Saturday, May 24, 2014

Three coincidental stories in the paper today regarding our environment...

Click here for the one regarding a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about operations at the St. Lucie Nuclear power plant run by FPL. No public attended the meeting, but some one did phone in some questions. All of them were easily answerable. From the article:
Despite controversy raised by an energy watchdog group about generator tubes at Florida Power & Light’s St. Lucie nuclear plant, ONLY ONE AREA RESIDENT [emphasis added] had any questions for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Friday.
The meeting at the Havert L. Fenn Center in Fort Pierce was attended by close to 20 FPL and NRC employees as well as by St. Lucie County Commissioner Tod Mowery and county public safety managers.
Tom Morrissey, the NRC’s senior resident inspector at the plant on Hutchinson Island said that an annual assessment found that FPL operated the plant safely and in a way that preserved the public’s health and safety and protected the environment in 2013.
And then we have this from Lake Worth's own Drew Martin about how the emphasis on the importance of trade to the region is pushing environmental issues to the back seat. He opines:
South Florida is pressed with a number of crucial decisions that could have a negative impact on our future.
One is the decision to move forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. This trade agreement, which is being negotiated with a number of our Asian trading partners, is strongly opposed by the Sierra Club.
And then we have this on the Briger Forest which says "THIS IS GO TIME" and pleads for everyone within range of the Briger tract to join them in their petition for an administrative hearing. Mr. Martin didn't mention this.
The South Florida Water Management District is not exempt from the Endangered Species Act and if approves the project will also be in violation of this federal act by approving the extermination of Eastern Indigo Snakes on the propery [sic] without having any plan for them as well as destroying 681.54 acres of Core Foraging Area of a Wood stork rookery.