press release
March 01, 2025
Is Turkey Point Prepared for Future Risks
by Rachel Silverstein, Ph.D. (Miami Waterkeeper and CEO, Miami Waterkeeper) and Edward R. Ornstein, Esq. (Deputy General Counsel, Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida)
MIAMI (FL), updated February 23, 2025 / 9:56 AM / Miami Herald - Miami’s aging nuclear plant, Turkey Point, has been granted a license to operate through 2053—an unprecedented 20-year lifeline beyond its current expiration date. The Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has granted this license extension despite ongoing safety concerns, including contamination of our drinking water aquifer and clear risks from heat, storms, and flooding. Given this, it’s fair to question whether this plant is prepared for the coming decades. That’s why Miami Waterkeeper has appealed this licensing decision. And not for the first time.
Driven by concerns over reliance on unsustainable fossil fuels, many Americans are open to promises of improved, safer nuclear energy technologies. In the words of President-Elect Donald Trump, “Fears about nuclear power are really about a few disasters [like] Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and that these are old systems, and that they’re much more capable now and they’re capable of making even better systems.” But Turkey Point is not a new system. It’s older than Chernobyl and Three Mile Island—and only a year younger than Fukushima. If Turkey Point’s latest license extension holds, it will be operating half a century beyond the end of its original 30-year license. It will be the world’s only reactor depending on unlined and open cooling canals. Moreover, the seawalls are feet shorter than the worst storm surge in recent memory, when Hurricane Katrina brought surges as high as 28 feet to the Gulf Coast. By these metrics and others, Turkey Point is one of the least resilient nuclear stations in the world.
In 2022, after years of challenges and appeals by Miami Waterkeeper and our partners, Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth, the NRC overturned a similar license extension for Turkey Point. The NRC, siding with us, ordered FPL to go back to the drawing board and to take a harder look at environmental issues, including climate risks and groundwater contamination at the site. But, when FPL re-applied for the license last summer, its risk assessment still lacked meaningful analysis to reassure us, the plant’s neighbors, that its unique vulnerabilities were fully considered.
This past April, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a groundbreaking report, identifying Turkey Point as one of the most climate-vulnerable nuclear plants in the country: facing risks ranging from heat, to flooding, to storms. The Turkey Point reactors sit in a low-lying area that's vulnerable to flooding. Although the actual nuclear core is elevated, best-case-scenario flooding models from University of Florida suggest that, by 2040, the area surrounding the Turkey Point plant—including the roads in and out, the backup power, and possibly even the spent fuel that's stored on site—will likely be underwater. During 2023’s summer heat wave, the average “cooling” canals temperatures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Hurricanes are getting stronger and rainfall more intense. And yet, FPL refuses to address these risks fully—and the extreme dangers they pose for our community.
No less problematic, the plant’s unlined cooling canal system has been contaminating our fresh drinking-water supply, locked in rocks underground. This contamination has been spreading underground for decades. It's even been clocked traveling at a rate of more than one foot per day in the direction of the drinking water wellfield that serves the Florida Keys. Despite being ordered to pull the contaminated water back to its property, and for years asserting that it will, FPL has failed to fix this crisis. In a recent report, FPL now admits that its remediation isn't going to work as intended. We, the residents of South Florida, will pay the price for this contamination. But FPL is still telling the Federal Government to look the other way as our drinking water supply is contaminated.
Extending the operating license for the Turkey Point plant shouldn’t be just a bureaucratic checkbox. It's a decision with profound implications for the environment and the safety of the Miami community for decades to come. And significant questions remain: Is Turkey Point prepared for a major hurricane? Will the FPL be able to operate the reactor during flood conditions? Or as temperatures climb? Will cooling canals continue to contaminate our drinking water supply? And what about the spent fuel stored on the edge of Biscayne Bay? Before we greenlight another few decades of risky operations at the Turkey Point plant, FPL and the Federal Government must demonstrate, beyond the shred of any doubt, that the reactors will not lead to future catastrophe for Miami.