at the land’s surface, sells for more because it is perceived to be more authentic and healthier, Nestlé officials say.

“Spring water is a very different thing, a precious source,” said Nelson Switzer, chief sustainability officer for Nestlé Waters North America. “We bring that to the people, that convenience, that ability to reseal, to take it with them, to have it when they need it. That’s a very unique idea, a distinction.”

To win over the state environmental agency, Nestlé must convince officials that it is a good steward of the environment. Arlene Anderson-Vincent, Nestlé’s natural resources manager for Michigan, insisted, “We never take out more than nature’s bringing back in.”

Evart’s city manager, Zackary Szakacs, supports Nestlé, asserting that the company’s purchase of water from city-owned wells keeps costs low for the 2,000 residents of a community with a $19,000 median income. The company also pays for an environmental protection fund, new public recreational facilities and, more recently, for scientists and expertise to purify a city well Nestlé found to be tainted by perchlorate, a thyroid toxin.

“There’s so much water in Osceola County, it’s unbelievable,” said Mr. Szakacs, who says he has not observed changes in the waterways. “We’re so fortunate. We have a partnership with Nestlé Ice Mountain. It’s a good partnership. We’re just trying to survive so the town will live another 100 years.”

Ms. Borden says the stream that has long babbled along her property is about half the size it used to be, and she suspects Nestlé’s insatiable thirst is to blame. CreditGary Howe for The New York Times

Opposition is strong, though. In April, the zoning board in Osceola Township, the unincorporated area outside Evart where the White Pines well sits, voted 5 to 0 to reject Nestlé’s application to build a $500,000 facility that would increase its current ability to pump if the state allows it.

Nestlé is appealing that ruling, saying the booster station is the most efficient way to move the increased water. If the company is unable to build the station, it may widen an existing pipeline or truck the water to the factory, Ms. Anderson-Vincent said.

There is no conclusive scientific data that Nestlé has depleted or altered the ecosystem. Even local hydrologists troubled by Nestlé’s operations acknowledge that the accusations of damage are supported largely by anecdotal observations like those of Ms. Borden or of anglers who say the creek’s stock of trout has diminished.

“We’ve heard their arguments, but we haven’t seen any of their science,” Mr. Switzer said. “Believe me, over and over we’ve asked, invited them to come in and talk with us. Let’s not forget we have 17 years of data, rigorous science with over 100 monitoring points that demonstrate rigorously that what we are doing does not have a significant impact.”

Local opponents say those assertions are misleading. Mr. Ostahowski said he and other environmentalists had never been offered a chance to review Nestlé’s raw data. They note that Nestlé’s request initially failed when it was run through the state’s Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool, a formula aimed at determining whether pumping will harm the ecosystem.

Nestlé persuaded officials to look at the data differently, arguing that the tool was too conservative, and in the second rendering the state found that the increased pumping would not harm the local environment.

Melody Kindraka, a spokeswoman for the state environmental agency, said the department “is still in the process of reviewing and verifying all the information we have received.” No timeline was given for its decision.

In these parts, though, longtime residents like Ms. Borden say common sense might be a better guide than science.

“The math doesn’t add up,” she said, staring at the creek she has lived beside since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. “I can’t understand how they can take so much. How does it recover from that massive removal? It’s millions of gallons. It doesn’t go back into our aquifer, because they’re putting it in a bottle and shipping it somewhere else.”

Correction: May 24, 2017
An earlier version of this article misidentified the entity for which Nelson Switzer is chief sustainability officer. It is Nestlé Waters North America, not Nestlé USA.

Human Feces or Fertilizer? The TEST!

Hidden Oaks Middle School in Stuart Florida is a school who has residents that live along the St. Lucie River. Some research states that algae from Lake Okeechobee dumps are causing problems in the lagoon and some are stating that septic system failures in the watershed are creating a food source for the algae creating a toxic megabloom.

Students from Oxbridge Academy’s (https://www.oapb.org/) Field Research Class and Quantitative and Qualitative Research class are working with middle school students from hidden Oaks Middle to help them test their private well waters for nitrates. Additional samples are taken to the BioTools Laboratory in the Jupiter area to test for sucralose, a marker for human feces. Students will be able to learn about water quality issues in their area, if their waters are compromised, and ways they might be able to protect their source waters. AnOxbridge student will be mapping the fate and transport of the quantified sucralose levels in a GIS program and presenting his results at the AWRA Conference in Oregon November 2017.

FPL Wins Battle to Store Radioactive Waste Under Miami’s Drinking Water Aquifer

Full video: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/fpl-wins-battle-to-store-radioactive-waste-under-miamis-drinking-water-aquifer-9059210

by Jerry Iannelli

South Florida sits atop two gigantic underground stores of water: the Biscayne and Floridan Aquifers. Miamians get most of their drinking water from the upper Biscayne Aquifer, while the government has used the lower portion of the Floridian to dump waste and untreated sewage — despite the fact that multiple studies have warned that waste could one day seep into the drinking water.

