Cabinet
Affairs |
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2 T H E C A B I N E T
3 S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
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Representing:
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
6 DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY
AND MOTOR VEHICLES
7 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
8 BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE INTERNAL
IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
9 DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
10
The above agencies came to be heard before
11 THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Chiles
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
12 The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
April 23, 1996, commencing at approximately
13 11:15 a.m.
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17 Reported by:
18 LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
19 Certified Court Reporter
Notary Public in and for
20 the State of Florida at Large
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23 ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
24 TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
904/878-2221
25 1-800/934-9090
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 Representing the Florida Cabinet:
3 LAWTON CHILES
Governor
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BOB CRAWFORD
5 Commissioner of Agriculture
6 BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
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SANDRA B. MORTHAM
8 Secretary of State
9 BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
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BILL NELSON
11 Treasurer
12 FRANK T. BROGAN
Commissioner of Education
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
April 23, 1996
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1 I N D E X
2 ITEM ACTION PAGE
3 STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION:
(Presented by John W. (Jack) Madden,
4 Chief Administrative Officer)
5 1 Approved 5
2 Approved 5
6 3 Approved 6
4 Approved 6
7 5 Approved 6
8 DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES:
(Presented by Fred O. Dickinson, III,
9 Executive Director)
10 1 Approved 7
2 Approved 7
11 3 Approved 8
12 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION:
(Presented by Robert L. Bedford, Ph.D.,
13 Deputy Commissioner)
14 1 Approved 9
2 Approved 9
15 3 Approved 10
4 Approved 10
16 5 Approved 11
6 Approved 11
17 7 Approved 11
8 Approved 11
18 9 Approved 12
19 ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION:
(Presented by Gale Sittig,
20 Deputy Director)
21 1 Approved 13
2 Approved 13
22 3 Approved 14
4 Approved 14
23 5 Approved 14
6 Approved 14
24 7 Approved 15
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
April 23, 1996
4
1 I N D E X
(Continued)
2
ITEM ACTION PAGE
3
BOARD OF TRUSTEES,
4 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT
TRUST FUND:
5 (Presented by Kirby B. Green, III,
Deputy Secretary)
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1 Approved 16
7 2 Approved 16
3 Withdrawn 16
8 4 Approved 16
5 Approved 17
9 6 Approved 17
7 Approved 17
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DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION:
11 (Presented by Kirby B. Green, III,
Deputy Secretary)
12
1 Approved 18
13 2 Denied 250
14 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 251
15 *
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
April 23, 1996
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (The agenda items commenced at 11:55 a.m.)
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: And we'll go to our
4 agenda now with the State Board of
5 Administration.
6 MR. MADDEN: Good morning, Governor. I'm
7 Jack Madden --
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good morning.
9 MR. MADDEN: -- I'll be handling the agenda
10 for Mr. Williams in his absence.
11 Item 1 is the approval of the minutes.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is there a motion?
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move it.
14 TREASURER NELSON: Motion.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, the minutes are
17 approved.
18 MR. MADDEN: Item 2 is an interest rate
19 exception for the Village Center Community
20 Development District.
21 TREASURER NELSON: Move it.
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And second.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
24 Without objection, the item is approved.
25 MR. MADDEN: Item 3 is an interest rate
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
April 23, 1996
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1 exception for the Housing Finance Authority of
2 Broward County.
3 TREASURER NELSON: I move it.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And I second.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
6 Without objection, it's approved.
7 MR. MADDEN: Item 4 is the adoption of
8 revisions to Rule 19, dash, 18.010; and the
9 adoption of new rule 19-8.011 for the Florida
10 Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.
11 TREASURER NELSON: And I move it.
12 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And I second.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
14 Without objection, that's approved.
15 MR. MADDEN: Item 5 is the report of the
16 Executive Director.
17 TREASURER NELSON: Move it.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
20 Without objection, Item 5 is approved.
21 MR. MADDEN: That concludes the agenda,
22 Governor.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
24 (The State Board of Administration Agenda
25 was concluded.)
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY/MOTOR VEHICLES
April 23, 1996
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES:
2 Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
3 MR. DICKINSON: Governor, Item 1 is
4 approval of minutes from the March 12th Cabinet
5 meeting.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: So move.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
9 Without objection, they're approved.
10 MR. DICKINSON: Second item is a request
11 for authority to enter into a contract with a
12 "Uniface" software development company for
13 training and software.
14 This is part of our ongoing quality program
15 out at the Department.
16 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: There's a motion on that.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: And a second.
20 Without objection, that's approved.
21 MR. DICKINSON: Item number 3 is a request
22 to contract with Florida State University for
23 the design, development, and installation of a
24 centralized database to track our DUI clients.
25 This is a grant that we secured through
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY/MOTOR VEHICLES
April 23, 1996
8
1 the Department of Transportation.
2 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Motion.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Second.
7 Without objection, that's approved.
8 MR. DICKINSON: That concludes our agenda.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
10 (The Department of Highway Safety and Motor
11 Vehicles Agenda was concluded.)
12 *
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
April 23, 1996
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: State Board of Education.
2 DR. BEDFORD: Good morning,
3 Governor Chiles, members of the State Board of
4 Education.
5 Item 1, request for approval of a contract
6 with addendum to enter into services with
7 Educational Clearinghouse.
8 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
9 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
11 Without objection, that's approved.
12 DR. BEDFORD: Item 2, Rule 6A, dash,
13 1.09412, amendment to the Course Curriculum
14 Frameworks, Grades 6 through 12, Basic and Adult
15 Secondary Programs.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
17 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
19 Without objection, it's approved.
20 DR. BEDFORD: Items 3 through 8 I will take
21 separately. But I would like to take a moment
22 to commend the State University System for the
23 screening they have done in the chapters.
24 They've completed all 21 chapters of their
25 rules. When we conclude today, we will have
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
April 23, 1996
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1 presented them to you.
2 They have repealed one-third of their
3 rules, they have amended one-third of their
4 rules, and one-third of their rules were
5 statutory requirements, and are, therefore, on
6 the books.
7 And I really appreciate the work they've
8 done.
9 Item 3, 6C, dash, 9.001, repeal.
10 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move it.
11 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
13 Without objection, that's approved.
14 DR. BEDFORD: Item 4, Chapter 6C, dash, 14,
15 repeals and revisions to administration of
16 construction program.
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
18 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
20 Without objection, that's approved.
21 DR. BEDFORD: Item 5, Chapter 6C, dash, 15,
22 repeals administration of surplus property.
23 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
24 room.)
25 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
April 23, 1996
11
1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
3 Without objection, that's approved.
4 DR. BEDFORD: Item 6, Chapter 6C, dash, 16,
5 repeals administration of motor pool.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move it.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
9 Without objection, that's approved.
10 DR. BEDFORD: Item 7, Chapter 6C, dash, 17,
11 repeals and revisions to the administration of
12 leasing program.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
14 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, that's approved.
17 DR. BEDFORD: Item 8, Chapter 6C, dash, 18,
18 repeals and revision to administration of
19 purchasing program.
20 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
21 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: There's a motion and
23 second.
24 Item 8 is approved.
25 DR. BEDFORD: Item 9, request by the
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
April 23, 1996
12
1 Florida Board of Regents on behalf of the
2 Florida Solar Energy Center for final release of
3 the United States property previously occupied
4 by the Florida Solar Energy Center.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
8 Without objection, that is approved.
9 DR. BEDFORD: That concludes the agenda.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
11 (The State Board of Education Agenda was
12 concluded.)
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
April 23, 1996
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: The
2 Administrative Commission --
3 Administration Commission.
4 MS. SITTIG: Item 1, recommend approval of
5 the minutes of the meeting held March 28th,
6 1996.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
8 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
10 Without objection, they're approved.
11 MS. SITTIG: Item 2, recommend the transfer
12 of general revenue appropriations to the Agency
13 for Health Care Administration.
14 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
15 room.)
16 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
19 Without objection, that's approved.
20 MS. SITTIG: Item 3, recommend the transfer
21 of general revenue appropriations in the
22 Department of Education.
23 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
April 23, 1996
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1 Without objection, that's approved.
2 MS. SITTIG: Item 4, recommend the transfer
3 of general revenue appropriations in the Justice
4 Administration Commission.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Motion and second.
8 Without objection, Item 4 is approved.
9 MS. SITTIG: Item 5, recommend the transfer
10 of general revenue appropriations in the
11 Department of Juvenile Justice.
12 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
15 Without objection, Item 5 is approved.
16 MS. SITTIG: Item 6, recommend the transfer
17 of general revenue appropriations in the
18 Department of Management Services.
19 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
20 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
22 Without objection, that's approved.
23 MS. SITTIG: And lastly, Item 7, recommend
24 the transfer of the general revenue
25 appropriations in the Department of State.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
April 23, 1996
15
1 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
2 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
5 Without objection, that's approved.
6 MS. SITTIG: Thank you.
7 (The Administration Commission Agenda was
8 concluded.)
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
TRUSTEES/INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
April 23, 1996
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Trustees of Internal
2 Improvement Fund.
3 MR. GREEN: Item 1, approval of March 12th
4 minutes.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move it.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
8 Without objection, they're approved.
9 MR. GREEN: Item 2, request by the
10 Department of Agriculture to sell a parcel of
11 real property, and request by the Department to
12 convey that parcel.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
14 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
15 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
17 Without objection, that's approved.
18 MR. GREEN: Withdraw Item 3, request
19 withdrawal.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Item 3 is withdrawn.
21 MR. GREEN: Item 4, an option agreement.
22 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
23 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
25 Without objection, that's approved.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
TRUSTEES/INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
April 23, 1996
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1 MR. GREEN: Item 5, an option agreement.
2 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
3 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Without objection, Item 5
5 is approved.
6 Moved and seconded.
7 MR. GREEN: Item 6, two purchase
8 agreements.
9 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
10 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: Motion and seconded.
12 Without objection, Item 6 is approved.
13 MR. GREEN: Item 7, three purchase
14 agreements.
15 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
19 Without objection, Item 7.
20 (The Board of Trustees of the Internal
21 Improvement Trust Fund Agenda was concluded.)
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES:
2 Department of Environmental Protection.
3 MR. GREEN: Item 1, approval of minutes.
4 SECRETARY MORTHAM: So move.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, they're approved.
8 MR. GREEN: Item 2, consideration of a
9 final order recommending that the Siting Board
10 grant certification to the Florida Power & Light
11 Company.
12 This item comes before you as your role as
13 the Power Plant Siting Board as required by
14 Part II of Chapter 403 of the Florida Statutes.
15 FP&L began this process of changing the
16 fuel at Manatee Power Plant to burn orimulsion
17 in 1990 with a request to conduct experimental
18 burns of orimulsion at the Sanford Power plant.
19 The purpose of that experiment was to allow
20 FP&L and DEP to determine the actual results of
21 burning orimulsion.
22 Almost four years later, in May of '94,
23 FP&L requested and held a pre-application
24 meeting with the Department to advise the Agency
25 of their plan to request the fuel change to
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
19
1 allow them to burn orimulsion at the Manatee
2 plant.
3 FP&L then took their request to the
4 Public Service Commission. The
5 Public Service Commission, it's role in this
6 issue, was to ensure that the fuel would be
7 readily available and consistently applied. And
8 to determine the impact of the fuel change on
9 rates.
10 In this case, the amount of savings to rate
11 payors that would result from the conversion to
12 orimulsion.
13 In September of '94, FP&L filed a formal
14 application with DEP, as staff to the
15 Siting Board, for approval to burn orimulsion at
16 the Manatee plant.
17 In October of '94, the application was
18 considered complete, and was sent to all
19 required parties for review. The siting law
20 directs that it is the collective responsibility
21 of the impacted state and local agencies to
22 review the application, not just DEP.
23 In this case, those agencies included the
24 Public Service Commission, the Department of
25 Community Affairs, the Game and Fresh Water Fish
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 Commission, South Florida Water Management
2 District, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning
3 Council --
4 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
5 room.)
6 MR. GREEN: -- Manatee County, the Division
7 of Forestry, the Department of Transportation,
8 HRS, and the Department of State.
9 The application was also sent to local
10 government jurisdictions in the immediate
11 vicinity of the plant. Those were
12 Hillsborough County and Pinellas County.
13 Review was also requested by federal
14 agencies such as United States Coast Guard.
15 EPA also reviewed the application as part
16 of the United States Corps of Engineer permit
17 review process, and the prevention of
18 significant deterioration permit.
19 You have a copy of the EPA letter
20 indicating compliance with their requirements
21 and their guidelines in your backup.
22 In total, 15 governmental agencies reviewed
23 the application, 63 of DEP's professional staff
24 reviewed the scientific and technical areas of
25 the application.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 This review consisted of a series of
2 questions asked by -- asked of FP&L by the
3 agencies for clarification of the application
4 and the impacts of burning orimulsion. This
5 portion of the review was completed in May of
6 '95 with the application being deemed -- deemed
7 sufficient for final review.
8 From the information gathered, this -- in
9 this review process, the Agency developed final
10 comments and recommendations on the
11 application. The final review occurred from
12 July to September of '95.
13 The comments received from the -- from the
14 agencies created the basis on which the FPL
15 application would go on to the hearing officer
16 as step precedent to it coming to you for your
17 review today.
18 As part of the process --
19 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
20 room.)
21 MR. GREEN: -- it's DEP's responsibility to
22 work with the affected agencies and local
23 governments to develop objections and concerns
24 that must be addressed by FP&L through
25 modification of their application resolving --
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 to resolve those objections and concerns.
2 This process continued --
3 (Secretary Mortham exited the room.)
4 MR. GREEN: -- up through, and in some
5 cases, during the beginning of the formal DOAH
6 hearing.
7 The formal hearing was conducted in
8 Manatee County from November 28th through
9 December 13th of '95.
10 In February of '96, the hearing officer
11 issued his recommended order, which is before
12 you today.
13 The recommended order present -- represents
14 your staff's best professional judgment on those
15 issues that were before them. We have
16 recommended conditions that would reduce the
17 annual emissions of S2O, NOx, and particulate
18 matter below those levels currently set in the
19 plant's operating permit.
20 In addition, we have imposed transportation
21 standards on ships bringing orimulsion to port
22 to ensure the safe delivery of the fuel with the
23 minimum probability of spill.
24 This -- this completes the technical phase
25 of the review of the process, and begins the
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 public policy phase of the process.
2 The application is technically acceptable.
3 If the Siting Board believes that it is good
4 public policy to allow FPL to burn orimulsion,
5 it can -- it can permit it under the conditions
6 set out in the final order.
7 All of the local, state, and federal
8 agencies involved in the process have resolved
9 their technical concerns with the conditions
10 attached to the application.
11 However, this is a new fuel. And there are
12 many groups and individuals who do not believe
13 it's in the public interest to burn the fuel at
14 Manatee plant. Many of them will address you
15 today on that policy issue.
16 Before they begin --
17 (Secretary Mortham entered the room.)
18 MR. GREEN: -- we wish to set the stage for
19 your deliberations by briefly going over the
20 technical issues that were involved in the
21 application.
22 Buck Oven of the Department staff will
23 summarize for you the technical and scientific
24 results of that investigation. Herb Rhodes will
25 summarize the air quality issues involved in
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 the -- in the fuel. And Mimi Drew will be here
2 for questions on water quality if you have them.
3 Buck.
4 MR. COLLETTO: My education did not prepare
5 me for this. So I don't know how that lowers.
6 MR. GREEN: Just do it without.
7 MR. COLLETTO: Do it without. All right.
8 MR. OVEN: Okay.
9 MR. COLLETTO: Sorry.
10 MR. OVEN: Governor, members of the
11 Siting Board, my name is Buck Oven. I'm
12 Administrator of the Siting Coordination Office
13 for the Department of Environmental Protection.
14 I have been working with the Power Plant
15 Siting Program of the State Environmental Agency
16 since 1973.
17 This particular project is coming to you
18 under a special section of the Power Plant
19 Siting Act. This project has received the most
20 detailed scrutiny of any application to date.
21 We've had more people from our technical staff
22 looking at it, we've had more people from the
23 technical staff of other agencies looking at
24 it.
25 When this project first arrived in
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 September of 1994, there were a number of
2 provisions of it that we did not like. As it
3 first came to us, we would not have recommended
4 approval.
5 But going through the process of questions
6 and answering and questioning and challenging
7 Florida Power & Light, we came up with a better
8 way of doing things.
9 We have looked at the overall impacts that
10 would occur of this new revised plant versus the
11 currently operating plant. And we see that
12 there are environmental advantages, and other
13 advantages to utilizing a revised plant with
14 this fuel orimulsion.
15 Now, 403.5175 addresses the certification
16 of an existing power plant. That's the
17 power plant that was existing on the day that
18 the Power Plant Siting Act took effect.
19 It's a recent addition to the Act. It
20 allows us to do a comprehensive, almost like an
21 ecosystem analysis, of a revision to an existing
22 power plant.
23 The statute lays out four basic criteria
24 that you all are supposed to consider. We, and
25 the hearing officer, have looked at these
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 things, and the hearing officer has found, and
2 we agree, that if this project is approved, with
3 the Conditions of Certification that are
4 included, it will comply with the nonprocedural
5 requirements of agencies such as DEP, Southwest
6 Florida Water Management District, Game and
7 Fresh Water Fish Commission, Department of
8 Community Affairs, Tampa Bay Regional Planning
9 Council, and Manatee County.
10 Manatee County found that if you adopt
11 their Conditions of Certification, which also
12 includes the granting of variances to two
13 ordinances concerning both landscaping and
14 wetlands, it would comply with their basic
15 policies.
16 Second thing, result in environmental or
17 other benefits compared the current utilization
18 of the site. The hearing officer and DEP staff
19 find that there will be a reduction in overall
20 emissions of air pollutants; a reduction in
21 health risks from air pollutants; a reduction in
22 allowable withdrawals from Little Manatee River;
23 enhancement and preservation of wetland areas;
24 reduction in risk of fuel spills; potential
25 savings to rate payors, anywhere from
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
April 23, 1996
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1 655 million to up to 6 billion over 20 years; an
2 increase in governmental revenues that could
3 benefit the economy.
4 There are procedures here which would help
5 maintain and protect the ecosystem of the Little
6 Manatee River. There are, of course, new
7 construction jobs. There's going to be increase
8 in sales taxes.
9 The third area to be looked at is efforts
10 to minimize adverse impacts. We have the
11 installation of --
12 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
13 MR. OVEN: -- new technology on air
14 pollution. This existing power plant has almost
15 no air pollution control equipment on it. It
16 operates by using low sulfur fuel oil, and some
17 good combustion practices.
18 The installation of electrostatic
19 precipitators, scrubbers, low NOx burners, and a
20 reburn technology are a help to reduce air
21 emissions.
22 This design of this project now allows for
23 zero discharge of wastewater from the facility.
24 Not even the gate tests are to be discharged.
25 They're going to cap or reduce the current
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1 withdrawal levels to Little Manatee River,
2 regulating the withdrawals based on river flow,
3 setting a minimal level when they can't withdraw
4 level.
5 We see that the water uses are being
6 prioritized by use of lowest quality of water
7 first.
8 There'll be a sale of by-products from the
9 air pollution control system. This removes
10 solid waste that might be a source of
11 groundwater pollution to the environment.
12 And there is increased shipping, unloading,
13 and spill control measures to be applied to this
14 particular fuel. And the use of that technology
15 and management systems is going to reduce the
16 risk of a spill in Tampa Bay over existing
17 conditions.
18 All of these things lead to the last issue,
19 which is your unique province, that of the
20 public interest.
21 There will be a lower cost of electricity.
22 There'll be increased fuel diversity, increase
23 in jobs, increase in ad valorem tax base,
24 reduction in air pollutant locally and
25 statewide, and protection of biodiversity of the
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1 Little Manatee River.
2 This is a quick nutshell of the findings of
3 the hearing officer and the findings of the
4 Department staff and the recommendations of all
5 the agencies that were involved in this
6 particular process.
7 Although they were not directly a part of
8 the power plant siting process, both
9 Hillsborough County and Pinellas County got
10 involved in air pollution aspects of this
11 facility. And through their efforts, we were
12 able to get FPL to do a better job of air
13 pollution control.
14 That leads us to our next speaker, which is
15 Howard Rhodes, the Director of Division of Air
16 Resources Management. Myself and other members
17 of the DEP staff are available here to answer
18 any questions you may have.
19 Mr. Rhodes.
20 MR. RHODES: Good morning, Governor,
21 members of the Siting Board. My name is
22 Howard Rhodes. I'm the Director of Air Resource
23 Management Division within DEP.
24 Today I plan on presenting three overhead
25 charts, and I'm glad to see this down.
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1 The first is a depiction -- as soon as it
2 comes on. There we go.
3 Focus.
4 There we go.
5 As we get this overhead adjusted, what --
6 what it is is a depiction of the hourly
7 emissions from the Manatee Power Plant. It
8 compares three different parameters for air
9 pollution: SO2, NOx, and PM, for oil permitted,
10 oil actual, and orimulsion permitted.
11 Now, the terms SO2, NOx, and PM are
12 chemical terms relating to sulfur dioxide,
13 nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter. These
14 are the primary pollutants we look at from
15 power plants.
16 As you can see for the first item for SO2,
17 the permitted amount for orimulsion is about
18 seventy-- is 19 percent of that for oil.
19 The next item over is NOx. It's roughly
20 71 percent of that for oil.
21 And the PM is 22 percent of that for
22 corresponding oil.
23 The second chart that I have is in --
24 annual emissions as opposed to the actual hourly
25 emissions of the previous chart.
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1 This second chart is for the Manatee
2 Power Plant for oil and orimulsion also. For
3 the permitted SO2, orimulsion emissions are
4 51 percent of that for oil on an annualized
5 business.
6 For NOx, it's 180 percent of that for oil;
7 and for PM, it's approximately the same.
8 The third chart that I'll show you is a
9 comparison of this plant with one of the best
10 coal powered plants in the country, which
11 happens to be in Orlando called the Stanton
12 plant. And also a natural gas plant.
13 This is the coal plant right here. Oil,
14 orimulsion, and the one on the far right is the
15 numbers for natural gas.
16 As you can see, the coal powered plant and
17 the orimulsion are about the same. Oil is much
18 higher on an annualized basis, and natural gas
19 is much better for SO2.
20 For NOx, the numbers are approximately the
21 same. Some are fluctuating, oil being the
22 highest. And, of course, in this case, with the
23 best plant, the coal fired plant will be the
24 best.
25 On the last item over is a particulate
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1 matter. Particulate matter is pretty close to
2 the same, except for the oil powered plant.
3 That is the permitted section that we -- that's
4 been proposed by the hearing officer and in the
5 Department's permit for which we propose
6 approval.
7 That concludes my presentation.
8 I'll turn it back to Mr. Green.
9 MR. GREEN: The Southwest Water
10 Management District would like to make just a
11 very brief statement of their input into this.
12 And then the Manatee County Attorney would
13 like to make a statement. And then we'll get
14 into the public testimony.
15 MR. TSCHANTZ: Good morning, Governor,
16 members of the Siting Board. Richard Tschantz,
17 representing the Southwest Florida Water
18 Management District.
19 We have been asked to speak just briefly as
20 to how the Water Management District fits into
21 the review -- the puzzle here.
22 Primarily our responsibility is to review
23 the amount of water that would be necessary to
24 operate this plant under an increased capacity,
25 and that would be regardless of what fuel is
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1 used, whether it's orimulsion or fuel oil, or
2 even natural gas. If you're going to increase
3 the capacity of this plant, you're going to have
4 to increase the amount of water that it takes to
5 operate the plant.
6 Where that increased amount of water's
7 going to come from is what we take a strong look
8 at.
9 When this application was first submitted
10 to the Water Management District, the plan by
11 Florida Power & Light was to go to the Little
12 Manatee River, increasing the usage of
13 withdrawals from that river from roughly
14 7 million gallons a day up to 16 million gallons
15 a day. And a 23-year old permit agreement was
16 in place that probably would have allowed that.
17 The Water Management District though, in
18 spite of that agreement, was opposed to that
19 amount of water coming out of the Little
20 Manatee River because of what we thought the
21 impacts of that river would be.
22 So at the request of the
23 Water Management District, we asked
24 Florida Power & Light to go back -- you know, or
25 face our opposition, go back and revise the
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1 water plan.
2 And the current plan today calls for a
3 large majority of the water to increase -- to
4 operate this increased capacity plant, coming
5 from reclaimed water or effluent.
6 Secondly, from previously authorized
7 groundwater usage, because the groundwater --
8 new permitted quantities of groundwater are not
9 allowed by the Water Management Districts in
10 this area. So previously authorized water is
11 chosen to be used in the next order of priority.
12 And lastly, the balance of the water needed
13 to operate the plant would come from the Little
14 Manatee River, but in no amounts over what has
15 been historically used over the past 20 years to
16 operate the plant at even a lower capacity.
17 So extensive studies of this river has
18 shown that under these withdrawals that have
19 currently -- ongoing, that the Little
20 Manatee River remains healthy.
21 So in that order of priority is how the
22 water would be used. And that is exactly the
23 type of mix -- mixed sources that the
24 Water Management District today is encouraging,
25 so you don't rely strictly on groundwater,
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1 strictly on surface water. And reuse was never
2 used before in this mix, and it is now.
