Dive Brief:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed pair of reactors at the Turkey Point nuclear plant in south Florida, finding no issues that would keep the project from moving ahead after a seven-year investigation, the Miami Herald reports.

Florida Power & Light has proposed two new reactors at the plant, located 20 miles south of Miami on Biscayne Bay. But the project is currently on hold as it examines cooling canal issues and a court decision that reversed state approval of the plan.

The Miami Herald reports FPL is working on a new well to address migration of hypersalinated water into the Bay. The utility expects the cooling water wells to be refreshed by the end of the month.

Dive Insight:

FPL's plan to construct a pair of new nuclear units at Turkey Point got a boost from federal regulators this week, but the proposal is still on hold for at least a few years following a salt water plume that migrated into Biscayne Bay and forced the company to turn its attention to plugging that leak.

An FPL official told the Herald that in September the utility began draining 15 million gallons a day of hypersalinated water out of cooling canals. “That’s about 7 million pounds per day of salt from the groundwater underneath the cooling canals," he told the paper.

This summer the utility reached an agreement with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to install a recovery system to capture hypersalinated groundwater and store it away from drinking sources.

But while the utility has been dealing with the canal issues, they have also drawn attention to the plant and the proposal for new units.

The Florida Senate held hearings this year to investigate the environmental impacts from the existing plant, and in April, the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami reversed the state's decision to allow the reactors.

The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami reversed a 2014 decision by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), warning that the plan to add new reactors at the Turkey Point facility could have serious environmental implications.

But according to the NRC's report this week, the 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."

That finding left environmentalists frustrated. “The thought of plopping down two new reactors and having no environmental impact, it’s mind-boggling,” Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Director Sara Barczak told the Herald.