So environmentalists are concerned that Florida Power & Light now wants to dump full-on radioactive waste into the that lower water table, called the Boulder Zone. A small group of activists called Citizens Allied for Safe Energy (CASE) tried to stop FPL’s plan, but their legal petition was shot down this past Friday.

According to NRC documents, CASE’s petition was dismissed for being filed “inexcusably late” in FPL’s application process.

“This was thrown out on procedural grounds,” says CASE’s president, Barry J. White. “The science is still there.”

CASE had filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the NRC on Friday threw out CASE’s complaint, saying the environmental group had filed too late in FPL’s approval process.

The fight stems from the energy company’s plan to build two nuclear reactors at the controversial Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station south of Miami by roughly 2030. The towers might not be operational for a decade or two, but that doesn’t mean the public should stop paying attention to them. FPL is submitting numerous proposals about the project to the government.

As part of that package, FPL told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it plans to store contaminated water used to clean the reactors, as well as radioactive waste (“radwaste”) in the Boulder Zone. In October, the NRC issued a report, stating FPL’s plan would pose “no environmental impacts” to the South Florida environment.

“Everything will be put into a supposedly ‘hermetically sealed’ Boulder Zone,” White told New Times in December. “But anybody who lives in South Florida knows nothing below us is hermetically sealed.” Environmentalists say the plan could leak carcinogens such as cesium, strontium 90, and tritium right into the drinking-water aquifers.

An FPL spokesperson Friday provided the following statement to New Times:

After an exhaustive and comprehensive review of the proposed Turkey Point Units 6 & 7 project, including the plans to safely use reclaimed water for cooling, the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff concluded ‘…there are no environmental impacts to preclude issuing Combined Licenses to build and operate two reactors next to the existing Turkey Point nuclear power plant.”

But CASE’s November complaint cited both government data and FPL’s own engineers, who admitted in separate hearings that waste could leak upward from the Boulder Zone into the Biscayne Aquifer.

For one, 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.” CASE’s petition says the NRC failed to address this issue.

Likewise, “an upward hydraulic gradient from the Floridan [Aquifer] to the Biscayne [Aquifer],” an FPL engineer testified in January 2016. “The Floridan is under pressure. Therefore, you have flow from the Floridan into the Biscayne and not vice versa.”

Since filing that complaint, CASE also uncovered yet another government study, which confirms the Boulder Zone can leak into “underground sources of drinking water” in South Florida.

The 2015 study, from the United States Geological Survey, says that numerous tectonic faults and other fissures exist under Biscayne Bay and the “Miami Terrace,” the seafloor immediately east of the Miami shoreline.

The report states flatly:

Recent studies by the U.S. Geological Survey of seismic-reflection profiles acquired in onshore canals and offshore in Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic continental shelf have indicated the presence of tectonic faults (one strike-slip fault and multiple reverse faults) and karst collapse structures, and these studies substantiate the utility of this approach for locating feasible vertical-fluid flow pathways. 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.

“The evidence is so strong that it’s doubtful the zone is ‘hermetically sealed,'” White says.

FPL contends that any radioactive-waste discharges will be carefully monitored to ensure they won’t leak. But the company’s credibility with the public is not in good shape. Early last year, Miami-Dade County officials said cooling canals from Turkey Point were already leaking waste into Biscayne Bay — the ordeal, and FPL’s alleged refusal to take proper responsibility for the damage, led to a lawsuit.

Now, White says, he and CASE plan to lobby state lawmakers to try to outlaw injections into the Boulder Zone through state law. To put things mildly, CASE is fighting an uphill battle: FPL is one of the largest campaign donors in Florida politics.

Here is the NRC’s full rejection letter: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/fpl-wins-battle-to-store-radioactive-waste-under-miamis-drinking-water-aquifer-9059210

Oxbridge Academy senior Robbie Linck, of Palm Beach, interns at BioTools and helps unlock mystery to cause of toxic algae bloom in St. Lucie Estuary.

Oxbridge student helps unlock mystery of toxic algae bloom

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By Lloyd Dunkelberger, News Service of Florida;

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June 9, 2017 Published in General

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Tidal saltmarsh in coastal Washington. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

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Full video: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/fpl-wins-battle-to-store-radioactive-waste-under-miamis-drinking-water-aquifer-9059210

Roughly a month later, on November 28, CASE filed a legal petition demanding that the NRC hold a hearing on FPL’s radioactive waste plan. CASE alleges the government failed to address a host of concerns about the power company’s plan.

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