3 We also have in place as part of the
4 conditions a hydrobiological monitoring program
5 for a period of ten years in which the
6 Water Management District can keep an eye on the
7 river, and if we do see any impacts, we can go
8 back in and seek some changes.
9 The bottom line from the Water Management
10 District perspective is that the Little
11 Manatee River is better off under the plan that
12 is before you today than it is under the old,
13 outdated water use plan.
14 Also, as an added benefit, if the source of
15 this reuse water is going to be the Manatee
16 Agricultural Reuse Supply, which is a program
17 that was cosponsored by the Water Management
18 District, if that is going to be the water where
19 the reclaimed water comes from, then there's an
20 added benefit because Florida Power & Light can
21 take -- in wet weather time periods, can take
22 this reclaimed water and store it when the
23 farmers can't use it, and it would normally have
24 been discharged into the bay. So there's an
25 added benefit here.
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1 Again, from the Water Management District
2 perspective, this project meets all of our
3 rules -- criteria, and it also protects the
4 Little Manatee River.
5 And I'm available for any questions if you
6 have any. We also have John Heuer from our
7 Tampa Permitting -- our Tampa Permitting
8 Director available for questions from the
9 technical end.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Question.
11 TREASURER NELSON: You said that there was
12 a great deal, or high percentage, or -- I can't
13 remember your exact words -- of reused water
14 that we're going to --
15 Can you tell us what percentage? Do you
16 have an approximate percentage of the total
17 water consumption, how much of it is going to be
18 from reused water?
19 MR. TSCHANTZ: Rather than percentages, I
20 can give you the exact in million gallons a
21 day.
22 Out of the reclaimed water, 7.7 million
23 gallons a day would be used. And out of the
24 groundwater, previously authorized groundwater,
25 4.3 million gallons a day.
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1 And the remainder of the water, which would
2 be historically out of the river, was 7 million
3 gallons a day. And that represents less than
4 10 percent of the flow of the Little
5 Manatee River, which is part of our rule
6 criteria.
7 TREASURER NELSON: All right. Now, how do
8 you define -- you've got two different -- you've
9 got 7.7 from reused water. Define reused water.
10 And then 4.3 from I think you said
11 groundwater?
12 MR. TSCHANTZ: Yes, sir.
13 TREASURER NELSON: All right. And define
14 that for me.
15 MR. TSCHANTZ: The reused water would be
16 reclaimed water. Or any other alternative
17 source of water, could be storm water. I don't
18 think that that exact source is in place yet.
19 Of course, this -- this plant could not go
20 into effect until that is identified. But from
21 some source of alternative water, either water
22 that is highly treated by -- by Manatee County,
23 or storm water that is treated, or any other
24 alternative source. But not fresh drinking
25 water out of the ground.
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1 TREASURER NELSON: All right. This is the
2 water then -- what you're defining as reused
3 water, this is the water that would otherwise
4 have high nitrous oxide content that would flow
5 into the surrounding waters.
6 MR. TSCHANTZ: If it would not be able to
7 be used, it's sewer water. If it couldn't be
8 used, either by agriculture or Florida Power &
9 Light, it would have to be discharged into the
10 bay.
11 TREASURER NELSON: All right. Now, define
12 the 4.3.
13 MR. TSCHANTZ: The 4.3 million gallons a
14 day of groundwater is water that adjoining --
15 there's an adjoining corporation or Turner Food
16 Corporation that has previously, through
17 history, been authorized to pump water from the
18 ground.
19 And Florida Power & Light had also been
20 authorized by a certain amount of wells to pump
21 water from the ground. But in their mix, they
22 need --
23 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
24 MR. TSCHANTZ: -- to have some fresh
25 water. So that previously authorized water
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1 would come to Florida Power & Light -- sort of
2 what you would call a transfer. And to make up
3 for the groundwater from Turner Foods, that
4 reclaimed water could then go to them, to --
5 And so we're -- we're taking some water out
6 of the ground for Florida Power to use in its
7 cooling pond to get the mix.
8 TREASURER NELSON: So groundwater is well
9 water.
10 MR. TSCHANTZ: Yes, it is.
11 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. So -- so
12 4.3 million gallons of well water, and 7 million
13 gallons out of the Manatee River.
14 MR. TSCHANTZ: Roughly, yes.
15 TREASURER NELSON: From the Little Manatee.
16 MR. TSCHANTZ: Yes.
17 TREASURER NELSON: So 11.3 million of what
18 we would consider basically fresh water.
19 Now, my -- my question then is: From your
20 standpoint, can you replace that fresh water
21 with used water in this mix, and thereby
22 lowering the nitrous oxide that's going into
23 Tampa Bay.
24 MR. TSCHANTZ: You're asking me whether we
25 can go further --
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1 TREASURER NELSON: Can you --
2 MR. TSCHANTZ: -- further use any more --
3 TREASURER NELSON: -- can you raise the
4 7.7 million gallons a day?
5 MR. TSCHANTZ: My understanding is -- is
6 that to get that mix right, no, the answer is
7 no.
8 TREASURER NELSON: Now, why is that?
9 MR. TSCHANTZ: Because -- and I'm really
10 not the best person, and I could --
11 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
12 MR. TSCHANTZ: -- ask someone from
13 Florida Power & Light to address that, or
14 possibly John Heuer, the technical person from
15 the Water Management District. But -- if -- if
16 you're not satisfied with my answer.
17 All I can say to that is is that there has
18 to be a certain mix of the reuse water and the
19 fresh water to have the right quality to be used
20 at the plant.
21 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. I'll get into
22 that later.
23 MR. TSCHANTZ: And we maximized -- from my
24 understanding, we maximized the use of the reuse
25 water that we could possibly use.
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1 TREASURER NELSON: Well, this question you
2 could answer: Is there additional reused water
3 available that if you could get the right mix,
4 is that available from your perspective as the
5 Water Management District?
6 MR. TSCHANTZ: It may be. I -- again, I --
7 I don't know fully the answer to that,
8 because -- I would say probably, yes. There --
9 there are probably other sources that could
10 be -- could be found.
11 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Thank you.
12 Thank you, Governor.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
14 MR. TSCHANTZ: Thank you.
15 MR. RICE: Governor Chiles, and members of
16 the Siting Board, I am Hamilton Rice, the
17 Manatee County Attorney. I'm accompanied by
18 Senior Assistant County Attorney Mark Barnebey
19 for the purposes of this proceeding.
20 Under the provisions of Chapter 403 of the
21 Florida Statutes, it was the duty of the
22 Manatee County Board of County Commissioners to
23 determine and file a report with the Department
24 of Environmental Protection stating whether or
25 not the application under consideration today
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1 was consistent with Manatee County's
2 Comprehensive Plan, Land Development Code, and
3 other local ordinances.
4 The Board of County Commissioners
5 specifically found that the proposed project, if
6 constructed, operated, and maintained as
7 described in the application, as supplemented;
8 and subject to 53 conditions attached, which
9 were stipulated to by Florida Power & Light,
10 that the project would be consistent with the
11 nonprocedural aspects of all local ordinances,
12 regulations, standards, or criteria that applied
13 to the project, as well as the -- any applicable
14 local environmental or other local regulations.
15 Inferences to the contrary notwithstanding,
16 whether in writing or spoken in these
17 proceedings, the Manatee County Board of County
18 Commissioners neither approved the project nor
19 opposed it.
20 It neither supports nor objects to the
21 application, as there is no statutory
22 requirement nor authority for the
23 County Commission to do so.
24 The recommendatory duties are those of the
25 DEP and the hearing officer. The decision is
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1 made by you, the Governor and Cabinet sitting as
2 the Power Plant Siting Board.
3 Mr. Barnebey is prepared to answer any
4 detailed questions you may have with respect to
5 the 53 conditions that were arrived at between
6 the County and Florida Power & Light.
7 There are also other county officials
8 present from whom you may hear this morning who
9 will be able to respond to your questions
10 concerning those conditions.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
12 MR. RICE: Thank you, sir.
13 MR. GREEN: Governor, we have approximately
14 50 speakers. Because of the way it breaks down
15 in proponents and opponents, I would recommend
16 that we set aside an hour for the proponents of
17 the discussion, and an hour-and-a-half for the
18 opponents of the discussion. If that's --
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Then the proponents --
20 MR. GREEN: -- okay with you.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- and the opponents are
22 going to get together as to how they will
23 utilize that time?
24 MR. GREEN: What we were going to do was
25 call the proponents first, and let them manage
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1 their time. We'll have a timer that we'll keep
2 an accumulative time on them. And we'll let
3 them know.
4 And then the opponents, we'll do the same.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Very well.
6 MR. GREEN: We have Peter Cunningham
7 representing the FP&L.
8 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you, Mr. Green.
9 Good afternoon, Governor, members of the
10 Cabinet. I am Peter Cunningham with the law
11 firm of Hopping, Green, Sams & Smith, here today
12 representing Florida Power & Light Company.
13 Perhaps first a procedural matter that I
14 just wanted to get clear, which is if we're to
15 be given an hour for the proponents, I would
16 like to request that I could reserve 10 minutes
17 of that time to come back at the end if, indeed,
18 the procedure is for all the proponents to speak
19 first, and then the opponents.
20 Would that be satisfactory?
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: That'd be fine.
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you, sir.
23 We've got a lot of people here today who
24 are knowledgeable about the orimulsion project
25 from FPL; from Bitor, which is the fuel
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1 supplier; from Pure Air, which is the pollution
2 control equipment supplier; as well as a number
3 of scientists and experts who have been
4 analyzing various aspects of the project over
5 the last -- past two or three years.
6 Given the limited time we have today, only
7 a few of this large number of people will be
8 speaking to you.
9 We'll try to hit the high points, and
10 certainly, we'd like to answer any questions
11 that you might have.
12 I would first like to introduce
13 Mr. C.O. Woody. Mr. Woody is the
14 Senior Vice-President of Florida Power & Light
15 Company.
16 He's the senior officer responsible for the
17 planning, construction, licensing, and operation
18 of all of FPL's nonnuclear generation.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Mr. Woody.
20 MR. WOODY: Good afternoon, Governor, and
21 members of the Cabinet.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good afternoon.
23 MR. WOODY: It's a pleasure for me to speak
24 on behalf of the orimulsion project.
25 I've been involved in power generation
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1 40 years with Florida Power & Light Company, and
2 have been responsible for construction and
3 oversight of virtually every type of generation
4 that we operate in the state of Florida.
5 I'm pleased that the members of the
6 Department of Environmental Protection have
7 shared with you the extensive review that has
8 taken place to move the project to your
9 consideration.
10 This is a very complex issue, one that has
11 involved a lot of -- of the agencies and the
12 public. We never resisted the involvement in
13 that. And I can assure you that our attitude
14 from the first was, let's find resolutions to
15 those issues that appear to be troubling either
16 the agencies or the general public.
17 Let me share just a little background of
18 Florida Power & Light to set the importance of
19 this project.
20 We are the largest investor-owned utility
21 in the state of Florida, serving about half of
22 the residents of our state. Seven thousand
23 Floridians are served by Florida Power & Light,
24 principally on the east coast, around the
25 southern tip, and up to about Bradenton on the
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1 west coast.
2 We have 14 generating stations located
3 throughout the state, including the west coast,
4 and one power generating station up in
5 mid-Georgia.
6 They are fueled by a variety of fuels.
7 There are two of those stations that are nuclear
8 powered. The balance are fueled with what's
9 called fossil fuels, a combination of residual
10 fuel oil, natural gas, some coal, and we do
11 purchase energy.
12 Let me give you the mix as represented in
13 the hearing. The data that we had at the time
14 of the hearing was for the complete year of
15 1994.
16 Thirty-one percent of the energy delivered
17 to our customers was by residual fuel oil,
18 20 percent by natural gas, 26 percent by nuclear
19 power, 6 percent by coal, and 17 percent by
20 purchased power.
21 The history of our company is that we have
22 had a high dependency on residual fuel oil since
23 the company was chartered 70 years ago. Because
24 of the volatility of the price of fuel oil,
25 particularly after the '70s, we embarked on a
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1 program to decrease our dependency on fuel oil.
2 It consummated during the '70s and '80s
3 with the completion of the nuclear program with
4 four units, putting in place additional
5 transmission circuits into Florida so that we
6 could bring coal power from Georgia, demand site
7 management programs, increasing the availability
8 and volume of natural gas into our state. And
9 all of those things have worked toward our
10 having a fuel mix that is, indeed, better than
11 it was in the early '70s, but still is in need
12 of additional work.
13 We embarked on an alternative fuel program
14 in about 1980. The objective of that program
15 was, of course, to continue to reduce our
16 dependency on oil, and to prevent rate shock to
17 our customers.
18 Commensurate with that program, we began a
19 test at our Sanford plant that's been described
20 by Mr. Green. This test was conducted in 1991.
21 We used orimulsion fuel, we burned 1.2 million
22 barrels of this fuel through a cooperative test
23 with the Department of Environmental Protection,
24 the U.S. Government Environmental
25 Protection Agency.
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1 We characterized and quantified all the
2 constituents of stack emission during that
3 test.
4 We concluded after that test that this fuel
5 is a viable alternative to fuel oil. It handles
6 like oil, it burns like oil, there were no
7 significant surprises in either handling the
8 fuel or in the emissions from the stack.
9 We then embarked on a program of how we
10 might use that in Florida Power & Light. We
11 pride ourself on historically having a very high
12 sensitivity to the environment, the stewardship
13 for the environment.
14 We've been recognized nationwide as one of
15 the leading utilities. Environmentally we're a
16 clean utility. So this project obviously had a
17 lot of scrubbing at the management before we
18 were ready to take it forward for consideration
19 by the agencies.
20 And I want to assure you, in our decision
21 to move forward, in no way did our policy of
22 going beyond the letter of the law
23 environmentally, no way did we violate that
24 policy.
25 And I have strong personal convictions that
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1 this project is environmentally the right thing
2 to do, as well as economically the right thing
3 to do.
4 I would like to share three important
5 features of the project. First of all, it
6 represents a cost reduction, an economic benefit
7 for our customers, as well as for the state of
8 Florida. It offers environmental improvements,
9 and it offers overall economic gains for our
10 state.
11 Concerning the cost. We are still
12 dependent on residual fuel oil for a large part
13 of our generation. We burned 45 million barrels
14 of residual fuel oil in 1994.
15 We have seen, for example, the price of
16 residual fuel oil just in six months of -- the
17 last six months. From November of 1995, we were
18 paying $14.50 a barrel for the fuel oil that we
19 were burning. Today we're paying $20.20 a
20 barrel.
21 The drivers of this increase are beyond our
22 control, they are basically weather driven, and
23 perhaps even influenced by world -- world
24 political issues that we have no control over.
25 But suffice it to say, throughout the
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1 history, we have seen cycles of time when our
2 customers were disadvantaged by the fact that
3 fuel oil particularly, and to a lesser degree,
4 natural gas, has been cyclic and variable in
5 price.
6 This is unacceptable to us, even today, or
7 moving forward in the future, because there are
8 acceptable and reasonable alternatives to being
9 in that position where our customers are
10 disadvantaged.
11 We believe that in burning orimulsion in
12 our Manatee plant, and the arrangement that
13 we've been able to -- to gain with the fuel
14 supplier, that over the life of the plant, given
15 the fuel forecasts that we believe to be very
16 reasonable -- and, in fact, is less than this
17 recent pertubation that we've seen -- that the
18 savings in that 20-year fuel contract period
19 would be in the neighborhood of 4.4 billion
20 dollars. The savings, of course, is a factor of
21 what you believe the future price of fuel oil
22 will be.
23 But everyone who has looked at this, and
24 particularly the Public Service Commission, has
25 concluded that the economic benefits are
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1 remarkable for our customers.
2 In addition to the economic benefits,
3 of course, is the question of fuel diversity.
4 The 31 percent that I mentioned earlier in 1994
5 that was on residual fuel oil would drop down to
6 9 percent with the conversion of our Manatee
7 plant to orimulsion.
8 That would leave us with about -- with a
9 mix in 1999 of 26 percent natural gas;
10 25 percent nuclear; 11 percent orimulsion;
11 9 percent oil; 7 percent coal; and 21 percent
12 purchased power, which is principally coal
13 power.
14 Let me take a moment to speak to the
15 environmental improvements that have already
16 been mentioned. But before I do that, let me
17 just clear up an issue that I think has caused
18 some confusion, and that is the utilization
19 factor of our Manatee plant.
20 Because the Manatee plant is currently
21 fueled only with low sulfur fuel oil, it turns
22 out being one of the highest cost production
23 plants that we have in the Florida Power & Light
24 system.
25 As a consequence, it does not run a great
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1 deal. About 30 percent of the time that it
2 could run, it runs. The way we do that in the
3 state of Florida is our customers are served by
4 the next highest cost megawatt in the state.
5 And because we have a variable demand on
6 electricity and it cannot be stored, we
7 obviously have plants that have to run certain
8 periods of the year, but do not run the entire
9 period of the year. Manatee has been one of
10 those plants that's often referred to as a
11 peaking plant because of its fuel costs.
12 Now, all of our fossil plants, as Mr. Oven
13 has indicated, are -- are licensed without the
14 new pollution control things like scrubbers and
15 electric-- electrostatic precipitators. These
16 plants currently operate well below the licensed
17 emission rate.
18 But with the converse at Manatee with the
19 pollution control equipment that we're
20 proposing, that plant will have a remarkably
21 lower rate of emission than even our existing
22 oil plants that it will displace in this process
23 of running the next most economical plant.
24 Which translates to say that Manatee will
25 run approximately 85 or 90 percent of the time,
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1 and it will -- it will take plants that are
2 currently running in the 50 and 60 percent
3 capacity factor, and relegate them down to a
4 lower capacity factor.
5 The offsets in our state result in an
6 environmental improvement. And I will just
7 quantify those for you. In terms of sulfur
8 dioxide, one of the higher concerns of the EPA
9 and the DEP, the overall state reduction in SO2
10 will be 33 percent, the overall state reduction
11 in nitrogen oxide will be 14 percent, and the
12 overall state reduction in particulates will be
13 18 percent.
14 In addition to the improved air quality, on
15 a local and system-wide basis, this conversion
16 will reduce the risk of fuel spills in Tampa Bay
17 and throughout the state of Florida.
18 Extraordinary measures will be implemented to
19 ensure the safe transport of orimulsion through
20 Tampa Bay.
21 With the Manatee plant generating a much
22 larger portion of the energy in Florida Power
23 & Light, less oil will be moved in plants like
24 Fort Lauderdale; West Palm Beach;
25 Cape Canaveral; Miami; and Fort Myers, which,
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1 of course, uses Boca Grande.
2 It would be unfair to neglect the economic
3 benefits of this fuel. There will be an overall
4 5 percent reduction in the price of energy to
5 all of our customers.
6 While everything else is increasing in our
7 world, it's encouraging to believe that by
8 technology we can find a way to lower the price
9 of electricity to our customers.
10 It improves the competitive position,
11 particularly of our large industrial and
12 commercial customers. It creates jobs, and
13 growth, and taxes in our state.
14 And incidentally, all of these benefits,
15 all of these benefits are passed along to our
16 customers. None of them go to our shareholders.
17 We calculate that all of our customers will
18 benefit. The residential customer will save
19 about $42 a year, while our larger industrial
20 customers will save as much as a million dollars
21 a year on their energy bill.
22 We also calculate that for government and
23 tax supported customers, including the schools,
24 that they will save 12.9 million dollars a year
25 with this lower electricity rate in our state.
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1 There are local benefits. Three hundred
2 and forty-seven construction jobs, forty new
3 permanent jobs, sixty-nine new indirect jobs; an
4 increased payroll in the Manatee County area of
5 3 million dollars; a million-and-a-half dollars
6 in increased port fees; and about $700,000 in
7 property taxes, incremental property taxes.
8 Statewide, more of those dollars will be
9 spent, and we believe will result in what might
10 be called leveraging this benefit for jobs and
11 revenue in our state.
12 This project is extremely important to our
13 state and to our company. We've studied it
14 six years, we've performed experiments and
15 tests, we've involved the very best minds, we
16 have covered all the bases and worked out the
17 technical detail.
18 We're asking that the evidence of fact that
19 has been presented and studied by the many
20 agencies, and that the demonstrated compliance
21 that will be assured through the monitoring is
22 recognized, and that this Siting Board in your
23 wisdom grant us the right to convert and operate
24 our plant at Manatee with orimulsion fuel.
25 If there was any doubt about this, I
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1 wouldn't stand and ask for your permission to do
2 it. Florida Power & Light has historically had
3 a high sensitivity to the environment and its
4 customers. That philosophy has not changed.
5 And I assure you that the commitments that
6 we've made will be honored, both in the local
7 level, and to our customers and the citizens of
8 Manatee County.
9 We urge you to see these benefits, and have
10 the steadfast resolve to allow the licensing and
11 monitoring to work as designed.
12 Thank you for allowing me to present these
13 comments on this very important project.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
15 Question.
16 TREASURER NELSON: Yes. Mr. Woody --
17 (Governor Chiles exited the room.)
18 TREASURER NELSON: -- tell me something
19 about your mathematical calculations on savings
20 of 4.4 billion dollars. And you said that
21 translates to a 5 percent reduction in the
22 bills.
23 Walk us through that. Over what period of
24 time, when does that kick in, et cetera,
25 et cetera.
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1 MR. WOODY: It would begin with the initial
2 operation, which according to the schedule that
3 we have, would be the first unit completed at
4 the end of 1997, and the second unit in the
5 spring of 1998.
6 So it would be at that time frame before we
7 would recognize the fuel cost reduction. In
8 Florida we have a fuel clause that passes
9 through the cost of the fuel to our customers.
10 And if we look at the most recent fuel
11 forecast of what we will be paying for residual
12 fuel oil, and we compare that to what we will be
13 paying for orimulsion, and we calculate that
14 over the 20-year period, the contract life of
15 this fuel supply contract, it translates to
16 4.4 billion dollars.
17 We have all of that detailed, it's been
18 extensively reviewed by the Public
19 Service Commission. But that's generally the
20 methodology.
21 TREASURER NELSON: Now, the flipside of
22 that, if there were any unexpected losses, is
23 there any hold harmless that the customers are
24 not going to be penalized from any unexpected
25 losses?
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1 MR. WOODY: If, for example, for -- for
2 technical reasons, we could not burn orimulsion,
3 our contract holds our customers harmless in
4 that our fuel supply company would have to
5 supply high sulfur -- high sulfur residual fuel
6 oil for a period of time to offset the expense
7 that we would have invested in the pollution
8 control equipment, which, incidentally, is about
9 250 million dollars.
10 TREASURER NELSON: All right. And just to
11 recapitulate, you said that the 5 percent kicks
12 in when?
13 MR. WOODY: At the time when we're able to
14 start burning the fuel, which we would get a
15 small part of it in the last part of '97, but
16 we'd recognize the entire benefit after the
17 first quarter of '98.
18 TREASURER NELSON: Okay.
19 (Governor Chiles entered the room.)
20 TREASURER NELSON: Now, let me ask you
21 about some of the emissions, the nitrogen oxide.
22 In essence, with what is your actual oil
23 use now in the plant, you're going to basically
24 cut the sulfur dioxide in half. And what is now
25 compared to the actual oil consumption at the
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1 plant, you're going to virtually double the
2 nitrogen oxide.
3 Now, the -- I would be curious -- now,
4 picking up on my question of the gentleman from
5 the SWFWMD, since you're doubling the tons per
6 year of nitrogen oxides that are basically going
7 into Tampa Bay by virtue of the increased use of
8 the plant and this new fuel, can you not offset
9 that by the use of reused water, which otherwise
10 would end up in Tampa Bay, and, therefore, you
11 could lower to the end result, which is
12 Tampa Bay, the amount of nitrogen oxides.
13 Tell us about that.
14 MR. WOODY: I will not profess to be an
15 expert here. But let me give you at least a
16 management answer.
17 We believe that we can offset the nitrogen
18 deposition into Tampa Bay. There's really two
19 issues here. There's the nitrous oxides that
20 comes out of the stack, and then there's the
21 calculated nitrogen deposition into Tampa Bay.
22 And we have been working with -- with the
23 various agencies to quantify the benefit of
24 taking the reused water that now goes into
25 Tampa Bay, and using that water at the plant,
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1 and thus reducing the nitrogen deposition into
2 Tampa Bay.
3 We are doing that, and we're prepared to
4 proceed with that. Perhaps others can give more
5 detail on that if you will allow me to defer
6 that more detailed answer to them.
7 TREASURER NELSON: Can you offset it by
8 100 percent of your increase of
9 nitrogen oxides?
10 MR. WOODY: I -- I do not know that.
11 Perhaps there's someone here in the room that
12 does know it. But if we can, we will -- we have
13 no problem making that commitment if we jointly
14 believe that we can do that.
15 Let me clear one other thing, Mr. Nelson.
16 It is true that we will be doubling --
17 approximately doubling the NOx out of the
18 Manatee plant, because we'll be running it three
19 times more.
20 But on a statewide basis -- and I think
21 this is extremely important to this
22 Siting Board -- on a statewide basis, we'll be
23 lowering the NOx in our state by 10,000 tons,
24 which is an overall improvement in the state,
25 of course.
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1 TREASURER NELSON: But over time, that
2 lowering wouldn't be permanent, because over
3 time, you're going to increase the use of those
4 oil plants elsewhere in the state.
5 MR. WOODY: We've looked -- we've looked at
6 that over the period of the 20 years. And
7 it's -- it averages out 10,000 tons over the
8 20-year period.
