$50 million from ratepayers for FPL misfeasance? City Manager BILL HARRISS forced 30 year franchise renewal

Big mistake in 2009 for City of St. Augustine to renew 30 year franchise with Florida Power and Light.

Now we're on the hook for the cost of FPL's fraud, waste, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, flummery, dupery and nincompoopery,

From Eye on Miami blog:

Saturday, April 30, 2016

FPL's Mike Sole Tortured Me for an Hour with Jabbering. By Geniusofdespair

The chocolate chip cookies they provided at the meeting were very good but you had to hide them if you wanted to bring them in. That was the highlight of the meeting yesterday in Homestead. The hour and half in traffic to get there was SOOO not worth it. The icing on the cupcake: WE are going to pay the $50 Million for fixes for FPL's Cooling Canal fiasco that is increasing salt water intrusion to our drinking water. Yes we will be shelling out the bucks for their stupid strategy!

Mike Sole droned on and on for an hour as the apologist for FPL and he got light ball questions from the panel. It was such a colossal waste of time. The Miami Herald wrote an article. Read it.

I took Photos, Gimleteye left early.

The combined panel of State Senators and Representatives

Apologist Mike Sol from FPL also on the Board of Directors of the Everglades Foundation (former head of DEP)

From Jenny Staletovich of the Miami Herald:
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, who asked for the county report that revealed the radioactive tracer tritium in the bay, said the canals were “poorly conceived” when they were created in the 1970s, should be abandoned for more modern technology. Cava pointed out that canal conditions worsened after nuclear reactors were uprated to increase power output. While tritium has been detected at levels well below health standards, its presence indicates the canals also are likely leaking water tainted by high levels of ammonia and other contaminants into the bay.

The uprating project was only supposed to increase water temperatures by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit but canal temperatures following the expansion spiked, forcing the reactors to twice power down as they approached operating limits.

University of Miami hydrologist David Chin, in a report to the county, concluded the increased power caused the problems. But FPL blamed a regional drought, along with algae and sediment collecting in the canals after they were briefly shut down during the expansion.

“The plant needs to be modernized,” Cava told lawmakers, pointing to more modern reactors which rely on cooling towers. “The technology is not revolutionary. It’s already been adopted. It’s not even cutting-edge technology.” Cava also took state environmental regulators to task for not acting faster.

Me: The DEP said they issued a violation not just a warning letter to FPL.

County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava

Engineer Ed Swakon (a former Division Chief at DERM) and Rock Miner Steve Toricse

What everyone was doing except those listening

DEP Speaker Paula Cobb

Rep Rene Garcia asking a softball question.

Mayors Cindy Lerner (Pinecrest) and Philip Stoddard (South Miami) taking notes.

Lee Hefty of Derm Speaking

State Rep. Katy Edwards doesn't look happy to be back in Homestead.

Not only couldn't you bring cookies and water into the meeting, you couldn't bring solar panels. Jonathan Ullman of Sierra Club tried.

This is so typical (from the Miami Herald):
But when asked by Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, if the state had ignored an administrative law judge in February, DEP deputy secretary Paula Cobb complained that the judge overstepped his authority.
"The department did not sidestep the findings of the administrative law judge," she said. "The administrative law judge tried to dictate the exact actions…and honestly I need every tool I can get."