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Miami's Drinking Water Is Threatened by a Florida Nuclear Plant
BloombergArchived
A few miles from where American crocodiles swim by the hundreds in the cooling canals of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant, engineers are fighting an invisible threat to Miami’s drinking water.
The hulking plant, which provides power to run air conditioners and appliances for 1 million homes and businesses, sits about 25 miles south of Miami, in the middle of paradise. A few feet to its east are the azure waters of Biscayne Bay. The lush islands of the Florida Keys beckon to the south. To the west are the vast and vital Florida Everglades.
Those natural wonders obscure another feature lurking a few feet beneath the ground. A hypersaline plume of water that contains trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from Turkey Point is seeping into an aquifer that is the primary source of drinking water for more than 3 million people.
When salt water finds its way into natural stores of fresh water, it can make it unusable for drinking and irrigation. The plume emanating from Turkey Point’s canals has spread north and west, toward the region’s water wells.
“Everybody always praised us for how good our water was without any treatment,” said David Hackworth, chief engineer at the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, the utility that depends on wells near Turkey Point to supply water for millions of residents and annual visitors to the Keys. “But now, the worry is that it’s gonna creep up, it’s gonna to creep up and affect us.”
The hulking plant, which provides power to run air conditioners and appliances for 1 million homes and businesses, sits about 25 miles south of Miami, in the middle of paradise. A few feet to its east are the azure waters of Biscayne Bay. The lush islands of the Florida Keys beckon to the south. To the west are the vast and vital Florida Everglades.
Those natural wonders obscure another feature lurking a few feet beneath the ground. A hypersaline plume of water that contains trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from Turkey Point is seeping into an aquifer that is the primary source of drinking water for more than 3 million people.
When salt water finds its way into natural stores of fresh water, it can make it unusable for drinking and irrigation. The plume emanating from Turkey Point’s canals has spread north and west, toward the region’s water wells.
“Everybody always praised us for how good our water was without any treatment,” said David Hackworth, chief engineer at the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, the utility that depends on wells near Turkey Point to supply water for millions of residents and annual visitors to the Keys. “But now, the worry is that it’s gonna creep up, it’s gonna to creep up and affect us.”