9 It does diminish slightly in the outreach
10 years, but it never falls below seven or
11 eight thousand improvement.
12 TREASURER NELSON: All right. If -- if you
13 could, somewhere in the course of your
14 presentation, answer the question. If you can
15 offset the nitrogen oxides by 100 percent of
16 what ends up in Tampa Bay, I would appreciate an
17 answer to that.
18 MR. WOODY: We will have you an answer.
19 TREASURER NELSON: Thank you.
20 Thank you, Governor.
21 MR. WOODY: Thank you very much.
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Treasurer Nelson, I can
23 I think answer your question.
24 I think it is possible, by a number of
25 different ways to offset, if you will, the
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1 additional nitrogen that would go into Tampa Bay
2 due to the increased NOx emissions.
3 Again, as Mr. Woody explained, you have two
4 things, you have nitrogen oxides being emitted
5 into the air, some relatively small percentage
6 of that falls on the ground or falls on the
7 water and ultimately gets into the bay.
8 In this case, about 18 metric tons of
9 nitrogen into the bay above that which has been
10 happening historically due to the operation of
11 this plant.
12 If the question is: Would it be possible
13 to offset in some manner that 18 metric tons? I
14 have to believe the answer would be yes. There
15 would be a number of ways you could do it. One
16 of them has been mentioned. I think it started
17 you on this question originally.
18 It had to do with the use of reclaimed
19 water from wastewater treatment plants, some of
20 which in this part of the state, are still
21 discharging directly into rivers, and quickly
22 that nitrogen gets into Tampa Bay.
23 We'll try to move it along here.
24 The next person I'd like to introduce is
25 with Bitor, the fuel supplier, which is a
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1 company with offices in Boca Raton, but
2 ultimately is a Venezuelan company and part of
3 the Venezuelan national petroleum company called
4 Petroleos de Venezuela, which is, I believe, the
5 second or third largest energy company in the
6 world.
7 I'd like to introduce you to
8 Mr. Nelson Garcia. He's Vice President for
9 Operations and Environmental Affairs for
10 Bitor America.
11 MR. GARCIA: Good morning.
12 As Peter Cunningham just said, my name is
13 Nelson Garcia. I am the Vice President of
14 Operations and Environmental Affairs for
15 Bitor America Corporation, which is the fuel
16 supplier for this project.
17 Bitor is one of the companies, members of
18 the PDVSA group of companies,
19 Petroleos de Venezuela, which is the state owned
20 oil company of Venezuela.
21 We are not only the state owned company of
22 Venezuela. As Peter said, we are the second
23 largest energy supplier in the world, and we are
24 the first supplier of fuel and oil to the
25 United States.
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1 Venezuela has been supplying oil to the
2 United States for the last 80 years with an
3 excellent record of reliability. We've supplied
4 oil and fuel, no matter what the political
5 situation in our country and in the world has
6 been.
7 We supplied oil and -- and fuel to the
8 United States during World War II, during the
9 Korean War, during the Viet Nam War, during the
10 embargo of the '70s from the Arabian countries,
11 and recently through the Gulf War in Kuwait.
12 We do this because oil and energy is very
13 important to our country. It's our main source
14 of income.
15 Bitor, the supplier of fuel, has put a
16 great effort in putting together a safe plan --
17 a safety plan for the transportation of
18 orimulsion through international waters, through
19 U.S. waters, and through Tampa Bay.
20 We have received endorsement from the
21 Coast Guard for the excellent measures that
22 we've taken in order to guarantee the low
23 probability of a spill in these -- the areas
24 I've just mentioned.
25 Lastly, I would like to emphasize the
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1 commitment from Petroleos of Venezuela and from
2 Bitor to maintain a long established record of
3 reliable supply of fuel to the United States,
4 and the commitment of Petroleos of Venezuela and
5 Bitor to implement all the safety conditions
6 that have been approved in order to bring
7 orimulsion safely into Tampa Bay for the next
8 20 years.
9 Governor Chiles, members of the Board of
10 Siting -- Siting Board, we ask you to consider
11 our excellent record in supply, and our
12 excellent record in safety. And we urge you to
13 approve this project.
14 Thank you very much.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I would next like to
17 introduce to you Mr. Bob Conley. Mr. Conley is
18 the president of Pure Air.
19 MR. CONLEY: Governor Chiles, members of
20 the Cabinet. In the interest of time, I'll try
21 to keep my comments brief. But I'd be happy to
22 respond to any questions you have.
23 Pure Air is an Air Products company.
24 Air Products will own and operate this facility
25 through Pure Air. Air Products may be known to
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1 some of you, but maybe not quite as well as our
2 partner in this project, FPL. And I'd just like
3 to provide a little background on our company.
4 We're a 4 billion dollar corporation. We
5 have 15,000 employees around the world. We
6 operate in 30 countries with hundreds of plants
7 in the industrial, gas chemicals, and energy,
8 and environmental area.
9 We're very active in Florida. We've been a
10 member of this community for -- for over
11 40 years. We currently operate ten facilities
12 here, have 400 employees.
13 Some of the customers that we serve here
14 are NASA, with hydrogen for the space shuttle
15 program. We provide power to -- to Disney World
16 through a cogeneration facility we built. And
17 we have a very strong base of operation and
18 customer base here.
19 We, I think like FPL, as a corporation have
20 a very strong commitment to stewardships of the
21 environment and our communities. And if I
22 could, I'd like to focus just a second on the
23 issue of community.
24 We as part of this process have agreed to
25 many conditions involved in the project in doing
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1 what we could to respond to issues and concerns
2 raised by the community.
3 But I'd like to provide the assurance that
4 our commitment to being a good citizen in the
5 community, if this project's approved, won't
6 stop with this process.
7 Our employees, our company, are extremely
8 active in supporting education and in donating
9 computers and books and needed supplies to
10 schools in the communities where we operate
11 facilities.
12 We lead programs to donate food and repair
13 housing and shelters for the needy in the area.
14 And I could spend time pointing out hundreds of
15 programs that our company's involved in. That's
16 part of the opportunity we'll hope -- we hope
17 we'll have with this project.
18 I think the other point I'd like to
19 emphasize is the fact that -- that there are
20 some questions because orimulsion is new,
21 sometimes the word experimental is used in
22 refer -- in reference that orimulsion is a
23 fuel.
24 But the facts are that orimulsion has been
25 burned commercially for over four years now in
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1 various countries around the world. Today it is
2 currently operating in six facilities.
3 We visited every one of those facilities
4 and met with the companies that operate the
5 orimulsion facilities to make sure we understand
6 all the issues associated with designing and
7 operating the air pollution control systems for
8 the plant.
9 Through our partnership with Mitsubishi
10 Heavy Industries, whose technology we're using
11 for this project to clean up the SO2 emissions
12 and particulate emissions, we have specific
13 experience with four orimulsion projects in
14 Japan.
15 So we are not only confident to stand up
16 and say that we will meet all the permit
17 conditions that are required for the air
18 emissions, but we've guaranteed that, not just
19 initially, but for the full life of our contract
20 of 20 years or more with FPL.
21 So I think we say that based upon
22 experience and knowledge of the operating
23 systems, the use of a technology that has over a
24 30-year track record of treating flue gas from
25 similar plants that are burning coal and pepco
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1 fuel oil, other fuel oils that have similar flue
2 gas characteristics.
3 In closing, I'd like to say that -- that
4 our company would very much like the opportunity
5 to invest almost 200 million dollars in air
6 pollution control systems to improve the economy
7 and the environment in Florida.
8 We'd like the opportunity to create jobs in
9 the area, and we'd like an opportunity to expand
10 our role as a good citizen in the communities
11 where this plant will reside.
12 And I sincerely hope you'll give us that
13 opportunity.
14 Thank you.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Members of the Board, I --
17 we have a number of people here who are experts
18 in one field or another.
19 But one I had hoped you would listen to
20 briefly -- or actually two, have to do with an
21 issue which was somewhat unique through this
22 project and had to do with the fuel
23 transportation, potential for a spill of this
24 fuel, which is a different fuel from any that's
25 coming into Florida at this time.
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1 Now, for that reason, let me first
2 introduce to you Dr. Jerry Ault. He's Assistant
3 Professor of Marine Biology and Fisheries with
4 University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine
5 and Atmospheric Sciences.
6 DR. AULT: Afternoon, Governor, and
7 Cabinet.
8 Like to have a few brief remarks this
9 afternoon. I was codirector of the study COSAP,
10 which was Comparative Oil Orimulsion Spill
11 Assessment Program.
12 The principal conclusion of that study was
13 in terms of ecological risks to Tampa Bay
14 system, the regional system. The risks are
15 essentially comparable between a spill of fuel
16 oil, Number 6, or -- and orimulsion.
17 That conclusion was not reached lightly.
18 There was a significant study which involved
19 basically a 1.5-year peer re-- scientific peer
20 reviewed study, which was multi-university,
21 multi-collaborator involved.
22 Essentially FPL stated the objective of the
23 study, but the universities themselves were able
24 to go out and independently assess what was
25 needed in terms of scope, requirements, and
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1 conclusions for the study.
2 The study itself is indexed in a
3 multi-volume report, which is part of the court
4 record. And I'm happy to answer questions about
5 it, but I'd like to briefly overview what was
6 involved in that study and how we reached our
7 conclusions itself.
8 In essence, we conducted a state of the art
9 comparative ecological risk assessment which
10 articulated the physical, chemical, and
11 biological dynamics of Tampa Bay.
12 The study itself was to look at the
13 relative risks of exposure, because the fuels
14 themselves differed in the way that they -- they
15 enter the environment, they react with the
16 environment, and react with organisms in the
17 systems.
18 In essence, the study involved three major
19 components. There was a very sophisticated
20 hydrodynamic model, which was three
21 dimensions -- actually four. Three physical
22 dimensions in time, which gave good
23 recapitulation of the physical dynamics of
24 Tampa Bay, and, in fact, was validated by
25 independent methods using -- in fact, acoustic
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1 doppler current profiles, and others.
2 Secondly, part and parcel of that system
3 was a fate and transport model, which
4 essentially looked at the physical, chemical,
5 and weathering characteristics of the fuel
6 itself, and could estimate the -- the
7 trajectories of the fuel.
8 That combined modeling system itself was
9 validated as a function that actually gave a
10 good hindcast, excellent hindcast of the 1993
11 fuel oil spill in Tampa Bay. So we had
12 reasonably good confidence in its performance.
13 We also had, because of Tampa Bay's
14 extensive history with study by the Florida
15 Marine Research Institute, Florida Department of
16 Environmental Protection, and the Tampa Bay
17 National Estuary Program, an extensive database
18 which organized the ecological dynamics of the
19 system, which gave us good confidence of the
20 structure of that system.
21 In every step of the way, we used very
22 conservative and plausible kinds of realistic
23 assumptions in organizing the effects of the
24 system. We chose the most sensitive species,
25 the most sensitive life stage, and understood
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1 what those dynamics were.
2 We set up a rather elaborate scenario of
3 consequence analysis, which looked at realistic
4 factors in terms of spill location, the
5 seasonality involved, winds, tides, and currents
6 that are involved. And then the fuels which
7 were essentially set off as a comparable spill.
8 Those kinds of measures bounded the
9 problem, gave us confidence that our result is
10 robust to any kind of other information you'd
11 like to throw into the solution.
12 We developed a scaling methodology because
13 we were dealing with two different kinds of
14 fuels. In essence, what that allowed us to do
15 was have an apples to apples comparison between
16 the fuels themselves. And that was an important
17 innovation itself.
18 I guess the bottom line of all this is
19 that, in essence, the simulations themselves and
20 the entire study shows that in terms of a spill,
21 the system will recover. It will recover with
22 high probability in about two years after the
23 consequence itself.
24 And the issue really here is the principles
25 of comparable risks. In other words, that we've
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1 determined that the risks of power plants are
2 societally acceptable.
3 When we look at that in terms of the
4 weighted relative to societal benefits. And the
5 bottom line of our assessment is that in terms
6 of the effects, orimulsion is no less acceptable
7 than fuel oil Number 6.
8 And our conclusion we feel is very sound as
9 a function of the steps we went through.
10 Thank you.
11 TREASURER NELSON: Governor.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir. Question.
13 TREASURER NELSON: Let's talk about the
14 ecological dynamics.
15 The result of the tons per year of
16 nitrogen oxides in uncontroverted evidence
17 presented to us, I understand, is to go from
18 about 7,000 tons per year right now to a little
19 over 13,000 tons per year.
20 Now, those additional tons of
21 nitrogen oxide are basically going to end up in
22 Tampa Bay, one way or another, whether it is the
23 emissions through the water, or whether it is
24 the emissions through the air.
25 Tell us what is the effect of those
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1 additional 6,000 plus tons per year of
2 nitrogen oxides on the ecological dynamics of
3 Tampa Bay.
4 DR. AULT: Well, first of all, I'd like to
5 state that our study didn't specifically deal
6 with the deposition of nitrous oxide, because we
7 were dealing specifically with the comparison of
8 fuel oil spills. And --
9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: If you have an answer --
10 DR. AULT: Well, but the knowledge that I
11 have from the study was that in terms of the
12 consequences for phytoplankton blooms,
13 et cetera, there was no expected increase in
14 primary productions of function of that
15 additional nitrous oxide load in the system.
16 TREASURER NELSON: All right. Well, I'm
17 not sure what you just said.
18 Let's put it in -- let's put it in these
19 terms. Maybe -- nitrogen oxide is a source of
20 additional kind of growth such as algae bloom;
21 is it not?
22 DR. AULT: Yes, sir.
23 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Now, if that's
24 true, would an additional 6,000 tons per year
25 into the environment of Tampa Bay have a
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1 reasonable probability of causing an
2 algae bloom?
3 DR. AULT: Sir, within the background
4 variability in the system, it's understood that
5 that additional load in the system would have
6 basically a negligible effect in production of
7 phytoplankton, algae in the system.
8 And so in terms of its consequences higher
9 up in the system, it's not expected to have
10 deleterious effects to the system, or cause
11 negative changes in productivity.
12 TREASURER NELSON: So your answer is no?
13 DR. AULT: No. That's correct. Short
14 answer, yes, sir.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Let me -- you know, we've
16 got a lot of time here. I believe if you'll
17 just kind of hold your applause down a little
18 bit on both sides, we'll just -- you know, we'll
19 just get a little more time in, and people will
20 be able to testify a little bit more.
21 DR. AULT: Yes, sir.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: You said it primarily
23 came down to an apples to apples. Or you were
24 able to bring it to sort of apples to apples.
25 DR. AULT: Yes, sir.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: And then you also said
2 that you thought that those were kind of
3 comparable.
4 Now, is that based on -- my understanding
5 is you operate the plant at 85 or 87 percent of
6 capacity, and you bring in more fuel in order to
7 do that.
8 Is that based on bringing in more fuel to
9 operate it at 85 percent of capacity under the
10 other fuel -- you know, now it's operating at
11 thirty something percent of capacity.
12 DR. AULT: Yes. Well, let me say that our
13 study didn't look necessarily at risk
14 mitigation, or risk management, per se. But we
15 feel that our assessment was looking at --
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, if you didn't look
17 at this --
18 DR. AULT: Can I continue for a moment,
19 sir.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yeah.
21 DR. AULT: -- is that the essence is that
22 where we're looking was an uncontrolled spill
23 itself. And Captain Holt will refer to the
24 issue of the reduction in risks associated with
25 the transportation side.
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1 But the idea was we're trying to put the
2 proposition of a fuel spill of a given amount --
3 which actually we'd gone through a rather
4 extensive scoping and recommendation workshop to
5 evaluate what was a reasonable kind of set of
6 scenarios to look at.
7 And, in essence, to be able to evaluate the
8 consequences of those fuel in the system because
9 the orimulsion is essentially becoming a water
10 boring kind of material; versus the fuel oil
11 which has two components, a floating component,
12 which is slick, which we're all familiar with --
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: So --
14 DR. AULT: -- and -- well -- I'm sorry.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: So then basically what
16 you're saying your study was as -- was
17 spilling -- if you spill 50 -- 500,000 gallons
18 of one, and 500,000 gallons of the other, you
19 were looking at the comparison of those.
20 DR. AULT: Yes, sir.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: You were not looking at
22 the risk of whether there was higher potential
23 for fuel spill, really you were double
24 carrying --
25 DR. AULT: That's exactly --
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. Let me ask
2 you this: In the -- the fact that -- and I
3 don't understand all the technical, and I
4 understand you set up a model.
5 But in that one goes into the orimulsion --
6 orimulsion goes into the water column and then
7 it sinks, you know, do we have -- how good is
8 our model, or what did you use to show that you
9 had a major oil spill --
10 DR. AULT: Uh-hum.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- of orimulsion.
12 We know -- we've had major oil spills of --
13 of the bunker C or the other things. We know
14 what that does. We know it stays on the
15 surface. We know something about the breakdown
16 time and all that.
17 How do we know about the water column?
18 DR. AULT: Well, there were a series of
19 studies which characterized the physical and
20 chemical dynamics of the system. And those
21 properties are very well described.
22 The certitude that we have that the model
23 is performing well was a time cast of the fuel
24 oil spill of 1993.
25 But because we understand the physical and
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1 chemical dynamics of the system, we feel --
2 we're rel-- very confident that the expectation
3 of what orimulsion would do in the water is
4 recapitulated by our model itself. Or what it
5 would do in the bay.
6 So, in essence, the confidence that we used
7 in trying to prescribe the futures of fuel
8 oil -- or orimulsion after it spilled in the
9 water has a high confidence to it.
10 Another point I'd like to bring up is the
11 function that fuel -- or orimulsion itself,
12 because it is in the water, and it is not driven
13 by wind, is more predictable in its fate than
14 fuel oil Number 6 would be in terms of surface
15 slick.
16 So, therefore, the opportunity to go out
17 and have mitigation activities is higher as a
18 function of its property of staying in water and
19 acting like water.
20 So we have very good models that predict
21 the fate of that. And, in essence, that's what
22 we built our confidence from.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: We don't have any actual
24 spills of any consequence or size. I mean --
25 DR. AULT: I think that's fortuitous. But
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1 nonetheless --
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Right. I --
3 DR. AULT: -- the fact is, if there were a
4 spill, we feel very confident the model is going
5 to reflect the dynamics of that spill.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
7 DR. AULT: Thank you.
8 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The final member of the
9 expert team that I would like to introduce is
10 Captain William Holt. Captain Holt has recently
11 retired from the United States --
12 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
13 room.)
14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: -- Coast Guard, where he
15 served in for more than 24 years in oil spill
16 response capacities.
17 He was, among other things, one of the
18 principal authors of the Oil Pollution
19 Control Act of 1990 that was passed by Congress
20 following the Exxon Valdez disaster.
21 CAPTAIN HOLT: Good afternoon.
22 I'd also like to add that in addition to
23 what Mr. Cunningham said as my credentials, that
24 I did assist during the Exxon Valdez spill, and
25 I directed U.S. efforts during the spill into
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1 the Arabian Gulf during Desert Storm.
2 My involvement with this project was
3 two-fold. I looked at the various risks --
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: You're not looking
5 forward to assisting in an orimulsion spill --
6 CAPTAIN HOLT: No, sir --
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- are you?
8 CAPTAIN HOLT: -- I'm not.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good.
10 CAPTAIN HOLT: And my experience with those
11 two major spills has been in the back of my mind
12 through this entire project, I can assure you.
13 I assessed the various risk management
14 tools that Bitor America and FPL are using in
15 designing the marine transportation system for
16 bringing orimulsion into Port Manatee.
17 And I was also asked to assess the response
18 plans, technologies, and various methods that
19 would be used in the event of an orimulsion
20 spill.
21 With regard to the risk assessment,
22 Bitor America will be transporting orimulsion to
23 Port Manatee using extraordinary risk management
24 tools.
25 They have committed to operational
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1 practices that are far in excess of those that
2 are required or that are currently in use by the
3 maritime industry today.
4 The reduction in risk by using some of
5 these tools is quantifiable. In other words --
6 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
7 room.)
8 CAPTAIN HOLT: -- some of the tools you can
9 quantify what the risk reduction might be.
10 Others you cannot. It's just a qualitative
11 assessment.
12 I used a very conservative approach in
13 trying to determine what the risk reduction
14 might be. And based on using some of the risk
15 reduction tools, for example, double hulled
16 vessels, a safety zone, tug escorts, I
17 determined that the orimulsion marine transport
18 system is about eight times safer than that
19 currently in use for bringing Number 6 fuel oil
20 into Port Manatee.
21 In other words, a tank ship that's carrying
22 orimulsion is about eight times less likely to
23 experience a large spill, than a tank ship that
24 is currently delivering Number 6 fuel oil.
25 Now, Governor, you asked the question about
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1 the increased deliveries of orimulsion. When
2 you factor that in, the overall reduction is
3 about four times.
4 In other words, the increased deliveries is
5 about twice that which is currently used for
6 bringing Number 6 fuel oil. So it reduces by
7 half the overall reduction. Fairly simple
8 mathematics.
9 There's also going to be a reduction in
10 spills throughout Florida as a result of the
11 reduction in Number 6 oil delivered to FPL
12 facilities throughout the state.
13 And I also examined the response aspects of
14 transporting orimulsion in the unlikely event
15 there is a spill. And I've noticed in the press
16 recently that there has been a lot written about
17 this. And I think it's very important to
18 address it. I believe that there are a lot of
19 misconceptions about our ability to respond to a
20 spill of orimulsion.
21 The U.S. Coast Guard -- of which I was
22 part, but I was not involved in any of the
23 assessments of orimulsion when I was on active
24 duty.
25 The U.S. Coast Guard has witnessed all of
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1 the tests of the orimulsion response equipment,
2 reviewed and approved all of the contingency
3 plans for responding to a spill, and has
4 satisfied itself on the response capability that
5 Bitor and FPL have put together.
6 I have extensively reviewed those plans,
7 and that response capability, and I found that
8 the response capability is comparable to that to
9 a Number 6 oil spill.
10 I'll not go into the details of that, but
11 I'm certainly available to answer any questions
12 that you might have.
13 It's important to note, I think, that any
14 oil spill response is terribly inefficient. And
15 you're very familiar with the 1993 oil spill.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
17 CAPTAIN HOLT: On average, we recover about
18 15 to 20 percent of the oil that's spilled. Our
19 recovery ability at sea is even less.
20 But there are efforts that are ongoing to
21 improve that efficiency within the Coast Guard
22 to recover spills that -- of oil that sinks,
23 such as the heavy Number 6 oil that is coming
24 into Tampa Bay currently.
25 (Governor Chiles exited the room.)
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1 CAPTAIN HOLT: And Bitor and FPL have also
2 committed to ongoing efforts to improve response
3 to an orimulsion spill.
4 Overall, Tampa Bay will be at a
5 significantly reduced risk from the delivery of
6 orimulsion compared to Number 6 fuel oil.
7 And I'll be happy to answer any questions
8 you might have.
9 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Looks like no
10 questions.
11 Thank you.
12 CAPTAIN HOLT: Thank you.
13 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Captain Holt.
14 I had planned to make some remarks of my
15 own. But I'm probably the most expendable one.
16 So I've been given a list of people under
17 the heading Proponents. And just to move things
18 along, I'll call their names if that would be
19 all right.
20 The first name I have is Dave Kramer.
21 And I'll call two out at a time.
22 The next one would be Reverend
23 Donald L. Roberts.
24 MR. KRAMER: Members of the Cabinet, and
25 I guess the Governor stepped out for a minute.
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1 Thank you very much for allowing me to speak
2 today.
3 My name is David Kramer. I've been a
4 citizen of Florida for over 40 years, except for
5 a period of time when I was in the
6 U.S. Air Force.
7 I currently live down on Terra Ceia Bay,
8 about 6 miles to the west of the Florida
9 Power & Light plant. My neighbors include
10 Gloria Rains, who's one of the people here
11 that's going to be speaking against it.
12 And Ed Rathke, a member of the Florida
13 Power & Light team. We all live in a waterfront
14 community out there in Terra Ceia Bay.
15 I'm a former chairman of the Bay Colony
16 Property Owners Association. I'm also currently
17 a vice chairman of the Federation of Homeowners
18 in Manatee County.
19 But I'm not here to speak on behalf of any
20 of those organizations, I'm here to speak for
21 myself. And I want to make that clear.
22 If I speak for anybody beyond that, I want
23 to speak for the many people who couldn't come
24 today, because they're at work, and because they
25 have a very strong interest in how you vote
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1 today, both in terms of the rates that they
2 might have to pay for electricity, which are
3 extremely significant to them, particularly
4 pensioners and people that have might -- might
5 have low income that are going to be concerned
6 about whether they can afford to pay the
7 electric bill.
8 And also people that might be concerned
9 about their jobs or their children's education,
10 all of which will be affected by the reduced
11 electrical rates that we might see from bringing
12 orimulsion.
13 I'm also here to speak on the -- on behalf
14 of clean water and clean air. These are
15 important concerns to me, particularly when you
16 consider the environment that I live in.
17 And I'd like to address a few things that
18 have been asked by Mr. Nelson concerning
19 discharge of nitrous oxides into the water. And
20 I'm really in a way amazed that they weren't
21 addressed perhaps a little bit more strongly.
