Florida mining waste pond (400 million gallons) in imminent danger of breach - evacuation ordered 11

[Spartan5]

300 homes threatened. Pollutant laden water being discharged to bay to stave off collapse.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article250410696.html

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

https://www.post-gazette.com/busine...sylvania-decommissioning/stories/202012010096

So what's the predictions for this then?

 

[1503-44]

Seems like somebody was going to try a smash and grab.
NRC had a change of heart in November.
Hummm, thats quite a .... coincidence.
23 Nov 2019, now what happened on that particular day... let me think...

 

[bimr]

However, trying to make a correlation between a shrinking (or expanding) state dept budget and near-term performance of one site is not so convincing. There are 100 variables that brought us to this point, not just a handful of sinister libertarian-leaning politicians.

No, there is a single issue that caused this problem:

To compound the problem at Piney Point, the Florida DEP permitted the stacks (sludge lagoons) to accept dredged materials from the Manatee County’s Berth 12 dredging project at the Port of Manatee.

Now, the present Florida Governor is desperately attempting to shift the blame from the State of Florida to a bankrupt company, HRK Holdings. If Florida had properly disposed of the dredging, this incident would never have happened.

Contaminated dredging materials are generally disposed of an approved landfill suitable for handling the material.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

How long are these liners meant to last anyway?

Seems to me its not a case of if its going to happen but when.

Good to hear they have had a change of plan with 3 mile.

 

[JedClampett]

Liners and ponds are not forever solutions (check Hanford Washington), but what the owner says is we'll store it until we figure out what to do with it.
Then they go bankrupt .
It's not a flaw, it's a feature.

 

[bimr]

A modern solid waste landfill typically has a double liner system. For a landfill, liners are a forever solution.

Liners are not generic, liners are available in various thicknesses.

 

[dik]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, or a qanon guy, or anything like that... I consider myself as a conservative with a strong social conscience... but one of the few purposes of a government is to look after the long term interests of the citizens... and they have failed in this regard.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[1503-44]

Not the short term?

 

[bimr]

https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/...

So what's the predictions for this then?

I don't know what is going on with 3 Mile Island. However, I am aware that the seller, First Energy has a controversial past and has has many scandals:

[ol 1]
[li]Responsible for the Northeast Blackout in 2003. At the time, it was the world's second most widespread blackout in history, after the 1999 Southern Brazil blackout. The outage, which was much more widespread than the Northeast blackout of 1965, affected an estimated 10 million people in southern and central Ontario, and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.[/li]

[li]On March 31, 2018, FirstEnergy Solutions filed for bankruptcy. FirstEnergy Solutions was a generation subsidiary, and FirstEnergy itself remains solvent. The case is being closely watched as it could have significant implications for the U.S. power sector, as the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio has asserted its primacy over the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) relating to certain FirstEnergy Solutions FERC-regulated power purchase agreements.[/li]

[li]On July 21, 2020, Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, and three others were accused of accepting $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy in exchange for $1.3 billion worth of benefits in the form of Ohio House Bill 6, which increased electricity rates and provided that money as a $150 million per year bailout for two nuclear plants (Perry and Davis–Besse). The stock price of the company plummeted within hours of the arrests bring made. First Energy denies involvement in the charges. State legislators quickly announced plans for a bill to repeal H.B.[/li]

[li]FirstEnergy was required to pay $1.5 billion by 2011 as part of a settlement to end a lawsuit filed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This lawsuit alleged that the company failed to install pollution control equipment when upgrading its coal burning plants. Also as part of the settlement, major pollution control equipment is now being installed at the FirstEnergy Sammis site and others. This lawsuit was one of the New Source Review lawsuits filed in the 1990s.[/li]

[li]FirstEnergy Corp. to return $26 million to customers collected under controversial ‘decoupling’ policy. By tying revenue to such a lucrative year, decoupling “essentially takes about one-third of our company and I think makes it somewhat recession-proof,” Chuck Jones, then FirstEnergy’s CEO, said during a call with investors in 2019. But that deal didn’t affect the $26 million FirstEnergy had already collected from customers since January of 2020. Rather, refunds were ordered as part of House Bill 128, a partial repeal of HB6 signed by Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday.[/li]
[/ol]

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

pretty much along the same lines.

There is a pot of money 900 million or so. Estimates for clearing the site up are well over 1 billion. So they have a buyer that reckons they can do it for 870 million.

So they want to sell them it and then walk away.

The spent fuel on site is going to need cooled until at least 2050. There is no current plans for long term off site storage. And the requirement is the site is to be clean with the soil removed down to 3 ft.

The UK sites have similar requirements and estimates are just under 10 billion per site. And most of them don't have anywhere near the same amount of contaminated concrete to get rid of.

I am sure they will just wait until a new political situation is around and then offload it. the 900 million will evaporate relatively quickly and they will go bankrupt and there will be left a big pile of spent fuel that needs to be cooled and disposed of and the rest of the site dirty.

 

[dik]

That too, but more important the long term... a common expression with the First Peoples is that we don't own the future... we borrow it from our grandchildren.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[bimr]

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FLDEP) has announced that the toxic seepage from a plastic liner into the wastewater pond at the Piney Point phosphate plant has stopped. One would have to assume that the leak was in the upper level of the pond.

Link

"In a statement released Saturday, an environmental group named Manasota-88 said that Piney Point structural conditions were known for a significant period before the recent emergency. The group said that officials had "mismanaged" the site for decades.

"The current crisis can be traced back to the absurd 2006 decision to allow dredged material from Port Manatee to be placed into one of the gyp stacks at Piney Point, something the stack was never designed for and should have never been allowed," the statement read."

Link

 

[1503-44]

Great. Problem is solved for all intents and purposes of the current FL administration.
Happy Days!

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Until the red bloom starts.

 

Can you spell E-X-T-E-R-N-A-L-I-Z-E-D C-O-S-T-S ?

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[davefitz]

As I recall, some plastic liners have a 300 yr expected life , provided they are not exposed to UV light or significant radiation.Normally there is included an additional layer of clay under the liner, and there can also be an additional layer of "red mud" ( tailings from aluminum refining) to capture any leaked chemical residue.

One of the 2 largest landfill issues in the USA is the containment of fly ash from coal fired power plants. You may recall that one of those large Kingston TVA ash ponds embankments failed in 2008 and it swallowed a highway and a few houses. The intriguing aspect of the fly ash problem is that it can actually be used as a "green" substitute for portland cement, when it is converted to geopolymer cement by adding sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide to it. Instead, it is landfilled and will be reopened as a present to the generation of people that occupy Tennesee in the year 2400.

That leads to the second largest landfill issue, which is the temporary ( 300 yr) internment of waste fuel from the nuclear power plants. The waste fuel that is cooled for 5+ yrs in the fuel pools is to be transferred to dry cask storage, then transported to a 300 yr internment site ( interim storage) in New Mexico , where the concrete casks will be buried in a lined landfill. Again, another present to be opened by the busy folks in the year 2400. That 300 yr might be theoretically extended to 3000 yrs if the concrete used in the casks is geopolymer concrete, which has a water permeability that is 1000 times lower than portland cement based concrete.

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick