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News Release
NRC, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Issue Final Environmental Impact Statement For Proposed Turkey Point Reactors in Florida
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has 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, about 20 miles south of Miami. The NRC developed the Turkey Point project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement jointly with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District. The Corps will use the document’s information in considering its federal permit decision in accordance with the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899..I
ssuing the statement is part of the overall Turkey Point licensing review. The NRC staff continues to work on the project’s final safety evaluation report, which will include a review by the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent group of nuclear safety experts. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is conducting a legal hearing on a challenge to the application. When the technical review is completed, the NRC’s Commissioners will conduct a separate mandatory hearing regarding the application and the staff’s review. All of these steps must be completed before the NRC can reach a final decision on the Turkey Point application.
Florida Power and Light (FPL) submitted a Combined License application on June 30, 2009, seeking permission to construct and operate two AP1000 reactors at the site, near Homestead, Fla. The NRC certified the AP1000 design for U.S. use in December 2011. More information on the design’s certification is available on the NRC website.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement is available on the NRC website. The NRC staff, in cooperation with the Corps, started the environmental review in June 2009 by gathering community input on what issues should be considered. The agencies continued gathering comments, including from the National Park Service as a cooperating agency (that agency’s role is described in the document), and issued a draft statement in February 2015. The NRC and the Corps met with the local community again in April 2015 to receive comments on the draft statement.
FPL’s application includes activities that require Army Corps of Engineers authorization under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbor Act of 1899. Those activities are described in the final statement. The Corps continues its review of FPL’s permit application to authorize those activities.
The four-volume statement and associated reader’s guide are also available via the NRC’s electronic document database, ADAMS, under accession numbers ML16306A364 (the guide), ML16300A104, ML16300A137, ML16301A018 and ML16300A312. The guide provides the public a Page | 2 plain-language explanation of the proposed action and its potential environmental impacts. In addition, copies of the statement will be available for public inspection at the South Dade Regional Library, 10750 SW 211th St. in Cutler Bay, Fla.; and the Homestead Branch Library, 700 N Homestead Blvd. in Homestead.