22 There was an article in the Sarasota
23 Herald-Tribune that ran about two days ago. And
24 it concerns continued violations by the City of
25 Palmetto that were addressed by a lawsuit by the
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1 Federal EPA for continued dumping of
2 unauthorized 1.4 million -- million gallons a
3 day of treated human waste into Terra Ceia Bay.
4 Now, that's a tremendous nitrogen load.
5 Bradenton discharges a substantial amount
6 of waste into the Manatee River. Sarasota has a
7 mostly untreated sewer system with septic tanks
8 that routinely discharge untreated human waste
9 up and down the west coast of Florida.
10 I am thoroughly convinced that this has a
11 lot to do with the nitrogen blooms that we've
12 seen up and down the coast of Florida. And
13 perhaps there is some connection between that
14 and the recent deaths of manatees and some
15 creatures that burn -- that breathe air near the
16 surface of the water.
17 Whether or not you can make a good
18 scientific argument for that or not, I don't
19 think it takes a genius to figure out that
20 there's a substantial impact to the environment
21 of dumping this much nitrogen waste into the
22 water.
23 I've spent a lot of time on this. I don't
24 have an ax to grind here. I don't work for
25 Florida Power & Light, I'm an airline pilot. I
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1 don't have any stock in Florida Power & Light.
2 I'm just here as a private citizen, and I
3 feel rather good about it, because I'm not
4 running for any public office or anything else.
5 I'm just here because I think it's the right
6 thing to do.
7 So I'm taking the day off to try and argue
8 for you to -- to vote for orimulsion.
9 And I hope that before the day is done,
10 that you will, in the words of Joe Friday and
11 the old TV show, just consider the facts, ma'am,
12 or sir.
13 Because you're going to hear a lot of
14 things today. If it's anything like the
15 newspaper stories, you're going to hear about
16 minute traces of parts per billion of some
17 exotic chemical that might mimic some hormone
18 that might affect human beings, and it might do
19 this or that.
20 What I'm asking you to consider is not
21 necessarily the proponents that were paid for by
22 Florida Power & Light, or the proponents that
23 were paid for by the environmental
24 organizations, some of which I saw fly up on
25 paid for jets, like I did, this morning.
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1 Of course, I could fly for free as an airline
2 pilot.
3 I'm asking you consider the dozens upon
4 dozens upon dozens of state, federal, and
5 locally paid employees. The governments of the
6 state of Florida and the local counties and the
7 federal government spend millions of dollars a
8 year to hire these experts to study these
9 issues.
10 And almost to a man and woman, they've come
11 back in favor of this project. And I hope that
12 you will consider that before the day is out
13 because I see the environmental consequences of
14 not voting for this as being substantially more
15 serious than the environmental consequences of
16 voting for it.
17 We have focused today on nitrous oxide, and
18 I would ask you before the day is out to focus
19 on the tremendous environmental impact of
20 particulates and particular sulfur dioxide that
21 are going to continue to go up the smokestacks
22 if Florida Power & Light continues to operate,
23 as they certainly will, under the licenses that
24 they can -- that they currently have to operate
25 if they continue to burn oil.
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1 There are major negative impacts to voting
2 this down, environmentally and economically.
3 And I think you need to consider those, rather
4 than focusing just on the nitrous oxide issue.
5 If you want to focus on the nitrous oxide
6 issue, my suggestion to you is that you speak to
7 a gentleman that I spoke to yesterday. And I
8 spent a lot of time on this. I've been to
9 Washington, and I've been to Atlanta.
10 I've been talking to people throughout the
11 state about this. I've got quite a phone bill
12 on it. And I sent all of you faxes that I'll
13 pass up here, if I could hand it up -- I don't
14 know how to get it up to you.
15 Maybe I could ask this photographer to drop
16 it up -- of some editorials that I've written to
17 the paper.
18 I want to say this: That after talking to
19 Bill Washburn, who's the permitting engineer for
20 the district of Florida DEP down in Hillsborough
21 and Manatee County area, he's talked to me about
22 the MARS, the Manatee Area Reserve System, which
23 is basically an attempt by Manatee County to try
24 and get the various communities in that area --
25 Bradenton and Sarasota -- Bradenton and Sarasota
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1 and Palmetto and the like -- that are dumping
2 treated human waste into our bays and estuaries
3 right now, to tie those things into a water
4 reuse system, much like Manatee County has spent
5 a fortune on.
6 It's the envy of most of the people around
7 the country where we use that wastewater to
8 irrigate golf courses, we use that wastewater to
9 irrigate farm fields so that we not only lessen
10 the impact of water use in the state of Florida,
11 but we reduce measurably, and very significantly
12 the impact of nitrous oxide discharge into our
13 bays.
14 Now, Florida Power & Light being an
15 incredibly good corporate customer -- or
16 corporate citizen of Florida -- has done their
17 level best to try and encourage these
18 communities to tie in with the Manatee County
19 system, and to use that wastewater to cool the
20 plant, reduce the -- the effects on fresh water,
21 and reduce the amount of discharge of
22 nitrous oxide into the bay.
23 But this is tied up -- this is tied up
24 mainly in the local politics of some of these
25 communities.
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1 The State Legislature, the State Cabinet
2 could have a great effect on changing that. You
3 could today tell the City of Palmetto to lay
4 200 feet of plastic pipe to tie into
5 Manatee County's sewer project, and
6 Manatee County Commissioners offered to do
7 that.
8 And in less than 30 days, they would stop
9 discharging 1.4 million gallons of treated water
10 into Terra Ceia Bay.
11 If you're really interested in
12 nitrous oxides, you need look no further than
13 the communities up and down the west coast of
14 Florida.
15 And I would ask my environmental friends
16 and associates out here, rather than trying to
17 go after Florida Power & Light, that overall
18 with this project, we'll reduce some of the most
19 noxious elements that you can imagine, and
20 compounds you can imagine going up the
21 smokestack, that they instead focus on some of
22 the communities up and down the coast that are
23 poisoning our bays and rivers.
24 Florida Power & Light, with this project,
25 will reduce the overall pollution load that
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1 Florida has to deal with.
2 Florida Power & Light, with this project,
3 will get a better mix of fuels that in the long
4 run will ensure that the Florida Power rate
5 users of the state of Florida will not have to
6 look at rate bills that fluctuate like gas
7 prices are currently fluctuating at gas pumps
8 every time the oil prices take a bump.
9 Florida Power & Light --
10 Florida Power & Light in the long run by doing
11 this will ensure a steady supply of electrical
12 power for their users; they'll ensure a better,
13 safer environment for the people of Florida; and
14 they'll assure a stronger, healthier economy.
15 I hope that you'll consider the facts in
16 this, and not get off on too many tangents as
17 you listen to the testimony later on today.
18 Thank you very much for your time.
19 I appreciate it.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Thank you.
21 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The next speaker -- the
22 next speaker is Reverend Donald L. Roberts,
23 followed by Nick Ryan.
24 REVEREND ROBERTS: Governor Chiles and
25 members of the Cabinet, I'm Reverend
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1 Don Roberts. I'm in -- a simple country
2 Methodist preacher from Florida, and Sarasota
3 for 19-- and Manatee County for 19 years.
4 And it's my privilege to be the President
5 and Chief Executive Officer of Goodwill
6 Industries, serving the employment needs for
7 disabled persons and other persons with special
8 needs.
9 And I simply come representing myself
10 today. And I really want to say three things to
11 you like they taught me at Duke Preaching
12 School.
13 First thing I want to tell you is we need
14 to think about good neighbors because
15 Florida Power & Light has been a good corporate
16 neighbor in the 19 years that I've been in
17 Manatee and Sarasota County.
18 And I think they've been a good neighbor in
19 this process of bending over backwards to try
20 and accommodate at the state, the federal, and
21 the local levels the requirements of all of us
22 who care about our communities, the
23 environments, and the people that we serve.
24 (Governor Chiles entered the room.)
25 REVEREND ROBERTS: The second thing I want
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1 to say is, it's good for the environment. To
2 the extent that I can understand it, with the
3 little education I have in this area, everything
4 that I've read says that --
5 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
6 room.)
7 REVEREND ROBERTS: -- Florida Power & Light
8 has done due diligence in making sure that the
9 environment is enhanced, and not disturbed.
10 And for that, I want to call that to your
11 attention, as well as mine.
12 And last, but not least -- and this is a
13 moment of personal concern for me -- it's the
14 good news of what this means to the people that
15 we serve at Goodwill Industries, the poor,
16 because all of us need electricity.
17 All of us need it every day. And we need
18 it to run the pumps that keep our hearts
19 working, that dialyzes our blood, and all the
20 other things that needs -- that electricity
21 serves in our lives.
22 And I just wanted to point out that
23 Florida Power & Light has been a good corporate
24 citizen, that they have made good strides in
25 making sure that the environment is protected in
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1 this issue.
2 And last, but not least, I'm concerned
3 about those that it will ultimately serve, and
4 that'll be the citizens of the state of Florida,
5 who can least afford rate increases.
6 And I -- I applaud Florida Power & Light's
7 approach here that ultimately will drive down
8 the cost of power to the people that we all
9 serve.
10 So in the interest of time, you've heard my
11 three points, and I'll spare you the poem.
12 Thank you very much.
13 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The next speaker is
14 Nick Ryan. Followed by Sandra Rawls.
15 MR. RYAN: Good afternoon, Governor Chiles,
16 members of the Cabinet.
17 My name is Nick Ryan, and I'm employed by
18 Lafarge Corporation a major supplier and
19 producer of cement in the state of Florida. I'm
20 the Director of Florida Operations. I also have
21 three points, briefly.
22 I believe that the fuel will bring savings
23 to the residents and consumers of Florida.
24 Besides being a homeowner consuming my
25 2,000 kilowatt hours of power a month, I also
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1 represent a cement grinding facility at
2 Port Manatee, which consumes
3 two-and-a-half million kilowatt hours of power a
4 month, at significant costs. Costs that are
5 increasing every year.
6 I've operated that facility for over
7 20 years, and I expect that in the next
8 20 years, that plant will still be there. And
9 estimates show that the savings from an
10 orimulsion project, such as this, will be in the
11 neighborhood of 1 million dollars, just to our
12 company alone.
13 Secondly, our company is able to use the
14 gypsum by-product that's produced as a result of
15 the stack scrubbing. This substitutes on a
16 100 percent basis for what is normally
17 considered a -- an import product of mined
18 gypsum that comes in from outside the
19 United States.
20 We anticipate using about 30,000 tons a
21 year of this product. Again, it's not as
22 significant as some users of this product, but
23 it's significant in Manatee County.
24 The third reason, and perhaps the most
25 controversial aspect of the use of this fuel,
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1 centers around the environmental concerns that
2 we all have.
3 I understand that FP&L has agreed to many
4 stringent requirements in their permits if they
5 get them. Our company, like many other
6 industries in Florida, have their own permits
7 that are very capably administered by the DEP,
8 your -- your administrating arm.
9 I'm confident that FP&L's permits will be
10 no less stringently administered, and I would
11 trust that you would have the same confidence in
12 your agencies.
13 In summary, while there are risks involved
14 in this -- this decision, and any other
15 progressive decision like it, I don't think that
16 the -- these risks should be overshadowed -- or
17 should overshadow the benefits that come with
18 the project, especially if those risks that are
19 involved are adequately addressed, and I believe
20 that they are.
21 Please have the confidence in FP&L and your
22 administrating agencies that they can both work
23 together to get -- to get what each of them
24 needs to have this project go forward, and that
25 the users of power and the FP&L system can
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1 benefit by both of their efforts.
2 Thank you.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
4 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The next speaker is
5 Sandra Rawls, followed by Mary Fran Carroll.
6 MS. RAWLS: Hello. My name's
7 Sandra Rawls.
8 I'm a resident of Manatee County. I'm a
9 native of Florida. Don't have very many of
10 those nowadays. I was born and raised in
11 Manatee County. I've lived in Parrish for
12 23 years now.
13 My family and -- reside in Parrish on
14 approximately 1,000 acres of land. We have
15 cattle. I am very involved in my church, which
16 has a day care, and I'm a director of the
17 day care.
18 So I am concerned about the children and
19 people in the community, and about Parrish in
20 general.
21 I feel very confident in what
22 Florida Power & Light's doing. They've done a
23 lot of research. I feel even more confident
24 after today, having heard all of the experts.
25 I believe in God, and I have to have faith
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1 in God, so I think I have faith in our EPA, our
2 environmentalists, that they have the knowledge
3 that I do not have to make the proper
4 decisions.
5 So I feel very comfortable in what they're
6 doing, I think they've done extensive research.
7 I have no problem as a resident of Parrish with
8 the --
9 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
10 MS. RAWLS: -- orimulsion project.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
13 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The next speaker is
14 Mary Fran Carroll, followed by John Schantzen.
15 MS. CARROLL: My name is Mary Fran
16 Carroll. I have been a resident of the state of
17 Florida for ten years. I am employed as
18 Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive
19 Officer of Schrader Manatee, a large landowner
20 in Sarasota/Manatee Counties.
21 We, I think, have a good record with reg--
22 as community citizens. We feel very strongly --
23 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
24 MS. CARROLL: -- we've been land owners
25 since 1922. And I suspect when you have
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1 27,000 acres, you expect to be a landowner for
2 some time to come.
3 We have a number of agricultural
4 enterprises. So we're very much into the water
5 problem.
6 I think airplanes fall out of the sky,
7 locomotives run into each other --
8 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
9 MS. CARROLL: -- people fall over each
10 other, and we haven't taken any of those things
11 out of use yet.
12 From what the experts tell me, they have
13 done a very thorough job in trying to take care
14 of any potential disaster. Undoubtedly, there
15 will be disaster.
16 But, as I say, we haven't taken airplanes
17 out, and we haven't taken locomotives out.
18 And, please, consider this favorably. We
19 have a continuing growth pattern in this state,
20 we are going to have to provide electricity.
21 The only way we're going to stop being totally
22 dependent on overseas oil is to consider
23 alternate fuel sources.
24 Thank you.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
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1 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The next speaker, and
2 I believe the last given our time constraints,
3 is John Schantzen.
4 MR. SCHANTZEN: Thank you.
5 Good afternoon, Governor, and members of
6 the Siting Board.
7 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
8 MR. SCHANTZEN: I'm John Schantzen. I'm
9 the business manager for System Council U4IBEW.
10 We are the electrical workers, represent the
11 employees of Florida Power & Light, the power
12 generation plants, as well as the line crews.
13 And our locals also represent some of the
14 coops and municipal employees around the state.
15 We represent 4,200 employees at FPL, 800 of
16 those which are in generation plant, and some of
17 them who are here with me today.
18 If you'd please stand.
19 Thank you.
20 We're here today on this subject of
21 orimulsion and what it means to our jobs. The
22 capacity factor of the plant has been a large
23 concern with our employees.
24 As the industry, electrical industry,
25 unwinds itself, and goes into a deregulated
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1 mode, and into the retail ruling factor, we must
2 consider our jobs utmost, and our careers.
3 With a capacity factor of 30 percent, our
4 jobs are at great risk. With a capacity factor
5 of near 80 percent, our jobs are much more
6 secure, although not guaranteed.
7 Our people are very proud of the work they
8 do, and their safety record.
9 Our employees with Florida Power & Light
10 have a joint safety program where we have been
11 able in the last four years of continuing to
12 reduce the accident and safety incidents on our
13 property.
14 We have many plants that have gone over
15 two years -- one in two years, without a
16 recordable injury. And it is because of the
17 comprehensive efforts of those employees who
18 would be responsible in operating these plants.
19 Likewise, our employees are proud of their
20 environmental concerns, and their stewardship of
21 the environment.
22 Our employees handbook states very proudly
23 that we will not only work to the letter of the
24 environmental laws, but we will work to the
25 spirit of the environmental laws. And our
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1 people strive to do that on a daily basis.
2 We, the employees of Florida Power & Light,
3 do want you to consider favorably this
4 orimulsion conversion for the sake of our
5 careers, and the sake of the environment, and to
6 the cost of the customers.
7 We assure you that we will work to ensure
8 that we do it safely.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I think I would prefer to
11 reserve what little time -- a few minutes,
12 I think only is left -- for any kind of response
13 we might have based on the opponents.
14 I would be happy to answer any questions if
15 you have any at this time.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Question.
17 TREASURER NELSON: Could Mr. Woody come
18 up?
19 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'm sure he could.
20 TREASURER NELSON: I'm looking at an
21 exhibit marked FPL number 4. And it says 1995
22 FPL Woody. So I assume that's --
23 And what it is, it's a -- it's entitled:
24 Manatee Orimulsion Conversion Project FPL
25 Exhibit, Energy by Fuel Type.
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1 And it has a pie shaped chart for 1994, and
2 for 1999. And in the pie shape, the slices of
3 the pie show the energy by fuel type that is
4 consumed in 1994 and what you project to be
5 consumed in 1999.
6 And the essence of the chart shows that oil
7 is going from 31 percent down to 9 percent; that
8 orimulsion, which is not present on the 1994,
9 goes up to 11 percent in the 1999 chart; natural
10 gas from 20 percent up to 26 percent.
11 Now, I then look at another chart submitted
12 by FPL called FPL Form 3-A, page 1 of 1, revised
13 March 7, '96. At the bottom of it, it's
14 page 74.
15 And here, this chart is entitled: Energy
16 Sources, with the designation GWH, which I
17 assume is gigawatt hours?
18 MR. WOODY: Yes.
19 TREASURER NELSON: And what it -- what it
20 shows is that even before the issue of
21 orimulsion, as an alternate fuel would be
22 introduced on this chart in 1998, that you've
23 already caused a tremendous reduction in oil by
24 replacing oil in your projections with natural
25 gas.
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1 So what I need you to tell me is: If that
2 is, in fact, the case, that you're replacing oil
3 with natural gas, what is it that is the
4 significance of the pie chart in FPL Exhibit 4,
5 which would lead us to believe there that the
6 orimulsion is replacing the oil?
7 MR. WOODY: I do not have the chart that
8 you referred to in the second case. I -- I'm
9 not sure what that is. But I think I can
10 respond to your question.
11 The -- the increase in natural gas is
12 brought about by the fact that in 1995, in --
13 I think it was in March when it went in service,
14 there was a -- an additional gas transmission
15 line that was completed at a cost of about a
16 billion dollars.
17 And Florida Power & Light has signed a
18 long-term contract for the -- a major portion of
19 that -- the gas capability into the state.
20 The new generation that -- incidentally
21 that we've just put in service is fired by
22 natural gas. These are new plants at
23 Fort Lauderdale and Martin plant.
24 So there is a reduction in the amount of
25 oil that we used in 1995.
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1 We project forward that oil will again
2 begin to increase because of the growth in our
3 service territory in our -- in our customers.
4 And we will see that that increase in oil --
5 I do not have a calculated number. But if
6 you look at the pie chart referred to earlier,
7 and assume all other fuels stay the same, and
8 that orimulsion replaces oil, and that's
9 approximately 100 percent right, there may be a
10 small displacement of gas.
11 But our intent would be to replace oil with
12 orimulsion, and we will reduce oil from what
13 would have been about 20 percent in 1999, to
14 about 9 percent.
15 I haven't calculated that out in barrels.
16 But it's obvious that with the increased demand
17 by customers and the generation that will go up,
18 that 9 percent of that new number is a larger
19 number of barrels than 9 percent of today's
20 generation would be.
21 So the use of oil is going to go up if we
22 do nothing, and the use of orimulsion will
23 mitigate the increase from approximately
24 20 percent to 9 percent.
25 TREASURER NELSON: That's what we normally
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1 would think. But that's not what your chart on
2 FPL Form 3-A, for it shows that you have reduced
3 oil from 31 percent down to 15 percent before
4 orimulsion ever kicks in at all.
5 MR. WOODY: Yes. And I made the point that
6 with the new natural gas that we were able to
7 bring into the state in 1995, we did have a step
8 reduction in oil in 1995, but we are not able to
9 bring any additional gas in. So oil will start
10 growing again.
11 And I haven't looked at these numbers. But
12 it's my understanding, and I think based on a
13 lot of experience in this area, that oil will be
14 the swing fuel.
15 We're not bringing any more nuclear power
16 on, we're not bringing any more gas in, and
17 we're not building any more coal plants. So as
18 the demand grows, we will meet it with
19 increasing oil generation, and we hope to offset
20 that by orimulsion.
21 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Just one more
22 question, Governor.
23 Mr. Woody, would you consent to the
24 following condition upon the issuance of this
25 permit. And I'm just giving you a concept.
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1 There's no magic to the words that I'm reading
2 here.
3 But Florida Power & Light shall offset by
4 100 percent nitrogen loading to Tampa Bay
5 attributable to NOx emissions from the facility.
6 MR. WOODY: I will consent to the concept.
7 I need to caucus here a minute to be sure
8 that --
9 TREASURER NELSON: Sure. You can respond
10 later. That --
11 MR. WOODY: -- that we have a way of doing
12 that. And I think we do. But please give me
13 the latitude of a final answer. The concept
14 sounds okay to me.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right.
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: We'll turn it over, unless
17 there are further questions.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
19 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.
20 (Commissioner Brogan exited the room.)
21 MR. GREEN: Governor, now we'll begin the
22 opponents with an hour-and-a-half time limit.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right, sir.
24 MR. GREEN: The first -- the first speaker
25 will be Mayor David Fischer, St. Petersburg; the
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1 second speaker will be Commissioner Joe McClash,
2 Manatee County; the third speaker will be
3 Thomas Reese.
4 MAYOR FISCHER: Good afternoon.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good afternoon, Mayor.
6 MAYOR FISCHER: I'm Mayor Fischer from
7 St. Petersburg.
8 I'd like to start out by saying that in the
9 1970s, I served three years as the Chairman of
10 St. Petersburg's Environmental Development
11 Commission. I was four years on the
12 City Council, two years as Vice Mayor.
13 I mention that, because that was the era of
14 the Grizzle Bill when the communities on
15 Tampa Bay started to change the way they treated
16 wastewater, and what they did with it.
17 St. Petersburg upgraded its wastewater
18 treatment plants, and started to build a
19 reclaimed water system. And by 1990s,
20 St. Petersburg had the largest reclaimed water
21 system in the world.
22 In 1988, because of what the communities
23 were doing in and about Tampa Bay, Tampa Bay,
24 after three decades of degradation, started to
25 see the first signs of stabilization, the first
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1 hints that it could recover.
2 In 1990, we were selected, along with
3 29 other estuaries in the United States, for the
4 National Estuary Program. Between 1991 and
5 1993, I served on that Board.
6 Last week an insert in the newspapers in
7 and about Tampa Bay gave a special report of the
8 National Estuary Program, and it was titled:
9 Charting the Course for Tampa Bay.
10 In there, they had articles such as:
11 Tampa Bay on the Road to Recovery; Sea Grass
12 Sews Seeds of Life in the Bay; Nitrogen, Too
13 Much of a Good Thing; and an article called
14 Healthy Bay for What, What Cost, Who Pays?
15 The director of the program had this to say
16 in his letter: The bay -- that the bay can
17 recover is a testament to the resilience --
18 (Commissioner Brogan entered the room.)
19 MAYOR FISCHER: -- of nature and the
20 efforts of citizens and leaders who understand
21 that a healthy bay is one of -- is everyone's
22 best interests.
23 But the future of Tampa Bay will be defined
24 by actions we must take now at home, at work,
25 and in our communities to continue the bay's
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1 recovery, and prevent a cost fix later.
2 St. Petersburg has a shoreline of
3 124 miles, the largest municipal shoreline in
4 the state of Florida. We have 240,000 people.
5 We have never been consulted on this
6 issue. In fact, unless you've got a newspaper
7 from the location where this plant was going to
8 change its fuel, you heard very little about
9 orimulsion.
10 So I apologize that we've come late, but we
11 were never asked. But I have sit -- I have sat
12 on the various boards that have made the
13 decisions through the decades to clean up the
14 bay, and I've seen the results of the cleanup of
15 the bay.
16 In fact, I've seen the reports that show in
17 the last few years, we've had 2,000 acres of
18 sea grass. And the report says that with a
19 slight reduction of the nitrogen, that that
20 could expand to 12,000 acres of sea grass.
21 And I mention the sea grass because that's
22 the life of the bay. It's the sea grass that
23 brings back the fish, the crustaceans, that
24 brings back its purity.
25 So I -- I would sit maybe like the Board
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1 members would up there, and I would wonder what
2 the risk.
3 (Comptroller Milligan exited the room.)
4 MAYOR FISCHER: I would wonder, is it a
5 risky venture at any measurement in relation to
6 the progress that has been made in this estuary.
7 And I would ask that the Board taking this
8 into consideration would say no to making
9 Tampa Bay a test bed for Venezuelan tar.
10 Thank you very much.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
12 MR. McCLASH: Good afternoon, Governor,
13 Cabinet. It's a pleasure to be here. I wish we
14 were talking about something else. But it's a
15 very important issue today for Manatee County.
16 I'm Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash
17 representing District 7. We have a population
18 of over 230,000 people in Manatee County.
19 The reason I am here is because the
20 majority of the people that I represent are
21 really opposed to the burning of this
22 experimental fuel, orimulsion. These people
23 have voiced their concerns through letters,
24 phone calls --
25 (Comptroller Milligan entered the room.)
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1 MR. McCLASH: -- faxes, and personal
2 conversations. There is even bipartisan
3 opposition to this certification as both
4 executive committees from the Republican and
5 Democratic parties have taken official positions
6 in opposition.
7 Even our local representatives,
8 Representatives Flanagan, Ogles, and Carlton
9 have gone on the record opposing the
10 certification, as well as several cities and
11 many communities in Manatee County.
12 As a matter of fact, the majority of the
13 people that I find in favor of this experimental
14 fuel are the people that work for
15 Florida Power & Light, and also those who will
16 receive the financial rewards if this
17 certification goes forward.
18 You'll see many Florida Power & Light
19 employees here, and their spouses, with their
20 yes buttons on. And I question whether they
21 would wear these buttons if they did not work
22 for Florida Power & Light or have the financial
23 rewards to look forward to if this certification
24 is approved.
25 A few years ago I asked Ed Rathke, a
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1 Florida Power & Light employee who lobbied in
2 Manatee County for this orimulsion fuel, why
3 Florida Power & Light wants to burn this
4 experimental fuel.
5 He stated, because it's cheaper. We
6 surveyed our people. They want lower
7 electricity bills.
8 From that point on, I knew that
9 Florida Power & Light was out of touch with the
10 people in the state of Florida, as well as those
11 in Manatee County.
12 Governor and Cabinet members, you have
13 watched election after election where the people
14 in Florida tax themselves to protect and restore
15 the environment. The people in Manatee County
16 have voted themselves to tax themselves to buy
17 phosphate mining lands and environmentally
18 sensitive lands in order to protect these
19 sensitive environments. This is the trend.
20 It is evident that the people I represent
21 are willing to pay extra to pay -- protect
22 their -- protect and enhance their environment.
23 And I'm sure the people throughout the whole
24 state of Florida would do the same.
25 Please do not turn your back on the recent
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1 accomplishments protecting the environments.
2 Our environments in Tampa Bay have finally
3 turned the corner. And sea grasses are growing
4 in areas where they once died off. Scallops,
5 which disappeared from our bays years ago, are
6 now surviving.
7 The reason for the turnaround is due to the
8 knowledge that we have gained. However, there
9 is more that we need to know.
10 Last year, Manatee and Sarasota County
11 almost lost every single mature fish in
12 Sarasota Bay, and thousands more along the Gulf
13 coast of our area. What caused it was the red
14 tide. We know the organism that causes the red
15 tide feeds on nitrogen.
16 Florida Power & Light is proposing to
17 increase nitrogen in these water bodies. Will
18 the Florida -- will Florida Power & Light's
19 increases in nitrogen create more occurrences in
20 the red tide? We don't know.
21 Florida Power & Light is scared of the
22 competition when it comes to retail wheeling.
23 This is one of the reasons why they're pushing
24 for orimulsion.
25 Will this competitive oil allow Florida
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1 Power & Light to sell power outside of our
2 state? Cause the Manatee County and Tampa Bay
3 area to suffer from unwarranted pollution?
4 There is no provision in this certification
5 to prevent Florida Power & Light from selling
6 outside its service area. And that really
7 concerns me.
8 Today we cross a new threshold. You use
9 your judgment to determine if we are ready for
10 takeoff. While serving four years as a
11 United States Marine, I took up flying. The
12 preflight portion of the flight was very
13 important. It's where you make that go and no
14 go decision.
15 Prior to allowing orimulsion to take off in
16 the whole state, which it will if it's approved
17 in Manatee County, I respectfully request you to
18 ask yourself if this state is ready for this
19 manufactured fuel.
20 My position is that a no go for a number of
21 reasons.
22 I'd like to pass this out now.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
24 MR. McCLASH: I'm not done yet.
25 The Siting Board's role today is similar to
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1 land use approval by the Manatee County
2 Commissioners. It's not unusual to deny these
3 land uses after staff has even recommended
4 approval, because elected officials have a
5 better grasp of compatibility, timing, and what
6 is best for the people who elected them.
7 Florida Power & Light certification is not
8 compatible with the community of Parrish. Truck
9 transport may be within the level of service.
10 However, the quality of life of the
11 community and safety concerns will have
12 devastating impacts on this community.
13 Second, the nitrogen levels will exceed
14 historical emissions. The two national estuary
15 studies conducted during the past five years
16 have proved nitrogen is killing these
17 environmentally sensitive waters, and both
18 studies recommend reducing nitrogen levels, not
19 increasing them.
20 The Clean Water Act also prohibits nitrogen
21 increases in these water bodies. Florida Power
22 & Light will increase the nitrogen loading in
23 these estuaries under the proposed
24 certification. This is a violation of the Clean
25 Water Act's intent, and ignores the valuable
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1 work of -- these estuary studies have proven.
2 And, third, Florida Power & Light has no
3 water agreement with Manatee County as of this
4 date. This agreement is needed for
5 certification. No certification should be given
6 until this water agreement is approved.
7 Florida Power & Light needs to double its
8 water supply for burning orimulsion. Thus far,
9 the submitted agreement to Manatee County has
10 not been accepted.
11 All the numbers that you've heard about
12 reuse water supply can change tomorrow after
13 this certification, because it's not something
14 that's been approved by the Board of
15 Manatee County Commissioners, which is supplying
16 reuse water.
17 And I'd just like to also state on the
18 record that we're not dumping anything into the
19 estuaries. Manatee County has no discharge
20 permits for all its three wastewater plants, and
21 has successfully negotiated contracts with water
22 use agreements with lots of farmers, supplying
23 them with the reuse waters that's critical.
24 Will this compete with those farmers' water
25 needs and the areas that are critical underneath
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1 the SWUCA area? You know, that's a concern.
2 The water is not available today either. A
3 pipeline has to be built. Underneath the MARS
4 program, we have federal funding to interconnect
5 some of these water lines.
6 But there is no pipeline out there. This
7 also needs to be accomplished prior to the
8 burning of orimulsion in supplying this water.
9 So I just want to make sure that the
10 record's clear that there is no water today.
11 And Manatee County's not jeopardizing the
12 environments by sending it into the estuaries.
13 Four, the orimulsion spill recovery has
14 never been tested in the environments where the
15 product is to be transported. Without proper
16 testing of the equipment and the waters around
17 Tampa Bay, how can this certification even be
18 approved?
19 Orimulsion is different than Number 6 fuel
20 oil that floats on the top of the water. When
21 orimulsion is spilled into the water, it
22 disperses into the whole water column, turning
23 it black from top to bottom, especially in the
24 shallow waters of Tampa Bay. And no
25 certification should be given until these
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1 recovery methods are proven.
2 All the talk that you heard here this
3 morning are computer models for the most part.
4 They're not the real things. We have real life
5 experience with oil. What's going to happen
6 when this orimulsion disperses? There's some
7 parts of the fuel that you can never get out of
8 the water column.
9 Orimulsion is also the -- an experimental
10 manufactured fuel. I heard four years is the
11 longest track record. And that probably is
12 stemming from a plant in England which burnt
13 orimulsion without any pollution control
14 equipment, which had numerous complaints of soot
15 and everything else falling out of its plant.
16 There's no plant that has burned orimulsion
17 at the size or with the technology that's
18 proposed in front of you today. None that I
19 heard on the testimony.
20 Florida Power & Light has supplied
21 one-sided studies on orimulsion, and the State
22 does not have the qualifications to determine
23 the validity of these studies.
24 I'm not saying that we have bad people as
25 far as working for us. But we're outgunned as
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1 far as when it comes to millions of dollars that
2 Florida Power & Light has spent with the people
3 that we have on staff.
4 We haven't done any independent studies,
5 and that should be a priority before
6 certification.
7 And then finally, the state has no policy
8 on manufactured fuels. Certainly orimulsion
9 will be the first fuel that would be approved as
10 a manufactured fuel. It's massaged to act like
11 a Number 6 fuel oil. It's not.
12 This leaves the Siting Board as the safety
13 net for the people in the state of Florida. The
14 Siting Act allows this Board to deny the
15 certification if this certification will have
16 adverse effects on human health, the
17 environment, the ecology, and the land and its
18 wildlife, and the ecology of state waters and
19 aquatic life as stated by Florida Statute
20 403.5175.
21 The hearing officer wants this Siting Board
22 to close its eyes on adverse effects this
23 certification will have. Ask you not to close
24 your eyes today to the reality of the risk, and
25 deny the certification today.
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1 Thank you for your time.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
3 Yes, sir.
4 A question.
5 TREASURER NELSON: I have a question.
6 Commissioner, are you speaking for a
7 County Commission, or are you speaking as an
8 individual?
9 MR. McCLASH: I'm speaking as a
10 County Commissioner representing District 7. As
11 our County Attorney stated, Manatee County
12 Commissioners have never taken a position for
13 approval or denial of this matter.
14 TREASURER NELSON: Okay.
15 MR. McCLASH: Okay.
16 TREASURER NELSON: And since he spoke for
17 the proponents --
18 MR. McCLASH: He did not speak for the
19 proponents on -- he spoke just representing
20 Manatee County. I --
21 TREASURER NELSON: But they have not taken
22 a position.
23 MR. McCLASH: That's correct. And
24 County Attorney, Chip Rice, is available to
25 answer the legal technicalities of his
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1 position. But I don't want it to reflect --
2 (Secretary Mortham exited the room.)
3 MR. McCLASH: -- that Manatee County has
4 taken either side. He made it very clear to the
5 aides last week. And -- and I speak as --
6 TREASURER NELSON: And the rest of your
7 fellow commissioners haven't taken a position?
8 MR. McCLASH: Not that I have seen. What I
9 do know is that I have asked at Board meetings
10 for the Board to take a position, and they did
11 not do it.
12 So I'm here representing -- I'm one of two
13 At-Large-Commissioners, and we have several in
14 the way of five district commissioners in
15 Manatee County that represent isolated
16 districts.
17 But I'm one of two -- Pat Glass is the
18 other one. And we represent the 230,000
19 approximate people in Manatee County that we're
20 elected by.
21 Thank you.
22 Thank you, Governor, Cabinet members.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
24 MR. GREEN: Treasurer, we do have another
25 County Commissioner here from Manatee County if
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1 you want to hear from them at this point.
2 Lari Ann Harris.
3 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
4 room.)
5 MS. HARRIS: Good afternoon. Governor and
6 Cabinet members, I appreciate having the
7 opportunity to be here, and to help clarify the
8 record on behalf of the Board of County
9 Commissioners from Manatee County, Florida.
10 I am a member of the Board serving my
11 second term. I'm also serving my third
12 successive term as the Chairman of the
13 Manatee County Port Authority.
14 Last Sunday in our local newspaper, the
15 Bradenton Herald, one of two, there was an
16 editorial that ran, and it was titled:
17 Orimulsion's Bottom Line.
18 And it recommended that the Cabinet should
19 base its decision on preserving quality of air
20 and water. And the editorial stated -- and
21 believe me, I don't live my life by editorials.
22 But I thought it summed up our position fairly
23 well.
24 That if Florida Power & Light has proven
25 that it can keep emissions within existing
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1 levels of orimulsion as a fuel, then the Cabinet
2 must approve the request.
3 If the company hasn't furnished such proof,
4 then they must reject it.
5 And this, Cabinet members and
6 Governor Chiles, is the position of the Board of
7 County Commissioners in Manatee County.
8 Certainly the decision that you have to
9 make today would be so much easier if there were
10 no existing power plant that had no permitted
11 air emission allowance, with no permitted water
12 use allowance; and if Port Manatee did not, and
13 would not, ever have fuel tankers delivering
14 fuel for use at the existing power plant.
15 But truly, that's not the realty. It does,
16 in fact, come down to new technology versus the
17 status quo. And I think the question to
18 consider is through the new technology, will the
19 quality of the emissions leaving the stacks be,
20 at worst, no dirtier than they are today; or at
21 the very best, would they be cleaner.
22 You've heard some testimony, and I
23 certainly don't mean to be repetitive. But
24 I think it is imperative for the record to
25 reflect some of the issues that the
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1 County Commission heard when we were able to ask
2 for the 53 stipulations that you've heard from
3 my attorney and from Mr. McClash.
4 And understand, these are 53 stipulations
5 that we did not have prior to this process. And
6 my Commission did approve those 53 stipulations
7 in a meeting on a six to zero vote, with
8 Mr. McClash absent from that vote.
9 Under existing air quality permits, the
10 plant is currently allowed to emit up to three
11 times the sulfuric dioxide levels than it does
12 today.
13 It's also permitted to emit three times the
14 nitrous oxide levels than today.
15 And I think that Manatee County's fear has
16 been that if fuel prices for Florida
17 Power & Light's current fuel should drop to the
18 point where it might be economical to increase
19 the plant's operations from its current
20 33 percent, to a much higher operating level,
21 existing permits would certainly allow them to
22 pollute much more.
23 I think that in considering the shipment of
24 fuels, the solution certainly is not to ban the
25 shipment of fuels, but the challenge is to try
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1 to require as many precautions and safeguards as
2 possible.
3 By way of example, one of the stipulations
4 that Manatee County did ask for, and we did
5 receive from Florida Power & Light, was that all
6 vessels that would be delivering orimulsion to
7 Port Manatee must be in double hull vessels.
8 Currently this is not a requirement.
9 Port Manatee -- and if you'll excuse me,
10 I'm going to change hats a little bit. We sit
11 as Port Authority members by virtue of State
12 law. So we -- we do wear a number of hats.
13 Port Manatee currently is receiving
14 5.8 million barrels of fuel for Florida
15 Power & Light annually. And needless to say,
16 there's going to be an economic benefit to
17 Port Manatee County if orimulsion should be
18 approved.
19 I just want to state the reality of it in
20 the context of what the state of Florida has
21 been doing relative to our Florida seaports, and
22 in the development of our infrastructure.
23 The Florida Seaport Transportation Economic
24 Development Program -- or FSTED, for those of us
25 who love these acronyms -- has been established
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1 by the Legislature. It was established in
2 1990. And it's currently at a level of
3 8 million dollars.
4 There is consideration in the Legislature
5 at this time to bump that to 15 million,
6 recognizing that the trade between
7 South America, Europe, and the Far East is going
8 to provide the jobs that we need to help enhance
9 our state's future economy.
10 If a project such as orimulsion is
11 environmentally sound, then there's nothing
12 wrong with giving the positive, economic
13 benefits resulting from it.
14 You've heard a lot about the water use
15 projects. And I'll tell you, before you stands
16 a very proud County Commissioner at our
17 reclaimed water efforts.
18 Under the existing water use permits, if
19 the Florida Power & Light plant operated at
20 their full allowed capacity, they'd be able to
21 withdraw almost three times the amount of water
22 that they're currently averaging from the Little
23 Manatee River. Not only does this concern
24 SWFWMD, this concerns Manatee County.
25 If Florida Power & Light did convert to
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1 orimulsion, utility would be able to use high
2 volumes of the reclaimed water that we do have
3 available.
4 They've asked Manatee County to provide in
5 excess of 7 million gallons per day of treated
6 wastewater from our current operations of water
7 treatment plants.
8 Right now, Manatee County is pumping over
9 10 million gallons a day into our permitted deep
10 well. So providing Florida Power & Light with
11 high volumes of that treated wastewater would
12 certainly be mutually beneficial. And I think
13 it would be difficult for anyone to argue
14 against this being the most environmentally
15 sound way of disposing of treated wastewater.
16 In conclusion, the power plant is there; it
17 is permitted to draw water from groundwater
18 wells, and the Little Manatee River; it is
19 permitted to emit high levels of pollutants into
20 the air. And I promise you that those ships
21 will continue to deliver millions of barrels of
22 fuel to Port Manatee every year.
23 I think what the Board of County
24 Commissioners is asking is that you render your
25 decision based simply on what is better for our
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1 environment, the status quo, or the requested
2 change.
3 The question was made I think earlier,
4 Mr. Nelson, you were questioning why our
5 Board -- or whether or not our Board had taken a
6 position.
7 Recognizing how the issue of local politics
8 can skew a regional issue, we were comfortable
9 that the appropriate regulatory agencies from
10 the State of Florida had the technical expertise
11 to give this the consideration that it needed,
12 and we were willing to see that come before the
13 Governor and the Cabinet.
14 Thank you.
15 TREASURER NELSON: Governor.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
17 Yes, sir.
18 TREASURER NELSON: Well, based on what
19 you've heard, is your personal recommendation
20 yes or no?
21 MS. HARRIS: Mr. Nelson, I think that if
22 you can reasonably look at the issue, and you
23 are comfortable in your mind that those people
24 who work for the State of Florida have
25 appropriately reviewed this, I am comfortable
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1 that you will come to the right decision.
2 And if that doesn't sound like the
3 consummate pol-- you know, I read the list, and
4 I saw that I was neither pro or con, but I was
5 of an interested party.
6 Isn't that just like a politician, just --
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: I'm not sure. It sounds
8 like you have some friends on -- that are for
9 it, and some friends that are against it. And
10 I'm delighted you're standing so strongly with
11 your friends. That --
12 MS. HARRIS: Thank you, Governor.
13 Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
14 TREASURER NELSON: I would like to ask you
15 this: Would you feel better about it if it had
16 the condition attached to it that I had
17 suggested which that there would be no net
18 increase of the nitrogen loading into
19 Tampa Bay?
20 MS. HARRIS: Mr. Nelson, I thought you
21 offered up a great suggestion. And I concur
22 with my colleague in concerns about how red tide
23 is affecting our community on the west coast.
24 And I think that if Florida Power & Light
25 can meet that standard, that would certainly be
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1 in the best interest of all of us.
2 So I think that was a great suggestion.
3 Wished I'd thought of it.
4 TREASURER NELSON: Thank you, ma'am.
5 MS. HARRIS: Thank you.
6 MR. GREEN: Just to set -- just to set the
7 record straight, we didn't take any time from
8 the opposition for that -- for those comments.
9 The next two speakers will be Amy --
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Nor from the proponents.
11 MR. GREEN: Nor from the proponents.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Be sure and charge the
13 people that are neutral on this thing.
14 MR. GREEN: Clarence Troxell.
15 MR. REESE: Governor Chiles, members of the
16 Cabinet, my name's Tom Reese. I'm representing
17 Manasota 88 and Manatee County Save Our Bays.
18 And we appreciate the time that both you
19 individually, as well as your staffs, have put
20 into this, and the fact that you're having this
21 meeting at a special hour to accommodate the
22 people who wanted to speak to you.
23 My clients, Manasota 88 and Manatee County
24 Save Our Bays, respectfully request that you
25 vote denial.
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1 We can -- it's our position -- this is a
2 very major policy decision that you are making.
3 It's a major policy decision, not only for the
4 State of Florida but for the United States.
5 You're bringing and permitting a new fuel
6 to be used in power plants in Florida, and in
7 the United States, and it will be used as a
8 precedent throughout the state and the nation.
9 Now, the statute -- one of the important
10 conditions that it requires you to look at, and
11 there are four. One deals with the broad public
12 interest.
13 But there's also whether what is being
14 proposed has environmental benefits of other
15 benefits. And it states in comparison to the
16 current utilization.
17 Now, you've heard a lot of testimony about
18 permitted emission limits. That's not current
19 utilization. The permit agreement for water
20 withdrawal out of the Little Manatee River
21 allows much more water than has ever been
22 withdrawn. The permits allow -- for air
23 emissions allow much more than have ever been
24 emitted.
25 So that is not a relevant consideration to
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1 the criteria of comparing it to the current
2 utilization of the facility.
3 Now, one of the major problems with their
4 proposal is they will increase nitrogen oxide
5 emissions. It's 6,090 tons a year. That's
6 approximately 82 percent increase of what
7 they -- their current utilization.
8 Now, the problem with that is it causes
9 both water quality violations, as well as
10 impacts ozone. Nitrogen oxides are an ozone
11 precursor.
12 Now, with regard to the water issue, the
13 nitrogen oxide will not just go into Tampa Bay,
14 it will go into the water bodies throughout the
15 state. There was evidence at the hearing
16 concerning the nitrogen loading into
17 Lake Manatee, the drinking water reservoir for
18 Manatee County, for 250,000 people.
19 It's a nitrogen limited water body. It's
20 got algae blooms, virtually year-round algae
21 blooms. Manatee County has odor and taste
22 problems from those al-- that algae. They have
23 to use carbon filtration to address that
24 problem. This will be additional nitrogen going
25 into Lake Manatee.
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1 There wasn't any specific testimony about
2 how much would go into Sarasota Bay. But
3 Sarasota Bay is also a National Estuaries
4 Program.
5 And you've received letters from the
6 Citizens Advisory Committee for the Sarasota Bay
7 National Estuaries Program recommending you deny
8 it, because they have similar problems through
9 Tampa Bay.
10 Now, the hearing officer made specific
11 findings of facts about the problems in
12 Tampa Bay. He found that the portions of
13 Tampa Bay, which our expert witness,
14 Robin Lewis, testified, he described it as the
15 estuarine shelf.
16 Essentially that is the area roughly 6 feet
17 towards the land. That is the area where sea
18 grasses historically have grown.
19 Now, what has happened in Tampa Bay is
20 we've had more nitrogen put in the bay. That's
21 reduced light penetration. You get apathetic
22 algae growing on the sea grass leaves, and you
23 get algae gnats growing in the bay.
24 What has that done? We've lost the sea
25 grasses in the areas in between 4 and 6 feet.
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1 The sea grasses that predominate Tampa Bay at
2 this time are in the shallower waters. So the
3 attempt is to try to get them back in the areas
4 from 4 to 6 feet in depth.
5 And the loss of the sea grasses has had an
6 impact on shrimp, as well as sea trout catches.
7 And any -- those were the two that Mr. Lewis
8 used in his testimony.
9 But it would -- they are indicative of any
10 other species that are sea grass dependent. And
11 those were the two he used.
12 And there was a direct correlation. As the
13 sea grasses have declined since 1950, you've had
14 a corresponding decline in bay shrimp, and
15 sea -- spotted sea trout.
16 The hearing officer made a finding of fact
17 that we need a nitrogen reduction. We don't
18 just need to hold the line. We actually need a
19 nitrogen reduction in Tampa Bay.
20 And he adopted our proposed finding that it
21 was detrimental to add more nitrogen to
22 Tampa Bay. That was based on the testimony of
23 George Henderson, a Department of Environmental
24 Protection witness who works for the St. Pete
25 Marine Research Lab. He is the top researcher
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1 that DEP has assigned to the Tampa Bay National
2 Estuaries Program.
3 And it was his testimony, which the hearing
4 officer accepted, that it's detrimental putting
5 more nitrogen in the bay.
6 Now, the whole issue of nitrogen loading
7 isn't a new issue to the Cabinet. I realize
8 that you had this issue in Monroe County.
9 And Monroe County has said, you've got too
10 much nitrogen, development will be conditioned,
11 future development, upon reducing nitrogen.
12 We think what's good enough for
13 Monroe County is good enough for Tampa Bay and
14 Sarasota Bay and Lake Manatee and the other
15 water bodies that'll be affected.
16 There was also some testimony here about
17 there'll be nitrogen oxide reduction statewide.
18 I believe Mr. Woody stated that other parts of
19 their system would be operating less.
20 I would bring to your attention that there
21 are no enforceable permit reductions on any
22 other FP&L plant anyplace in the system.
23 So it's -- it's problematic on whether --
24 and it's definitely very clear that you could
25 not enforce reductions as proposed on any of
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1 FP&L's other plants.
2 Now, with regards to ozone. As I -- the
3 record reflects, nitrogen oxides are an ozone
4 precursor.
5 Now, what happens is you emit that into the
6 air, sunlight hits it, it reacts with other
7 pollutants in the air, and you get ozone
8 formation.
9 Tampa Bay, defined by EPA as Hillsborough
10 and Pinellas County, have been ozone
11 nonattainment for approximately 15 years. They
12 just became attainment in February -- I believe
13 it was February 7th of this year. And we are
14 attempting to try to maintain the status quo
15 there, and not have an ozone violation again.
16 And the ozone standard is a -- it's a
17 complex standard. It's over a three-year time
18 period. You get three exceedances over three
19 years, and the fourth one then becomes a
20 violation.
21 We had an exceedance in June of last year.
22 The testimony was that it was power plant
23 related. Power plants do have an impact on
24 ozone levels in the Tampa Bay area.
25 Now, we don't think the evidence showed
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1 sufficiently what the effect of these -- the
2 nitrogen oxide emissions would be on ozone.
3 There was modeling done by Florida Power &
4 Light, but the testimony and the hearing officer
5 finding of facts were that those models were not
6 approved for the use that they were made of by
7 EPA. EPA had not approved them for the use FP&L
8 had made them. Make that a little clearer.
9 And it was basically inconclusive on what
10 the effect would be. Now, there is a more
11 complex model that can be used, but it wasn't
12 done in this case.
13 And interestingly, DEP is suggesting that
14 more study needs to be done, and they're
15 actually asking Florida Power & Light to
16 contribute more money to try to find out what
17 the impact of the NOx emissions are going to be
18 on ozone.
19 It's our position, if you don't know what
20 the NOx emissions are going to do to ozone, you
21 don't approve the permit. You don't have the
22 evidence necessary.
23 The third major issue is, what is the best
24 available control technology for this facility.
25 And you get into the best available control
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1 technology question because this is a major
2 modification. That's an undisputed fact the
3 hearing officer found, EPA found, and DEP found.
4 There is a technology, Selective Catalytic
5 Reduction, which would reduce the NOx
6 emissions. You would get the NOx -- the
7 increase in NOx cut almost in half by use of
8 Selective Catalytic Reduction.
9 The price would come out, according to the
10 hearing officer, approximately $4,000 a ton if
11 you considered the two technologies that you'd
12 be using. There'd be a combination of low NOx
13 burners, as well as selective catalytic
14 reduction.
15 We contend that you look at the total cost
16 of the two technologies together on how much is
17 it going to cost you to get to your goal, which
18 is the lowest emission possible. And we do not
19 believe $4,000 is economically prohibitive.
20 We put on testimony from the air engineer
21 from Hillsborough County Environmental
22 Protection Commission who did a survey and found
23 that Pennsylvania accepts $4,000 for costs in
24 that type of a situation for NOx reductions.
25 State of Wisconsin accepts $6,000. So we
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1 do not believe that $4,000 average cost is cost
2 prohibitive, and that Selective Catalytic
3 Reduction is the best available control
4 technology.
5 Another issue you've -- we've heard about
6 is the traffic through Parrish. The fact that
7 they're going to run 400 trucks a day through
8 Parrish is totally unacceptable.
9 That -- if you lived in Parrish and were a
10 property owner there, I don't think anybody can
11 realistically say running 400 trucks past --
12 through a small village like Parrish is an
13 acceptable impact.
14 That goes into the overall issue of the
15 broad public interest here. And we do not
16 believe it's in the public interest to run those
17 trucks through there. As well as through the
18 Port Tampa.
19 There's also a proposal to run trucks
20 through Port Tampa to take the gypsum waste to
21 National Gypsum for use in wallboards.
22 As far as the spill risk. The collision
23 that caused the August '93 spill in the Tampa
24 ship channel resulted in a gash in the ship hull
25 that was 25 feet below water level in a ship
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1 channel that's a little more than 40 feet deep.
2 Now, the oil, when it came out that gash,
3 most of it came to the surface. With
4 orimulsion, it's going to go throughout the
5 water column. It's going -- if you had a gash
6 in a side of the hull 25 feet below the
7 waterline in a 40 foot deep channel, it's going
8 to go throughout that channel.
9 What is FP&L's technology to control an oil
10 spill? They have a boom with a 10-foot skirt.
11 That wouldn't cover but 25 percent of the
12 channel.
13 And the channel actually acts like a
14 pipeline. The water moves through that channel
15 at very rapid rates. It would disburse
16 throughout the area.
17 We were fortunate in August of '93, it was
18 an outgoing tide. I guess you're fortunate
19 I guess if you're a shrimp, and you lived in
20 Cockroach Bay. You were unfortunate if you were
21 a motel owner on St. Petersburg Beach or
22 Treasure Island, because it eventually washed
23 back up on the beaches there.
24 We contend that there's just -- that the
25 risk of orimulsion spill is greater than with
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1 a -- handling Number 6 fuel oil as currently is
2 done.
3 The 1993 spill, the reaction time to that,
4 the evidence was that that was a best possible
5 scenario for containment of an oil spill.
6 They were actually on the way to a training
7 exercise that morning when the spill occurred.
8 It took them 4 hours to get the booms out, and
9 try to get containment.
10 That's -- the testimony was that's a --
11 that's the best you can possibly expect.
12 Four hours on an orimulsion spill in a ship
13 channel with a gash below waterline is going to
14 be a situation that's going to be
15 uncontrollable. It's going to be everywhere.
16 That has major economic repercussions.
17 As to the water use, the first point I'd
18 like to make is this plant is located in the
19 most impacted area of the eastern Tampa Bay
20 water use caution area. It's the area that had
21 the greatest drawdown.
22 FP&L will be increasing their water use,
23 according to the hearing officer, by 9.5 million
24 gallons a day annual average because they'll be
25 operating the plant more.
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1 Of that, there'll be an increase of
2 withdrawals out of the Little Manatee River of
3 1.9 million gallons a day.
4 Their average -- if you figure how much
5 water their current utilization has been since
6 1978 after they filled the pond -- and there's
7 two ways you can calculate their -- their
8 historic utilization. Start in 1974 when they
9 had to fill their 11,000 -- or 4,000 acre,
10 11 foot deep pond, that would come out to
11 8.3 billion gallons average.
12 But if you started after they got the pond
13 filled, which their consultant referred to as
14 the Big Gulp, you then come out with 6.3 million
15 gallons as their current utilization.
16 So they will be increasing their water use
17 out of Little Manatee River, which was an
18 Outstanding Florida Water, by 1.9 million
19 gallons.
20 And they'll also, for the first time, be
21 competing with the farmers for the reuse water.
22 That reuse water, if it wasn't used by FP&L, it
23 would be used by agricultural interests to try
24 to take care of the water drawdowns in the most
25 impacted area of the Tampa Bay water use caution
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1 area.
2 And they'll also be transferring
3 groundwater permits. Those permits are
4 currently held by a subsidiary of Florida Power
5 & Light and used for agricultural purposes.
6 But what they're transferring is the entire
7 permitted amount, even though that entire
8 permitted amount has never been used.
9 And that current permit has a time duration
10 on it. And the proposal is, well, there'll be
11 no time duration on the groundwater permits
12 if -- under the proposed certification.
13 That gives them an edge as an existing user
14 over all the agricultural interests out there.
15 So when the agricultural interests come in and
16 try to renew their permit, Florida Power & Light
17 will be first in line and be considered the
18 existing use. And have preference.
19 I'd also note that with regard to that --
20 the permit agreement that FP&L's currently
21 operating under, that was done before the
22 Water Management District really came into their
23 water use regulatory system under Chapter 373.
24 But its very terms state that the governing
25 board of the Water Management District can
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1 revoke it at will.
2 They've never done that, even though you've
3 heard testimony this morning that they --
4 Water Management District considers it an
5 undesirable situation, they've never revoked
6 it. But it is revokable at will.
7 So I don't see any real advantage at this
8 time to say we need to approve this
9 certification in order to get rid of that permit
10 agreement. We can get rid of that permit
11 agreement any day by scheduling a meeting at the
12 Water Management District.
13 And -- talked longer than I anticipated. I
14 know there are a lot of people that wanted to
15 speak.
16 And if there are any questions, I'd be glad
17 to try to answer them.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Question.
19 TREASURER NELSON: If you could cause the
20 net effect to not have any of the nitrogen
21 oxides to rise in Tampa Bay, and I assume you've
22 mentioned others, Lake Manatee, Sarasota Bay.
23 If the net effect could be zero increase,
24 would that have a bearing on your conclusion?
25 MR. REESE: My clients would still be
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1 opposed. You know, the NOx emissions would
2 still have the ozone problems, you'd still have
3 all the problems of truck traffic through
4 Parrish, you'd have the issues of the spill,
5 you'd be setting the precedent with regard to
6 best available control technology being at
7 .23 pounds per million BTU.
8 And we truly believe that if this is
9 approved here, orimulsion will become a widely
10 used fuel. And you are --
11 TREASURER NELSON: All right.
12 MR. REESE: -- establishing the best
13 available control technology, and it'll be a
14 precedent for the next case.
15 TREASURER NELSON: So you don't see by that
16 statement any advantage to the rest of the
17 state of Florida in reduced use of oil as a
18 fuel, and, therefore, the lessening of the
19 sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in the rest of
20 Florida; is that right?
21 MR. REESE: When you have to weigh
22 reductions of sulfur dioxide emissions against
23 nitrogen oxide emission increase in Tampa Bay,
24 it's a difficult equation to do.
25 But the way I look at that is, what is the
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1 nitrogen oxide emissions doing in Tampa Bay?
2 Well, number one, we have a violation of
3 water quality standards that is related to and
4 caused, in part, by the NOx emissions.
5 Do we have a sulfur dioxide violation of
6 any standard? No, we don't.
7 Will the NOx emissions have other secondary
8 possible standard violations? Yes, we do. It's
9 possible for the ozone violation.
10 So the NOx emissions are definitely
11 contributing to a water quality violation,
12 possibly contributing to an ozone violation,
13 whereas the sulfur dioxide emissions aren't
14 contributing to a violation.
15 So I -- I think, you know, the standards --
16 violation of a standard by definition is
17 pollution. You want to try to avoid violations
18 of standards. So I would go with the reduction
19 of the NOx.
20 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. So by that, you
21 would say that you think it's auspicious
22 argument that they use that, for example, the
23 nitrogen oxide reduction in the other plants
24 around the state, which is what they're saying
25 that with the introduction of orimulsion, and
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1 the higher use of this plant in Manatee, they
2 reduce the consumption of oil in their other oil
3 fired plants around the state. So there's going
4 to be reduced in Titusville the emissions of
5 both SO2 and NOx.
6 And what -- what -- you're saying then that
7 you think that's auspicious argument.
8 MR. REESE: I wouldn't use that
9 terminology. The way I would look at it is
10 Tampa Bay and Lake Manatee and Sarasota Bay have
11 nitrogen problems. Now -- and they have
12 violations.
13 Now, do you have violations at the other
14 plants caused by the NOx emissions where you --
15 there's alleged to be this reduction. Even
16 though we don't have a reduction in the permit
17 limit.
18 Those other plants, you know, we're not
19 assured we're going to get the reduction there.
20 They start selling power on a broker system --
21 and there is currently a Florida broker system.
22 I mean, the other companies can buy power
23 from FP&L if they're -- if it's cheaper for F--
24 to buy it from FP&L, rather than generate it
25 themselves, the other company is going to buy it
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1 from FP&L.
2 TREASURER NELSON: Do you have a preferred
3 fuel as we look to the future of firing our
4 various electrical plants in Florida, which is
5 something that as policymakers we are not only
6 for, but we should be looking at for the future.
7 MR. REESE: Of the fossil fuels, natural
8 gas would be the cleanest and preferred.
9 I guess the long-term solution would be a
10 nonfossil fuel such as a solar. But that's to
11 be developed.
12 We've invited you to come to a seminar to
13 discuss that. And the use of fossil fuels and
14 the effect on global warming.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
16 MR. REESE: Thank you.
17 MS. STEIN: Good afternoon, Governor and
18 Cabinet members.
19 My name is Amy Stein. I'm a resident of
20 Manatee County.
21 I'm speaking on behalf of hundreds of
22 members of three homeowner associations of the
23 River Wilderness Community located in Parrish.
24 The members of these associations, including a
25 large number of graduates of colleges and
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1 graduate schools with degrees in the fields of
2 medicine, engineering, law, and business, are
3 concerned citizens who have delved into, and are
4 overwhelmingly opposed to the Manatee orimulsion
5 conversion project. Some of them are here
6 today.
7 As you enter in the final stage of forming
8 and announcing your opinion about this project,
9 the public already has announced its opinion.
10 And I guess you've seen some of it in letters
11 and phone calls, and things that are reported in
12 the newspaper.
13 But a recent Sarasota Herald Tribune survey
14 reported that only 2 percent of those who
15 responded thought the project should be
16 approved, the orimulsion project.
17 Eighteen percent responded that the project
18 should be approved only if SCR and rail
19 transportation are used. And 80 percent
20 responded that the project should be rejected.
21 In other words, 98 percent of the surveyed
22 participants were opposed to the project as
23 proposed by Florida Power & Light and presented
24 to you.
25 The specific concerns which underlie all of
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1 this opposition are really numerous. And
2 although time constraints prevent much
3 elaborating on any single one of these concerns,
4 we think it is extremely important to comment to
5 you, however briefly, about eight areas of great
6 concern from our collective viewpoint, concerns
7 which are shared by many others throughout our
8 town, our region, and our state.
9 First and foremost, we are completely
10 dismayed by the deficiencies in the record and
11 the recommended order that the project should be
12 approved. We are appalled by this.
13 Mr. Reese already has referred to the lack
14 of any cumulative impact studies for NOx, and
15 the lack of any studies in regard to ozone
16 increases.
17 In addition to that, your aides all
18 received a copy of a letter dated April 1, 1996,
19 from the Federation of Manatee County Community
20 Associations, which details paragraph by
21 paragraph inconsistencies in the recommended
22 order.
23 To give you just one example from the
24 Federation level, and then move on, the
25 hearing officer found in the recommended order
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1 that there -- there will be an increase in
2 pollution emitted from the plant, and that the
3 increased emissions exceed applicable
4 significant emission rates.
5 But this is erroneously justified in
6 paragraph 83 of the order by hypothetical
7 reductions in capacity of plants in other parts
8 of the state.
9 We have a real problem with this, because
10 as we understand it, nowhere in the
11 Florida Statutes is there any public policy
12 statement that allows the hearing officer, or
13 Florida Power & Light, to rely on alleged
14 reductions outside Manatee County as a
15 justification for increased polluting of the
16 Manatee County area.
17 The Federation letter contends that this
18 point must be resolved in favor of the people,
19 and not Florida Power & Light as a matter of
20 law.
21 We hope you will do that. And that you
22 also have considered the other points raised in
23 the Federation level -- letter. Excuse me.
24 Our second related area of concern involves
25 NOx emissions. And our comments in this area
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1 apply both to orimulsion as a proposed fuel of
2 choice, and to high sulfur fuel oil as a
3 proposed backup fuel.
4 We believe the proposed NOx increase is
5 unjustified and detrimental. To begin with, we
6 are concerned that Tampa Bay water bodies are
7 maxed out for NOx already.
8 But Tampa Bay is not the end result when it
9 comes to NOx. We also are concerned because NOx
10 is an ozone precursor, and both -- and both are
11 health risk factors, especially for young
12 children, the elderly, and people with
13 respiratory problems.
14 I'm not going to repeat what -- what
15 previous speakers have said. But I want to give
16 you a little bit of a different slant on this or
17 illustration.
18 The Tampa Bay region already has a history
19 of nonattainment and marginal attainment for
20 ozone. There's a new power plant under
21 construction in Polk County, close to the
22 Hillsborough County line, that we understand
23 will be coming on-line within the next
24 two years.
25 There will be population growth in our
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1 area. And, in fact, in this entire area. I
2 don't mean to limit it to Parrish by that
3 statement. And a converted Manatee plant would
4 result in increased emissions, too.
5 Yet there are no studies addressed to
6 this. And we believe that is wrong. And
7 Mr. Reese has covered why it's technically
8 wrong.
9 The residents of north Manatee County also
10 know that pollution in the Tampa Bay area
11 doesn't respect political boundaries, and
12 magically stop at the southern Hillsborough and
13 Pinellas County lines. And vice versa, that
14 goes two ways.
15 We think FPL's refusal to incorporate SCR's
16 system is very unjustified, as is the flawed
17 analysis of best available control technology in
18 the recommended order, which Mr. Reese already
19 has addressed.
20 The third area of our concern involves the
21 effect of a potential orimulsion spill in
22 Tampa Bay waters.
23 Mr. McClash has spoken about this, and
24 spoke at length about it at the Cabinet aides
25 meeting, so we won't repeat any of that.
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1 But we do want to emphasize that nowhere
2 ever in the world has an orimulsion spill been
3 contained or cleaned up in open waters. It has
4 never been done. Never.
5 Only controlled experimental test spills
6 have been made in self-contained tanks, like the
7 Cape Canaveral test involving a tank 26 feet in
8 diameter and 4 feet deep, which certainly
9 doesn't come close to simulating water depths
10 and other conditions that will be involved with
11 a real orimulsion spill in Tampa Bay and
12 surrounding waters.
13 If spill recovery studies like the
14 Cape Canaveral bathtub test -- that's a DEP
15 term, the Cape Canaveral bathtub test -- aren't
16 just experimental, then quite frankly, we don't
17 know what is.
18 Our fourth area of concern involves the
19 repercussions from the phenol compound used in
20 this manufactured fuel. This concern should not
21 be minimized, given that 8.8 billion pounds of
22 orimulsion, to be used annually at the Manatee
23 plant, contain 19 million pounds of phenol.
24 To our knowledge, there was no proof
25 offered in the record whatsoever about how much
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1 phenol is going to escape into the atmosphere in
2 the event of slippage in the boiler and
3 misfirings. There's an absolute absence of
4 evidence.
5 Without these proofs, how can there be any
6 reasonable assurance that no environmental or
7 health risks arising from air emissions of
8 phenol exist?
9 Likewise, we believe that the proofs about
10 the impacts of phenol in the event of an
11 orimulsion spill are inadequate to dispell
12 legitimate concerns.
13 During cross-examination, Dr. Mark Harwell
14 of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and
15 Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami,
16 who conducted -- who conducted the spill and
17 toxicity studies for FPL testified, among other
18 things, that he doesn't know what the phenol
19 surfactant degrades into; he doesn't know, and
20 he can't confirm or deny that the phenol
21 surfactant degrades into a compound with
22 estrogen in it or gender bender effects. He
23 didn't look at that at all in the study.
24 Nor did the study try to separate out what
25 happens to the surfactant, versus what happens
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1 to other parts of the orimulsion. We think this
2 speaks for itself.
3 We also are concerned to see that the
4 recommended order states on page 93 that
5 nonylphenol polyethoxylate surfactants are used
6 in domestic and industrial products like soap
7 and detergent because representatives of
8 companies like Procter & Gamble and
9 Lever Brothers deny that phenols are used in any
10 of their company's dozens of products.
11 This just doesn't add up. This whole thing
12 doesn't add up.
13 Our fifth area of concern involves the
14 unprecedented large scale of the project. It's
15 undisputed that the plant involves burning
16 8.8 billion pounds of orimulsion per year, which
17 is more than the total amount of orimulsion used
18 throughout the entire world.
19 The tremendous scale of the Manatee
20 orimulsion project has absolutely no parallel
21 anywhere in the world, yet there certainly are
22 enough reports of problems at much, much smaller
23 facilities in England and Canada to cause us to
24 be concerned about the scope of this project and
25 its impacts, for everything from agriculture to
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1 the Everglades.
2 Clearly, you're making a watershed
3 decision, not only about the Manatee project,
4 but also a precedent setting decision for our
5 entire state.
6 And if FPL eventually obtains licensing for
7 one or two or three plants powered by
8 orimulsion, just how far behind will other
9 electric utilities be to que up behind FP&L,
10 with their own licensing applications in hand,
11 in order to keep themselves competitive with
12 FP&L.
13 We're concerned that the implication of a
14 decision to approve the Manatee project will
15 serve not only as precedent, but ultimately, it
16 can evolve into a de facto energy policy for the
17 state, whether or not that is what you intend to
18 do by your decision.
19 Our sixth area of concern involves the cost
20 savings projections used as a major
21 justification for the project. We urge you to
22 consider carefully how very speculative and
23 questionable those hypothetical savings are.
24 Supposedly a customer using 1,000 kilowatt
25 hours per month will save $3.50 if the plant is
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1 converted to orimulsion.
2 However, in 1995, the actual cost of a
3 kilowatt hour was 2.462 -- 2.4692 cents for oil,
4 and 1.6712 cents for coal, to which the price of
5 orimulsion is tied. These are FPL figures.
6 Using these actual figures, the savings per
7 month would be 90 cents, which is a far cry from
8 the three fifty per month, or the $42 per year
9 figure.
10 That 90 cent figure could be reduced
11 further by the cost of scrubbers and their
12 operation, limestone, trucks, et cetera.
13 But when we attempted to get that
14 information about those further costs, the
15 Public Serv-- sorry -- the Public Service
16 Commission told us that this information is
17 proprietary. We couldn't obtain it from the
18 Public Service Commission.
19 Suffice it to say that the cost savings
20 projected by FPL and incorporated in the
21 recommended order are based on many
22 assumptions. Including a large future widening
23 of the cost difference between oil and
24 orimulsion over the next 20 years.
25 A matter with which staff and the PSC's
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1 Division of Electric and Gas said, it does not
2 necessarily agree. So please take a long, hard
3 look at the cost savings.
4 The next point, and I have a letter to
5 share with you. This is from an organization
6 called ASTM. I'll be explaining what that is.
7 Our seventh area of concern involves the
8 absence in the record of approved standards for
9 orimulsion from the American Petroleum
10 Institute, API; and the American Society for
11 Testing and Materials, ASTM, which establish and
12 publish standards, characteristics, and methods
13 of testing for products used in the
14 United States.
15 One of our members contacted both of these
16 organizations, neither of which has any
17 information on orimulsion in their databases or
18 reference libraries.
19 Parenthetically, the EPA database appears
20 to have no information on this either.
21 It is our understanding that without any
22 documentation regarding standards,
23 characteristics, methods of tests, or safety
24 hazards, a company or industry is precluded from
25 using a material in its process or
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1 manufacturing.
2 But even beyond that, no one can say with
3 assurance, based on nationally recognized and
4 accepted standards, what the subject of the
5 recommended order is in the absence of this
6 information.
7 Nor can we be assured in the absence of the
8 information that it is the same thing as what
9 will be shipped and burned here two years from
10 now.
11 We contend that without ASTM or API
12 documentation on orimulsion, it should, and it
13 must be considered and treated as truly
14 experimental. Until it is proven and documented
15 to the same standards that all utilities must
16 meet.
17 The absence of this information about
18 orimulsion in these databases and libraries can
19 be confirmed directly with the organizations. I
20 have phone numbers that I can make available now
21 or later. You have a copy of the letter from
22 ASTM.
23 FPL's counsel said before, this is a
24 different fuel than any coming into Florida at
25 this time.
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1 And yet, orimulsion still apparently has
2 not been proven and documented to the nationally
3 recognized and accepted standards through ASTM
4 or API, at least as far as we can determine.
5 And we have made efforts.
6 Our eighth area of concern involves the use
7 of trucks rather than rail to transport
8 secondary products like limestone, gypsum, and
9 fly ash to and from the plant.
10 Suffice it to say that we are opposed to
11 the use of trucks rather than rail
12 transportation.
13 Finally, to the extent you may not have
14 compiled in one place information of the
15 organizations and entities that have gone on
16 record as opposed to the Manatee orimulsion
17 conversion project, I will list some of them
18 quickly for you:
19 Manasota 88; Manatee County Save Our Bays;
20 Manatee-Sarasota Fish & Game Association;
21 Sierra Club of Sarasota-Manatee, and also the
22 Florida Chapter; Sarasota Save Our Bays;
23 Tampa Bay Agency on Bay Management; Lebanon Bay
24 Conservancy; Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve
25 Advisory Team; the Sarasota Bay National Estuary
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1 Citizens Advisory Committee; the North River
2 News; the Tampa Tribune; the Sarasota Herald
3 Tribune; the Democratic Party Executive
4 Committee of Manatee County; the
5 Republican Party Executive Committee of
6 Manatee County; the North River Republican Club
7 of Manatee County; the Federation of
8 Manatee County Community Associations; River
9 Wilderness Homeowners Association; Brookridge
10 Homeowners Association; the Villa Association at
11 River Wilderness; the Parrish Civic Association;
12 the Grove City Civic Association; Terrace Shores
13 Association; the town of Longboat Key; the City
14 of Sarasota; the City of Holmes Beach; and the
15 City of Anna Maria.
16 We would think that rarely, if ever, is
17 there such a broad spectrum of organizations
18 from throughout the state so galvanized together
19 over a subject as there is in this case.
20 Please look at the deficiencies in the
21 record and the recommended order, and please
22 don't settle our region and our state with this
23 experimental fuel.
24 Thousands of Floridians are counting on you
25 to deny the Manatee orimulsion conversion
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1 project.
2 Thank you for listening to us.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
4 Question.
5 Thank you, ma'am.
6 MS. STEIN: Thank you.
7 MR. TROXELL: Good afternoon, Governor.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good afternoon.
9 MR. TROXELL: Cabinet members. I wasn't
10 planning to speak today.
11 But I was sitting out there this morning, I
12 tell you, I could hardly stand it. I was ready
13 to jump up and down and start screaming.
14 I can do that.
15 My name is Clarence Troxell. I live at
16 River Wilderness Country Club.
17 Have you been there, Governor?
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: I know where it is.
19 MR. TROXELL: It's a nice place, isn't it?
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
21 MR. TROXELL: We're 6 miles from the --
22 from the generating station.
23 I'm a graduate, Bachelor of Engineering
24 from Yale University, Master of Science from
25 Stevens Institute of Technology. I'm a graduate
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1 of University of Michigan, Executive Managing
2 Program. And I spent forty years-and-a-half in
3 the employment of Public Service Electric and
4 Gas Company, New Jersey. I like Florida, that's
5 why I'm here.
6 I can't understand what's happening. When
7 this first came up back in May of 1993, I didn't
8 know anything about it.
9 I said, what's this?
10 So what do you do, you call your old
11 cronies back there in New Jersey at
12 Public Service, hey, what's going on?
13 And they say, oh, you should -- you should
14 call one of my friends who had retired, too, was
15 a senior vice-president in charge of research
16 and development. And I got an earful from him.
17 Matter of fact, he told me --
18 I said, what is this surfactant?
19 And Bitor asked him to be a consultant, and
20 he accepted. He couldn't sell his own company,
21 which was my company, too.
22 He said, you know, Trox, honestly, I don't
23 know. They won't even tell me.
24 Then I knew there was something wrong.
25 That's when we start getting onto this phenol.
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1 Public Service Electric and Gas Company
2 turned this down strictly for environmental
3 reasons. I checked with other utilities just as
4 recently as this past week.
5 And I said, I want to ask you a question:
6 Do you know of other companies where Bitor has
7 contacted the utilities?
8 He said, Trox, it's common knowledge.
9 They've contacted every company on the east
10 coast.
11 And the one thing that's important, they
12 can say, yes, they are looking at it, they're
13 studying it. But it doesn't mean a damn thing
14 until a company has made a commitment.
15 And there's been no company in this
16 United States that's made a commitment. If they
17 had been, Florida Power & Light would have come
18 forth with it.
19 About a year ago, there were a bunch of
20 engineers from China and east European countries
21 to come over here to see how to reduce NOx.
22 Isn't it ironic and sad that here we in
23 Florida are trying to figure out how we can
24 justify increasing the NOx emissions in our
25 area. That doesn't make sense.
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1 The -- the cost of SCR and the cost of
2 reducing NOx has come down substantially over
3 the years. Even up here at Ocala, they got it
4 down to about 1,000 dollars per -- per ton.
5 Other companies are getting it down to 1.0,
6 1.5. Oh, but we can't do that here. For some
7 reason, it's 4,000.
8 We're not getting the right story. I don't
9 care what they say.
10 I brought with me today, just by chance,
11 and I don't know whether you have time, it takes
12 6 minutes. It's a tape made by Bob Hite.
13 Anybody know Bob Hite?
14 He's the anchorman for news on NBC out of
15 Tampa. And he did a little demonstration of
16 orimulsion, oil, and so forth, on the edge of
17 Tampa Bay. It shows what happens with
18 orimulsion.
19 If you're interested in seeing it, I think
20 Mr. Fuchs has it set up for you. But I think
21 you probably know that there are problems as far
22 as -- as NOx in Tampa -- as far as orimulsion in
23 Tampa Bay.
24 Why don't they burn it in -- in Venezuela?
25 I -- I -- I asked that -- we asked that
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1 question. Oh, Venezuela doesn't need it. We
2 have all kind -- they have all kinds of water
3 power down there.
4 And that particular week, damn it, if I
5 didn't bump into Connie Mack. I said, Connie,
6 can you find out what the mix is in Venezuela?
7 He said, sure. And the next day I had it.
8 Much easier to get information from him
9 than it is around here sometimes.
10 And 83 percent of the fuel in Venezuela is
11 oil and gas. Only 16 percent is water power.
12 Can -- why don't they test this -- why
13 don't they test a spill down in Venezuela?
14 Rumor has it they don't want to pollute.
15 There was going to be a plant in
16 Puerto Rico, Yabucoa, built by a consortium.
17 And wait till you hear this. Who was the
18 consortium? Bitor; General Electric; Texaco;
19 and TECO, Tampa Electric Company. They were
20 willing to burn it down there. They ain't
21 willing to burn it here in Florida.
22 And the deal fell through because the
23 people protested. Down there they listen to the
24 people. And I say, please, listen to us. We
25 have enough pollution out there in our area of
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1 the County.
2 And we spend one hell of a lot of money.
3 They brag about how much they're going to spend,
4 you know, having this plant and jobs and
5 so forth.
6 Our homes out there -- this is a beautiful
7 country club. All single family homes. Our
8 homes are two hundred, three hundred,
9 four hundred, five hundred, and six hundred
10 thousand dollars.
11 MS. STEIN: This is my --
12 MR. TROXELL: And we employ a lot of
13 people.
14 MS. STEIN: This is my Dad, and I can see
15 he's getting too upset.
16 MR. TROXELL: Thank you, folks.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: I don't think we're in --
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That's a
19 good comment.
20 MR. TROXELL: Oh, you want to see the tape?
21 You want to see the video?
22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Why not, we've been
23 here this long.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: What's the video? What
25 is the tape?
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1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I guess it's
2 6 minutes. Bob Hite on orimulsion.
3 (The videotape was published.)
4 MR. HITE: Oil spills come in many forms.
5 Sometimes they occur quietly, as in the case of
6 the spill in Port Manatee. A pipeline leaked
7 oil for over 12 hours before it was discovered.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Can we turn these --
9 MR. HITE: And before it was over, the
10 spill had --
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- lights off a minute?
12 MR. HITE: -- spread all the way across the
13 bay.
14 Then you have the spills that can't go
15 unnoticed, as in the spill we suffered most
16 recently after the ship collision in August of
17 '93.
18 Though dramatically different, the two
19 spills did have one thing in common. And that
20 is that the oil that was spilled floated on top
21 of the water, as oil has always done.
22 This is Number 6 fuel oil, the type that
23 historically has been coming into the bay to
24 fire our power plants, and the like.
25 Watch what happens when I pour it into this
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1 little bit of Tampa Bay.
2 It floats. Like the old saying goes, oil
3 and water don't mix.
4 That's why we have a chance to clean up at
5 least some oil spills with containment booms and
6 skimmer boats. Right?
7 Well, not necessarily.
8 Meet orimulsion, a new fuel that
9 Florida Power & Light wants to start bringing
10 into Port Manatee to fire its power plant near
11 Parrish.
12 Watch what happens when I pour this stuff
13 into this little bit of Tampa Bay.
14 A lot of people are wondering what good
15 containment booms and skimmer boats will be
16 against this.
17 MR. CLARK: The new oil slurry mixture that
18 they're proposing to bring into Port Manatee
19 really scares the hell out of me. This is the
20 kind of material that once it gets out in the
21 environment, we don't have the technology --
22 MR. HITE: Peter Clark is an environmental
23 scientist who was with the Regional Planning
24 Council for years. He is now Director of
25 Baywatch.
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1 MR. CLARK: Port Manatee is located right
2 between two aquatic preserves. The potential to
3 be able to try to clean up that material before
4 it gets out in the natural environment just
5 doesn't exist.
6 MR. HITE: So why would Florida Power &
7 Light want to use orimulsion?
8 For one thing, it costs a lot less than the
9 current fuel.
10 MR. KIRK: Means about $3.50 reduction in
11 the power bill per customer if they use
12 1,000 kilowatt hours per month.
13 MR. HITE: FP&L's Jack Kirk says to burn
14 orimulsion, which is dirtier than Number 6,
15 state of the art pollution devices would be
16 incorporated into the plant, resulting in
17 cleaner emissions.
18 MR. KIRK: We will reduce those emissions
19 by about half with the equipment that we're
20 installing.
21 MR. HITE: However, the Parrish plant
22 currently operates at 30 percent capacity.
23 Using orimulsion, output would increase to about
24 80 percent.
25 So while emissions from the stacks will be
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1 cleaner, they'll be coming out a lot longer,
2 leaving the benefits to air quality somewhat up
3 in the air.
4 A final decision on allowing orimulsion
5 into our atmosphere or onto our bays is still
6 many months away.
7 But low API fuel is already here. Low API
8 is the new fuel that Florida Power is bringing
9 to its power plant on Weeden Island. Unlike
10 orimulsion, which seems to go into solution in
11 salt water, low API simply sinks straight to the
12 bottom.
13 Theoretically, we could have a major spill
14 with this, and never know it. Not till the
15 sunken oil and dead marine life started washing
16 ashore.
17 As a consequence, Florida Power is taking
18 extra precautions in its method of
19 transportation.
20 MS. RAYHILL: First and foremost, we are
21 requiring our shipper to use double hulled
22 vessels in the transport of this oil into the
23 bay.
24 MR. HITE: Karen Rayhill of Florida Power
25 also notes the company is booming off its
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1 unloading facility.
2 But if low API sinks in the bay, as it did
3 in our bottle, concerned environmentalists say
4 that boom had best reach to the bottom.
5 MS. COLLINS: If a spill happens, the -- if
6 the material -- low API fuel, or this new fuel
7 that's being talked about, this orimulsion
8 fuel -- if it hits the water, what's going to
9 happen? And --
10 MR. HITE: Karen Collins is Director of the
11 Manatee County Environmental Action Agency.
12 MS. COLLINS: This kind of material is
13 going to be very, very difficult, if not
14 impossible, to capture.
15 MR. HITE: There are economic benefits to
16 these fuels. They're cheaper. And in the case
17 of orimulsion, it comes from Venezuela. And
18 that helps reduce our dependence on the
19 Middle East.
20 But are the benefits worth the price we
21 might have to pay environmentally? They are
22 taking extra precautions in the transport of
23 these fuels. But they're not taking all
24 precautions.
25 MR. SHIROW: Tampa Bay is the same as it
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1 was about the last 15 years.
2 MR. HITE: Retired Coast Guard Captain
3 Mike Shirow, former Captain of the Port of
4 Tampa.
5 MR. SHIROW: We have not taken advantage of
6 any new technology, other than what's being
7 experimented with on the Regent Rainbow --
8 MR. HITE: Captain Shirow heads Tampa Bay
9 VIPS, a group that for years has been lobbying
10 for a Vessel Information Positioning System for
11 the bay.
12 It would provide pilots and other ship
13 handlers with a carry-on system that constantly
14 displays their precise location and course; and
15 that of every other ship on the bay; along with
16 immediate tide, current, and weather conditions.
17 Ironically, one such system is made right
18 here in the Bay area, but our Bay isn't
19 benefiting from it.
20 Had such a system been in place last
21 August 10th, the Bay might well have been spared
22 this environmental agony, not to mention the
23 millions it cost the shipping industry.
24 MS. COLLINS: We've got a number of ports
25 clustered in the same area. Very busy ports --
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1 MR. HITE: As Director of the
2 Manatee County Environmental Action Commission,
3 Karen Collins is particularly concerned about
4 the shipment of these new oils.
5 MS. COLLINS: There's always the
6 opportunity for human error, as we've seen in
7 the Skyway collapse. I think it's an accident
8 waiting to happen. I think we really, really
9 need those systems.
10 (The publication of the videotape was
11 concluded.)
12 MR. PLANTE: The next speaker is
13 Debra Swim, to be followed by Susan Caplowe.
14 MS. SWIM: Governor, and members of the
15 Cabinet, I'm Debra Swim. I'm here on behalf of
16 the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation.
17 We -- we have thousands of members, and
18 they have exhibited a high level of interest --
19 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
20 MS. SWIM: -- in this issue.
21 We urge you to deny certification for the
22 reasons that have been stated by the last few
23 speakers.
24 The -- Florida Power & Light's plan is
25 contrary to the broad public -- the broad
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1 interests of the public.
2 This is the first time that orimulsion
3 would be burned commercially in the
4 United States, and what -- your decision today
5 will establish very important state and national
6 precedents.
7 Especially with the deregulation --
8 pressures to deregulate the electric utility
9 industry. The eyes of the nation and the state
10 are upon you.
11 Just in brief summary, Florida Power &
12 Light's proposal poses too many uncertainties.
13 And it basically uses Florida's human and
14 environmental resources as guinea pigs.
15 There are better alternatives that are now
16 cost-effective, such as increasing the use of
17 energy efficiency, rather than the other more
18 polluting generating fuels.
19 We urge you to deny the certification.
20 Thank you.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
22 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
23 MS. CAPLOWE: Governor and Cabinet, good
24 afternoon. My name is Susan Caplowe. I'm
25 speaking for the Florida Chapter Sierra Club.
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1 Gerry Swormstedt, who lives in Sarasota,
2 intended to be here today, but she was -- is
3 unable to attend. She did speak before the
4 Cabinet aides last week.
5 Sierra Club is a nationwide organization.
6 We have 600,000 members throughout the country.
7 Florida, we have about 18,000 members.
8 We are opposed to the use of orimulsion.
9 We support the Governor's order for denial as
10 stated in the Tampa Trib April 20th.
11 The uniqueness of the project and the
12 hypothetical nature of the data presented by
13 Florida Power & Light in support of the project
14 leaves some question about the level of
15 protection the public will be afforded.
16 As you've heard already, there is major
17 concerns that the increase of NOx emissions is
18 contrary to the goals of the Clean Air Act.
19 There's no proven method for cleanup, as
20 demonstrated in the news release just now.
21 Every year our State Legislature decreases the
22 Department's budget for enforcement, and also
23 reduced emergency response.
24 And every year the budget's being reduced.
25 So please keep that in mind.
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1 You heard from the Mayor and
2 County Commissioner today that said the bay is
3 coming back. And as you know, Murphy's law,
4 what can go wrong, will go wrong. And we ask
5 you to please vote for the bay, and vote no on
6 the certification.
7 Thank you.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
9 MR. GREEN: The next speaker will be
10 Monte Belote.
11 MR. FULLER: Manley Fuller, representing
12 the Florida Wildlife Federation.
13 We request that you deny this precedent
14 setting certification to use orimulsion as a new
15 fuel for several reasons, as this fuel will
16 contribute to additional nitrogen loading to
17 Tampa Bay.
18 The hearing officer recognized this, and
19 also recognized that nitrogen loading to
20 Tampa Bay should be reduced to restore that
21 ecosystem.
22 The National Estuarine Program in a recent
23 report recognized that excessive and increasing
24 nitrogen loading is contributing to a
25 degradation of the Tampa Bay ecosystem, and that
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1 loading should be decreased.
2 Use of this fuel will contribute to
3 increased nitrogen loading of Tampa Bay, which
4 the NEP concluded degrades seagrass habitats,
5 which clearly are important fish and wildlife
6 habitat.
7 We do not believe, as a matter of public
8 policy, you should take any action which
9 contributes to additional nitrogen loading in
10 Tampa Bay.
11 We request that you do not approve the use
12 of orimulsion, and that you adopt as state -- a
13 State policy that recovery of the Tampa Bay
14 ecosystem is a State objective; and that you
15 request that state, county, local governments,
16 and the private sector to develop and implement
17 a strategy of reducing all existing and future
18 nitrogen inputs to the Tampa Bay ecosystem.
19 We share with other organizations' concerns
20 regarding potential unique difficulties in
21 addressing large orimulsion spills which could
22 occur in the future.
23 We also believe that orimulsion's --
24 orimulsion associated surfactant -- surfactants
25 should be nontoxic, nonmunogenic, and not
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1 exhibit endocrine disrupter characteristics if
2 this fuel is ever approved to be approved in
3 Florida.
4 And I just received and thought that you
5 might -- you all might find useful to your
6 deliberations on energy policies, copies of the
7 Energy Foundation's 1995 Annual Report, which
8 I'll give you all a copy of in a second.
9 The Energy Foundation was established in
10 1991 by the John T. and Catherine -- John D. and
11 Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Pew
12 Charitable Trusts, and The Rockefeller
13 Foundation.
14 Its mission is to assist in -- the nation
15 in the transition to a sustainable energy future
16 by promoting energy efficiency and renewable
17 energy.
18 We believe that you should consider
19 encouraging utility energy efficiency
20 investments, which according to this report has
21 delivered 3.6 billion dollars in net economic
22 benefits in the states of California and
23 New York in the past four years.
24 Report also concludes that between a third
25 and a half of U.S. energy electrical consumption
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1 could be saved through energy efficiency.
2 The Foundation believes, given proper
3 incentives, utility industry could finance these
4 improvements for industrial, commercial, and
5 residential customers.
6 We hope this report will be useful to you
7 as you deliberate appropriate steps to address
8 Florida's energy future.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. BELOTE: Good afternoon, Cabinet
11 members. My name is Monte Belote. I serve as
12 the Executive Director of the Florida Consumer
13 Action Network, a statewide, grass roots,
14 consumer and environmental advocacy organization
15 with more than 40,000 members reaching from
16 Key West to Tallahassee.
17 I'm not an environmental scientist, and I
18 don't play one on television. So I am here
19 today to speak in common sense terms about the
20 risks and benefits of what the St. Petersburg
21 Times calls the nation's guinea pig for
22 Venezuelan tar, orimulsion.
23 FCAN has been a leader on energy efficiency
24 issues since 1992. And we have followed, as is
25 our grass routes members, various rate case
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1 filings with TECO, Florida Power, and
2 Florida Power & Light.
3 But for more than nine months, the top
4 question asked by our members is: What are we
5 going to do about the threat of orimulsion?
6 For the overwhelming majority of our
7 grass roots members, and in February, our state
8 Board of Directors, the answer is clear. The
9 risks far outweigh any possible benefit at this
10 time.
11 Today's decision is precedent setting. For
12 if you are to grant FP&L's petition, we open up
13 the floodgates for orimulsion, not just in
14 Parrish, but in other parts of the state as
15 well.
16 To the best of our knowledge, there is no
17 common sense answer to cleaning up an orimulsion
18 spill. Tampa Bay would be scarred for life.
19 For pennies a month, it just doesn't make sense.
20 We hate to be cynical, but, frankly, this
21 process seems to be more designed about money
22 and profit than consumer and environmental
23 benefit.
24 We are here to urge you to deny today's
25 application, while noting, however, that
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1 Florida Power & Light has raised a number of
2 good responses and led a good fight.
3 But a much better process would be to look
4 at the state as a whole. Such an effort was
5 filed by Senator Robert Wexler of Boca Raton to
6 study the total risks and benefits of
7 orimulsion.
8 An orimulsion plant in every district, is
9 that really an acceptable risk? For Florida's
10 consumers, and our environment, we believe, no.
11 Thank you.
12 MR. WILSON: Hello. I'm James Wilson. I'm
13 a member of Port Tampa Civic Association. And
14 we only found out about this two weeks ago.
15 And we do -- we have a promenade once a
16 year. And I had a promenade picture last week,
17 a folder, and a newsletter from our community.
18 I -- there are some pictures there of our
19 community, and the trucks. Apparently nobody
20 knew until we let them know that the trucks were
21 coming from Manatee to Port Tampa. And that's
22 where they convert it to gypsum.
23 And at the present time, I'm very concerned
24 about the school children's safety. Why must we
25 use the intersection where all the truck traffic
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1 accumulates. Conditions at the present time are
2 already extremely hazardous.
3 I'm also very concerned with the speed and
4 road safety issues. We have been unable to use
5 a bus stop because of the constant collisions
6 with vehicles using excessive speed and
7 misjudging the extent of the turn.
8 We have had several accidents at these
9 intersections, as well as a child being hit.
10 Our main community street, Commerce, which was
11 built in the late 1880s, along with our port and
12 the surrounding community, it was never designed
13 to support such truck traffic, and few upgrades
14 have been made since its development.
15 This street is currently used by over
16 1500 trucks, mainly 18 wheeled gas trucks. Has
17 already deteriorated to unsafe conditions, and
18 now there is a consideration of adding an
19 additional 157 trucks per day through our
20 residential neighborhood streets, Interbay and
21 Westshore Boulevard, that intersect and become
22 Commerce Avenue, which is home of the new
23 church -- I mean, the library that we've gotten.
24 The trucks are continuously rolling down
25 these streets, converging at Commerce, and going
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1 to -- into the port.
2 And the two existing truck routes with such
3 speed are endangering the lives of the children
4 in the community.
5 Our single access to Picnic Island is a
6 two-lane road that's on those pictures that all
7 these trucks go down Commerce Avenue, and that's
8 our only access to our Picnic Island. It's
9 right there on Tampa Bay. It shares the land
10 mass with MacDill Air Force Base.
11 I've been in Venezuela, I spent 11 days
12 over there. It's a beautiful country. I went
13 over there with a friend of mine. His parents
14 worked for Mobil Oil Company, they were quite
15 wealthy.
16 And when I was over there, there was no
17 emission laws whatsoever, any vehicle
18 whatsoever. And when I was in the city, it
19 was -- I could smell the emissions.
20 And again, if they don't burn it over
21 there, how come they're going to burn it over
22 here?
23 And I say, no trucks; and yes, to trains.
24 And that's it.
25 Thank you very much.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
2 MS. CARLSON: Good afternoon.
3 Governor Chiles, and members of the Cabinet, my
4 name is Rita Carlson. And I am a 35-year
5 resident of the Port Tampa City. I grew up
6 there.
7 My father and I plowed the roads together
8 through the palmetto bushes to make streets
9 which now houses sit on. So I have a very
10 different picture of Port Tampa City to paint
11 for you today.
12 We have sent pictures up there for you to
13 look at to make us real to you. It's the second
14 time -- I'm sorry -- third time in the entire
15 proceedings so far that the name Port Tampa City
16 has even been brought up. And that's because
17 we're very small.
18 I don't think we're smaller in size than
19 Parrish, but we must be, because we've been
20 completely eliminated from this process.
21 Although we are due to receive 80 percent of the
22 waste that comes from it.
23 We were never involved, we were never
24 asked. It's partly due to our own fault.
25 Because we are so small, we aren't able to be
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1 everywhere at the appropriate time.
2 It's become very easy for government to
3 displace the citizens from the process of
4 consideration. We're very little. We get
5 easily glanced over and walked over, and then we
6 just suffer the effects of it.
7 My community has been suffering the effects
8 of big business, big money, and uninformed
9 decisions for the past 100 years, of which I
10 have participated or been exposed to them for
11 35.
12 Ten percent at a time, my community has
13 been desecrated. Just 10 percent. That's all.
14 That's all they want to send to us is just
15 10 percent.
16 And 10 percent at a time over 35 years is
17 350 percent. And it can take a community like
18 mine and turn it completely around.
19 We went from a very small little tight-knit
20 community that was very prosperous and based
21 around port and industry and rail, to a
22 community that is now almost completely
23 devastated and wiped out by drugs, poor road
24 conditions, no sidewalks for our kids.
25 Our kids' schools don't even meet the
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1 State's requirement for school books per child
2 in the library.
3 Governor Chiles and Cabinet, we implore you
4 to think back and look forward. Think back
5 about who you were before you were here; look
6 forward into the future, and please think about
7 what you want for your children and
8 grandchildren, my children and grandchildren,
9 and our children and grandchildren.
10 We only have one planet. It only has so
11 much to give us. Once it's gone, no big
12 business, no politicians, no big personal
13 agendas, no big money is going to be able to
14 give it back to us. It'll be gone.
15 To us, the little people, our government
16 often appears foreign in nature to us. Because
17 we speak -- even when we're not asked, we try to
18 speak so that we will have some voice.
19 And we often wonder if you can see us, if
20 you can hear us, unless it's an election year.
21 We want you to see us and hear us today, that's
22 why I'm here. That's why James is here. We are
23 important. When we can get access to the
24 information, we do pay attention to the facts.
25 I wish that my checkbook and the figures in
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1 it could be changed and substantiated with the
2 same tenacity and elasticity as
3 Florida Power & Light's facts. I think that I
4 would enjoy the benefits of that.
5 The facts are with regards to the savings
6 for Florida Power & Light customers, I'm glad
7 they're going to try to save their customers
8 money. But they aren't my electric company.
9 Neither are they the citizens of Port Tampa
10 City. They're not -- we -- we're run by TECO.
11 So all the benefits to all these people are
12 just going to have an impact of 10 percent on my
13 little community. It's only going to be
14 10 percent more. We're only going to be
15 devastated just 10 percent more, that's all.
16 And we should be grateful for that, because
17 hopefully we may get a few jobs.
18 Thank you very much for your time. Don't
19 forget us.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor.
22 I -- that's okay. I just have one quick
23 comment.
24 And I'm certainly not going to attempt to
25 speak on behalf of my fellow Cabinet members.
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1 But I know that in my office -- and I'm going to
2 assume, for that reason, in all of the Cabinet
3 offices -- that Port Tampa has been a part of
4 the discussion that we've been having, along
5 with Parrish, since the beginning of this
6 discussion way back when.
7 So your feeling that Port Tampa hasn't been
8 considered in all of this, at least in our
9 particular case -- and again, I'm going to
10 assume on everyone else's part -- is invalid.
11 It -- Port Tampa and Parrish have both been
12 discussed at length in all that we've been
13 investigating and all that we've been doing.
14 MS. CARLSON: May I approach, sir?
15 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Sure.
16 MS. CARLSON: We may have been discussed,
17 but we were never asked. That was my point.
18 And it wasn't specifically by the Cabinet.
19 It was specifically by Florida Power & Light,
20 and others who are involved with them in the
21 business decision. We were never asked what we
22 wanted, or if we wanted.
23 So -- thank you.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Thank you.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
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1 MR. CITRO: Governor Chiles and Cabinet,
2 thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand
3 up here and talk. I was asked by my small
4 community of Duette to come here and represent
5 their interests.
6 Duette is a small rural community
7 approximately 8 miles east of the Florida Power
8 plant, the one in Parrish.
9 We had a recent dinner at our community, I
10 don't remember exactly what it was for. But it
11 was very interesting to see how all the people
12 have come together against orimulsion and some
13 other environmental issues that are happening in
14 our community.
15 I've lived out there for ten years. It's a
16 beautiful town. We had the last one-room
17 schoolhouse in the state of Florida. It's
18 almost a -- a Mayberry, an Andy Griffith
19 Mayberry, of the '90s. It's beautiful.
20 The people don't want orimulsion burned in
21 the Parrish power plant, period.
22 I cannot understand how the Manatee County
23 Commissioner Harris can get up here and make her
24 speech, and how the attorney from Manatee County
25 can sit here and not come up here and pound on
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1 this table when someone says that they're going
2 to -- they're going to throw Manatee County to
3 the wolves, they're going to raise our pollution
4 to lower it somewhere else.
5 Those commissioners were hired by the
6 people in Manatee County to look out for our
7 interests. With the exception of Joe McClash,
8 Commissioner McClash, that's not happening.
9 Florida Power & Light talks about the
10 systems and safeguards to the environment.
11 Sounds really good. But I'm here to tell
12 you, as a representative from Duette, what
13 happens when those systems and safeguards fail?
14 For the last three years, we've been being
15 dumped on by sludge haulers coming from out of
16 the -- out of our county. And rumor coming
17 in -- that they're coming in from out of state.
18 They are violating the 17-- the State
19 regulation seventeen six forties, and the
20 Federal 503s on a daily basis.
21 The people in Duette feel that they've been
22 abandoned by the DEP and by our county. They
23 are absolutely upset. I am one of the calmest
24 ones in my neighborhood.
