Powering Miami: Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point Nuclear Reactors

Florida Power & Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point nuclear plant sits between the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks, directly above the Biscayne Aquifer and just 25 miles south of Miami. In 2018, FPL sought to extend the plant’s operation to 80 years despite growing concerns about climate risk, aging infrastructure, and groundwater contamination from its cooling canals. In 2022, Miami Waterkeeper’s challenge led the NRC to roll the license back to 2032 and require updated environmental reviews for nuclear plants nationwide. Since then, FPL has completed that review, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has reapproved the extension, and Miami Waterkeeper’s appeal on the license extension has been denied. The fight now continues to protect South Florida’s water, ecosystems, and communities. 

Extending an Aging Nuclear Plant

In 2018, Florida Power & Light sought a 20-year license extension that would allow the reactors to operate into the 2050s — without fully accounting for climate risks.

Miami Waterkeeper and partners stepped in. Through rigorous scientific analysis and fearless legal advocacy, we challenged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s license extension. In 2022, we won. The NRC issued two orders, one rescinding FPL’s nuclear reactor license renewal and reinstating the original license expiration date to the 2030s.  Another, requiring both a full environmental review of the impacts of operating the aging Turkey Point nuclear reactors through 2050 and an assessment of the environmental implications of all license renewal requests of nuclear power plants across the country. Soon after, the U.S. Government Accountability Office echoed our concerns, urging the NRC to fully account for climate change in nuclear licensing decisions.

This was hyperlocal advocacy with nationwide impact.

FPL’s license was granted in 2024, prompting another appeal by Miami Waterkeeper after FPL re-applied for a license extension. In March 2026, the NRC denied Miami Waterkeeper's appeal of the renewal decision, allowing the license extension to remain through 2053.

Miami Waterkeeper maintains that the current environmental review ignores critical risks. These include groundwater pollution from the plant's cooling canals, potential impacts to South Florida’s drinking water supply, and how rising sea levels and environmental threats make long-term operations riskier and unsafe.

To fight this, we have filed a new legal appeal in federal court (26-1105). We are continuing our challenge against the decision to keep the Turkey Point nuclear plant running for an additional 20 years without adequate environmental review.

Our goal is simple: to make sure federal regulators fully study the risks to our environment and public health and implement the necessary safeguards before allowing the plant to operate until 2053.

Turkey Point’s Cooling Canals

South Florida’s geology is made up of limestone, a porous rock full of holes. Water flows throughout these holes, and so do pollutants. This means contamination doesn’t stay contained and can spread through the aquifer, which is the sole source of drinking water for over four million South Florida residents. 

To cool its reactors, Turkey Point uses a massive network of open-air canals carved directly into this porous rock. Because the cooling canal system is unlined, water moves easily from the canals into the Biscayne Aquifer below, carrying with it contaminants and large quantities of salt, spreading into the Biscayne Aquifer. This dense, contaminated water has been sinking into the groundwater and then spreading for miles underground, moving closer to public drinking water supplies. 

After many legal challenges, Florida Power & Light was ordered by Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to clean up the contaminated plume. The company is currently attempting to do this through a recovery well system intended to withdraw the polluted water from the ground. However, a 2020  peer-review study of Florida Power & Light’s remediation plan progress, as well as several other independent studies and county technical reviews, found that the plan appears unlikely to meet its goals of containing and retracting the plume.