25 Many of our residents have contacted the
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1 commissioners, I have spoke, I believe, on three
2 or four different occasions. We have written
3 many letters. We've had over 40 newspaper
4 articles done on this problem.
5 All we're asking for is for them to abide
6 by the regulations. Duette area is in -- is --
7 the Little Manatee runs right through it. I
8 personally own 10 acres. I own part of Little
9 Manatee River. In my backyard, it's 6 feet
10 wide.
11 I brought my four children here with me
12 today. They play in that river. I was taught
13 when I was hunting when I was young, you don't
14 leave anything in the woods, wasn't there when
15 you -- when you got there; and you don't take
16 anything out you need.
17 Governor Chiles, you're a hunter, you were
18 taught the same thing, I'm sure.
19 What I see happening to the Little
20 Manatee River is a sin, period. And it's got to
21 be stopped.
22 The gentlemen from DEP and SWFWMD
23 mentioned -- mentioned the Little Manatee River
24 12 different times. I was like Mr. Troxell, I
25 almost had to come out of my seat.
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1 What's happening in this beautiful
2 air conditioned room is not what's happening
3 down in Duette.
4 A lot of my neighbors told me that I was
5 wasting my time to come in here today. Some of
6 these people are good, quality people. They
7 work every day, they're not people running
8 around with the camouflage and these --
9 you know, running through the woods.
10 But their attitudes towards government has
11 really become bitter. They say that
12 government -- some of them say government is for
13 sale to the highest bidder. I'm asking you as
14 I'm standing here today to prove them wrong.
15 It's time to take back the government from
16 big business. You look at all these people
17 here.
18 Governor Chiles, if you stood up and you
19 said, anybody that's drawing a paycheck from
20 Florida Power & Light, leave this room, there'll
21 be a lot more seats in here.
22 I'm not saying this to be funny. I look at
23 all these so-called witnesses. It brings to
24 mind the tobacco industry. For years, the
25 tobacco industry has been putting so-called
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1 witnesses up on stage, and they are proud to say
2 the fact that they have never proven that
3 cigarette smoking has caused cancer.
4 I see a little bit of a parallel here.
5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: You kind of like
6 this guy, don't you?
7 MR. CITRO: There's just too many answers
8 about -- too many questions about orimulsion.
9 The contaminated groundwater, the citrus
10 burn -- this power plant is located in the
11 middle of an oran-- of orange groves. Orange
12 groves and farming industry provides a lot of
13 jobs in Manatee County. This is something that
14 needs to be addressed.
15 Orimulsion, when it's poured into water,
16 the best explanation that I found, was someone
17 said it was like trying to take cocoa out of
18 hot chocolate.
19 In closing, I would just like to remind you
20 to remember the people that put you in those
21 chairs. They're not from Venezuela, they're not
22 from some corporation in Pennsylvania. Right
23 now they're at work. They're at work in
24 companies and small mom-and-pop operations in
25 Manatee County.
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1 When you -- when you people are gone, and
2 your grandchildren are looking back at your
3 tenure sitting on that bench, don't let them
4 say, my -- my relative was on that bench and he
5 opened up the door to let Florida Power & Light
6 bring in orimulsion, and opened up the
7 floodgates for the rest of the country.
8 Thank you very much.
9 Oh, one other thing.
10 I'd like -- I'd like to give this tape to
11 Governor Chiles and to Attorney General
12 Butterworth. This is a -- it's kind of a long
13 tape. But if you got a minute -- you don't have
14 to watch it today, but it shows you what's been
15 going on in our town for the last three years.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
17 MR. GREEN: Mary Sheppard is the next
18 speaker. Then Stanley Herbert and
19 Freda Perrotta.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you. Yes, sir.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: I've probably waded
23 behind your house. I've waded all --
24 MS. SHEPPARD: My name is Mary Sheppard,
25 and I'm a native of Manatee County, and I'm
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1 representing Manatee-Sarasota Fish & Game
2 Association, a local club in our area.
3 Fish & Game people have been very disturbed
4 because we as the citizens have felt we have not
5 had a voice in the 1995 review of this permit by
6 the Manatee County Board of Commissioners.
7 We want you to know that Manatee County was
8 once protected, for about 20 years I believe, by
9 a rule that would not have allowed FP&L to burn
10 orimulsion at their Parrish --
11 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
12 MS. SHEPPARD: -- plant.
13 In June of '93, five of our seven
14 County Commissioners voted to change this rule
15 over the objections of Fish & Game, Sierra, and
16 a room full of citizens, many of whom are here
17 today.
18 Since that has been the experience of
19 our -- of our citizens and our group, one of the
20 things that we've tried to do was to collect
21 petition signatures against orimulsion. And up
22 till now, you have already received nearly 3,000
23 from Sierra Club, and 2,000 from some others,
24 and today I have about 2,751 new signatures
25 here, which brings the total, I think, of what
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1 you've received -- other people I know who have
2 mailed them to you -- to about 9,000 people who,
3 like the gentleman ahead of me said, we, the
4 citizens, want to be heard. We want at least to
5 be heard, no matter which way you vote.
6 And people don't get the opportunity to
7 take around a petition. And then when
8 challenged, many of them also wrote letters to
9 you. And I would like to call that to your
10 attention.
11 One lady ahead of me, also a native of
12 Manatee County, if I remember, said she's
13 depending upon EPA and et cetera to protect us.
14 Well, I -- my investigation says EPA has
15 never studied orimulsion, therefore, there have
16 been no specific guidelines put forward. And if
17 they didn't put it forward, Florida
18 Department of Environmental Protection had to
19 judge this permit on the basis of oil, gas, and
20 coal. There -- there are no -- there are no
21 guidelines to evaluate this for emulsified fuels
22 in general. And that is what other people have
23 mentioned we needed.
24 And one other thing that was pointed out to
25 me yesterday was the fact that probably in this
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1 permit -- which I haven't read this part -- but
2 we need to have very high bonds.
3 If there is -- one of the accidents that's
4 bound to happen, be it air emissions like
5 happened in Dalhousie, Canada, with orimulsion,
6 or whether it is a spill in the bay like
7 Number 6 fuel oil three years ago, there needs
8 to be very high bonding to be able to clean up
9 any future problems.
10 And in closing, I'd like to share with you
11 the fact that we -- many of us citizens are
12 really pleased with how hard you as the Governor
13 and the Cabinet have worked to protect a large
14 part of Florida's heritage, and have spent
15 millions and millions.
16 And at this critical time of restoring the
17 Everglades, we urge you to proceed slowly. One
18 spill of orimulsion can hurt our only coral reef
19 system.
20 And I just spent two days snorkeling there,
21 so I really feel attached to -- and have for
22 about 10 or 12 -- oh, 13 years off and on,
23 enjoyed our local coral reef.
24 If we proc-- if we had proceeded slowly
25 before draining and digging the canals in the
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1 Everglades, perhaps today we wouldn't have to
2 spend so much money to remediate the damage.
3 So please vote to protect the state, and
4 not have to have more remediation.
5 Thank you very much.
6 And I'll leave these here for you.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
8 MR. HERBETS: Good afternoon, Governor and
9 Cabinet. My name is Stan Herbets. I'm the
10 President of the Parrish Civic Association.
11 And much of which -- of what I wish to say
12 has already been said, so I won't be
13 repetitive.
14 In my tenure, what I've had to deal with
15 would be --
16 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
17 MR. HERBETS: -- developments over flood
18 zones, playgrounds that haven't been built,
19 other things in Parrish that I have to confront
20 on a weekly basis.
21 But I've never had to confront the
22 possibility that our population in Parrish is
23 going to be poisoned. It's a very interesting
24 situation, since they're going to double the
25 NOx.
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1 And what I am most upset about is 15 years
2 ago, Lifebuoy took out the phenol in their
3 soap. That was the stuff that they said that
4 made it smell so healthy. And now this
5 orimulsion -- 1 percent of the orimulsion is
6 phenol.
7 This is dangerous, it's been outlawed, and
8 it's going to be completely outlawed in Europe
9 next year. It's not allowed anywhere. Why do
10 we say that it's okay to have here.
11 This bothers me. I hope you understand
12 what it's all about.
13 In the meantime, people of Parrish do not
14 want this. Maybe we have one or two who does,
15 for some reason. But ninety-nine-and-a-half
16 percent are against orimulsion in our
17 neighborhood.
18 One thing very positive, at least people
19 now know where Parrish is.
20 Thank you very much for your time.
21 MS. PERROTTA: Governor, Commissioners, my
22 name is Freda Perrotta, I'm on the
23 Executive Committee of the Manatee-Sarasota
24 Sierra Club.
25 I was privileged on Sunday, on Earth Day,
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1 to be able to be at a booth celebrating
2 Earth Day. And at that time, people who went
3 passed the booth were very --
4 (Secretary Mortham exited the room.)
5 MS. PERROTTA: -- taken with our display of
6 facts about orimulsion. And many of them had
7 read our -- the editorial in the Sarasota
8 morning paper stating their objections to the
9 burning of orimulsion.
10 As a result of my standing there for a
11 couple of hours, people who came by filled their
12 names and addresses out on 147 postcards.
13 People who had not so far voiced their opinions,
14 who are all asking you gentlemen and lady to say
15 no.
16 I'm going to leave the cards with you, and
17 hope that you will consider these 147 nos, added
18 to all of the other people who have petitioned
19 you, phoned you, sent you letters. We all say
20 no.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. GREEN: The next speaker will be
23 Elizabeth Lane.
24 MR. BHARUCHA: My name is Jal Bharucha.
25 I'm from Bradenton. I'm a graduate of the
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1 University of Michigan in engineering.
2 Thank you for letting me speak. I have
3 made many arguments against orimulsion in the
4 last few months, and I have written to you about
5 most of them.
6 Without repeating the details, let me just
7 briefly list them. The statewide NOx emissions
8 and other savings --
9 (Secretary Mortham entered the room.)
10 MR. BHARUCHA: -- to the average customer
11 are short-lived. When more power is needed,
12 savings will first go down, with Parrish still
13 spewing the same tonnage of nitrogen oxides on
14 Manatee and surroundings.
15 When other plants switch to orimulsion, NOx
16 will go still higher statewide.
17 The monthly savings, as claimed by FPL, in
18 present value will range from 5 cents to
19 30 cents in the first month. From 65 cents to
20 $4.33 in the last month of a 20-year period.
21 Also, the spill -- the spill test
22 commissioned by FPL was pronounced faulty by a
23 review commissioned by -- was pronounced faulty
24 by a review as commissioned by the DEP. And it
25 was carried out by Dr. H.M. Cekirge.
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1 The hearing officer's recommendation report
2 has commended favorably on COSAP. But does not
3 even mention Dr. Cekirge's review. Why, I don't
4 know.
5 The surfactant used in orimulsion was not
6 investigated by DEP. To my utter disbelief,
7 some legal technicality is supposed to have
8 precluded DEP from investigating surfactant.
9 To the best of my ability, I have produced
10 formally peer reviewed scientific evidence to
11 show that it's -- that it's deg-- it's
12 degradation products are estrogenic. Long lived
13 in the environment, they bioaccumulate and
14 biomagnify.
15 Estrogen mimics affect the reproductive and
16 nervous systems, create behavioral problems, and
17 learning disabilities.
18 They affect not only the present
19 generation, but also generations to come.
20 Dr. Thomas Potter kindly sent me his
21 comments on the surfactant, and FPL's lawyers
22 delivered eight papers on Friday, April 18th,
23 just four days before this final hearing.
24 I have effectively answered all of them by
25 my letter dated yesterday. And I hope you all
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1 got it.
2 In the same letter, I have also pointed out
3 how completely the public has been shut out from
4 this whole debate.
5 Governor Chiles, Honorable members of the
6 Cabinet, in my humble opinion, this is perhaps
7 the most serious decision you have been called
8 upon to make as members of the Executive of the
9 State of Florida.
10 The implications of this decision will go
11 far beyond the State of Florida, or even beyond
12 this country.
13 They also go far beyond the present
14 generation. We have -- they will affect
15 generations to come.
16 The thermal equivalent of the bitumen
17 reserves in Venezuela are supposed to far exceed
18 those of the oil under Saudi Arabia. More such
19 reserves are said to have been discovered in
20 Canada. The pressures to burn this fuel all
21 over will be enormous once it starts in Parrish.
22 Nature does not obey man's laws. And no
23 one for generations will be exempt from -- from
24 the ravages of this fuel once it starts burning
25 and disrupts the systems of living creatures.
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1 This opportunity is unique because we can
2 stop this before it starts. Once started, it
3 could be unstoppable, or we would all have
4 started it knowingly.
5 Thank you.
6 MS. LANE: Good afternoon. I'm
7 Elizabeth Lane, a Certified Financial Planner
8 from Parrish. Thank you for allowing me to
9 speak today.
10 I, along with my business partner, own a
11 small financial planning firm located in
12 Ellenton, Florida. And although I live and work
13 in Manatee County, I have spoken to many of my
14 peers in the financial community across the
15 state who also share my concerns.
16 I initially became in the orimulsion issue
17 when asked to analyze some cost estimates
18 relating to pollution control devices that had
19 been reviewed in the DEP staff analysis report.
20 The analysis I conducted led me to ask
21 serious questions about the validity of the
22 information presented to DEP, data that
23 apparently went unchallenged by DEP, or any
24 other party.
25 To keep it simple, one of the most glaring
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1 errors accepted and unchallenged were the
2 figures presented by FPL on the cost estimates
3 to use a pollution control device called SCR.
4 This device is used by power plants in the
5 country and around the world to reduce NOx
6 emissions.
7 FPL took the position that this particular
8 technology was too expensive, and DEP agreed.
9 Well, I question these cost estimates, and
10 I think you should, too.
11 In my analysis, my first question was: Who
12 or what source provided the figures? Were these
13 figures provided by an actual manufacturer
14 estimate?
15 This answer is no. No manufacturer did any
16 cost estimates on site. Actual figures were not
17 used. FPL's consulting firm, KBN, simply used
18 budget figures, or averages supplied by the
19 manufacturer. Not actual figures.
20 Now, if you only wanted to do a very rough
21 estimate, averages are okay. However, using
22 averages are not very accurate, especially
23 considering that construction costs in Florida
24 are considerably less than in most other areas
25 in the country.
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1 Next KBN gave a cost estimate for one
2 burner, yet they based their cost per ton of NOx
3 removal on two burners. They simply multiplied
4 their figures by two, resulting in grossly
5 oversimplified methods of providing cost
6 estimates.
7 I talked to several construction engineers,
8 including one from DEP. And each of them
9 verified that when you build two units, many of
10 the costs are, in fact, not duplicated.
11 Because this analysis that I did represents
12 a very small piece of what appears to be a
13 detailed report of the risks versus reward of
14 burning this experimental fuel, and this small
15 piece is flawed, it leads me to wonder:
16 How much of the rest of the oversimplified
17 data -- the datas oversimplified are flawed.
18 They ask you to vote on the facts. But can
19 you trust the facts as presented? How can you
20 or we be sure?
21 My second question focuses on the economic
22 liability of this project. Suppose there is a
23 spill or failure of the pollution control
24 devices proposed?
25 Who will pay for the resulting damage to
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1 personal property and the environment?
2 FPL has been quite vague when responding to
3 such questions. In short, FPL has taken the
4 position that a spill would not be their
5 liability because the tankers bringing in
6 orimulsion are owned by Bitor, the Venezuelan
7 company.
8 After negotiations, FPL did agree to post a
9 5 million dollar bond for a spill. Is 5 million
10 to clean up a major spill enough?
11 Could you sue the government of Venezuela
12 successfully?
13 In addition, FPL will not own the burners
14 or pollution control devices that will be
15 installed at the plant. Ownership will be
16 retained by the manufacturing company.
17 I wonder, where will liability fall if the
18 pollution devices fail? Where is your recourse
19 in the state of Florida for liability?
20 From an economic standpoint, the cost to
21 our environments, the threat of property damage,
22 and the unknown recourse for liability diminish
23 any dubious savings promoted by FPL.
24 I had an opportunity to speak to a Cabinet
25 member's aide very recently regarding the
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1 economic benefits of this conversion.
2 He posed a scenario. Elizabeth, he said,
3 suppose you had a client, and that client was
4 doing better than any of your other clients.
5 Then that client came to you and said, I want to
6 do better.
7 Would you say to him, well, you're already
8 doing better than anyone else, and you should be
9 happy with what you have.
10 Well, I answered him, of course not. My
11 first question to my client would be: How much
12 risk do you want to take?
13 Well, let me take this example one step
14 further. Suppose I had a client that came to
15 me, and his broker said he had a hot new
16 investment, and that it would save him a lot of
17 money. Should he do it?
18 Well, of course, my usual question would
19 be: How much risk will you take in comparison
20 to the rewards you will receive?
21 If my client then responded by saying that
22 his broker gave him all kinds of reports and
23 glossy charts that downplayed the risks, should
24 I as his financial advisor say, well, I guess
25 since your broker has all the information, it
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1 must be okay.
2 Or should I do the due diligence that my
3 profession requires, and secure independent
4 study and reports that classify the risk fairly
5 before recommending this investment?
6 We need to do our due diligence on an
7 independent level. There's too many unanswered
8 questions, there's too much data that has not
9 been verified. There are too many questions
10 that have not yet been asked.
11 We need more time to fully study this
12 project on an independent level. Florida should
13 not be asked to shoulder the economic burden of
14 being the nation's guinea pig for this
15 experimental fuel.
16 I urge you, turn down this proposal as
17 requested.
18 Thank you.
19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Hi, Governor and members of
20 the Cabinet, I'm Eva Armstrong. The --
21 representing the Audubons -- the Audubon Society
22 in Florida.
23 I'm here today because we have some
24 concerns related to our national sanctuary in
25 Tampa Bay. It is a series of small islands that
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1 are in both Tampa Bay and in Sarasota Bay.
2 And both the staff and volunteers in that
3 area have worked for years with regular -- I
4 call regular oil spills, your Number 6 fuel oil
5 spills. And they know how to handle that kind
6 of oil spill.
7 We're very concerned that if orimulsion's
8 approved and it is put in place in Tampa Bay,
9 that we don't know how to handle this kind of
10 oil spill.
11 And I think if you look at your recommended
12 order before you, you'll find that it supports
13 the fact that they've never had a test in open
14 waters. We don't really know what it'll do.
15 And our concern is from a wildlife, nature
16 standpoint, can we -- can we afford to test it
17 without knowing first. Maybe we can. That's
18 one of our concerns.
19 Number two, with Tampa Bay already
20 violating the wat-- Florida water quality
21 standards, we don't think the recommended order
22 before you adequately protects the bay in that
23 regard.
24 If anything, recently you approved the
25 order for Monroe County which tied a reduction
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1 in nitrogen in Florida waters to the development
2 order. So I -- we're concerned that this is
3 another case where you need to take a real close
4 look at that previous action.
5 And number three, which ties in the first
6 two, is the fact that -- I mean, we want cheaper
7 fuel oil if -- if we know we can handle the
8 effects of it. And we don't think that current
9 law or regulations are designed for orimulsion.
10 They are designed for Number fuel -- Number 6
11 fuel oil, but not for this particular
12 substance. And we think that you need to have
13 far greater information about what the effects
14 would be before you take -- take action.
15 That's it. Thanks.
16 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, ma'am.
18 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, ma'am.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: I have a question.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: Question.
22 Question.
23 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Ms. Armstrong, if I
24 could ask you a quick question on that issue.
25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, ma'am.
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1 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Have -- obviously
2 living in the Tampa Bay area, this is -- this is
3 a big issue.
4 And on pages 76 and 77 of the recommended
5 order, it was found that the risk of a spill of
6 orimulsion would be reduced to one-fourth of the
7 risk of a spill at the Number 6 -- of the
8 Number 6 fuel oil being delivered to the Manatee
9 plant. Number one.
10 And number two, on page 95, the risk to
11 Tampa Bay will be significantly reduced after
12 the conversion of the Manatee plant to
13 orimulsion from that which currently exists from
14 the transport of Number 6 fuel oil.
15 Do you have anything scientifically --
16 or -- you know, by what means do you disagree
17 with those statements? Because obviously I was
18 there in '93, we helped --
19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: -- clean up in '93.
21 And we know -- you know, we know what that oil
22 will do.
23 So can you -- can you speak to that
24 specifically?
25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes. Sure. I don't have
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1 the scientific basis.
2 What I do know is we don't disagree with
3 those findings. What we're suggesting is that
4 while '93 was a major spill, and clearly
5 Florida Power has taken some steps in this
6 regard to limit the possibility of spills with
7 your double hulled tanker, and some of the other
8 safeguards, we can't rule out natural spills
9 from natural disasters, nor human error that
10 will occur.
11 Will the number of spills be reduced? It
12 certainly looks like it would. But again,
13 because we don't know the long-term impacts of
14 what happens when orimulsion is spilled, that's
15 why we're concerned about there not being enough
16 safeguards, because of the unknown.
17 SECRETARY MORTHAM: But you don't --
18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Does that make sense?
19 SECRETARY MORTHAM: But you don't disagree
20 with the fact that it could be reduced by a
21 quarter.
22 MS. ARMSTRONG: Oh, yeah -- I -- I can't
23 question even the number.
24 What I do know is that there are a couple
25 hundred oil spills in Tampa Bay in any given
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1 year. Most of them very small -- the press
2 doesn't hear about them. They're all reported.
3 And again, because we don't know the
4 long-term impacts of orimulsion when spilled, we
5 don't know if reducing it by a quarter is
6 enough. Or maybe completely wipe it out. But
7 we don't know that.
8 SECRETARY MORTHAM: And we would hope it
9 would wipe it out.
10 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. Right.
11 Any other questions?
12 MR. GREEN: Governor, with the exception of
13 4 minutes left on the proponent's side, we've
14 run out of the allocated time. There are three
15 speakers left on the opponent's --
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: We'll hear them.
17 MR. GREEN: -- side.
18 Rosetta Walsh, Beth Kidder, and
19 Doris Schember.
20 MS. WALSH: Good afternoon, Governor. It's
21 been a long afternoon, hasn't it?
22 I'm Rosette Walsh. I'm president of
23 Florida Consumer Action Network. I moved to
24 Florida because it was such a beautiful, clean
25 state. I came from New York City. This was
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1 30 years ago.
2 Florida has been changing since that time.
3 But we worked hard in Tampa Bay area to clean it
4 up. To clean up our water and to clean up our
5 air.
6 We have had more calls from our members,
7 and it was calls that we did not ask them
8 about. They called us to ask us to help stop
9 the use of orimulsion in our area as an
10 experiment. And that's the way a lot of our
11 consumers are viewing it.
12 And they are the ones that, for about the
13 last nine months, have called in and voiced
14 their concern, and were concerned about the air
15 pollution, were concerned about the possible
16 Tampa Bay pollution, the fact that it -- there's
17 such a delicate balance now that the sea grasses
18 have just started to grow back.
19 It seems that to them, the amount of
20 savings is not worth the -- the environmental
21 and the health risk of this new fuel.
22 They are looking at it that the risks are
23 too high, and the savings are too little.
24 So please turn down this request.
25 MR. GREEN: Beth Kidder.
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1 Doris Schember.
2 MS. SCHEMBER: I know you're as happy as I
3 am this is the last speech.
4 I'm Doris Schember, resident of
5 Manatee County. I'm an appointed member of the
6 Myakka River Management Council; an appointed
7 member of the Sarasota Bay National Estuary
8 Program; and I just finished two terms on the
9 Manasota Basin Board, a subgroup of SWFWMD.
10 The Manatee -- the Manasota Basin Board is
11 very happy to have been a part of initiating the
12 master plan for reuse in the Manatee County.
13 And our purpose was to help our local
14 agriculture industry to meet the new drains
15 on -- restrictions on the drains on our water
16 supply, our groundwater supplies particularly.
17 I just wanted to make that statement
18 clear. We're thinking of our agriculture
19 industry at that point mostly.
20 I have a heightened awareness from all of
21 this -- of the fragility of our environment
22 here. But I'm going to make an unproven
23 statement, since there have been a lot of
24 unproven statements.
25 And that is, the people of this state do
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1 not want orimulsion. That statement -- if you
2 people have not been convinced of that, that the
3 people of this state do not want this state used
4 as a proving ground for this unproven, imported
5 fuel, and you're not willing to base your
6 decision on that, then we have a way of doing
7 that, we can put it to a vote of the people, and
8 that would not cause -- that kind of proving
9 wouldn't cause any pollution.
10 Thank you.
11 MR. GREEN: Governor, there are eleven
12 proponents that did not speak, but they waive
13 their time.
14 And Peter Cunningham, if he's in the room,
15 wishes to close.
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Good afternoon again. It
17 seems much later. I guess it is. And I know
18 it's been a long day.
19 If all that was known about orimulsion and
20 about this project is what you heard today,
21 I think it would be a real tough decision what
22 to do.
23 That is not all that's known about
24 orimulsion or about this project. I don't have
25 time to respond to all the things that were
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1 said, and the concerns that were raised. I wish
2 I did.
3 But there are responses. I would say all
4 of the allegations and concerns that were raised
5 today, and by numerous agencies, and by many
6 concerned people over the past three years were
7 ultimately considered by the agencies with
8 responsibility.
9 These concerns were considered by the
10 hearing officer during a certification hearing
11 that lasted three weeks with over 50 witnesses,
12 and 200 exhibits, and 2600 pages of testimony
13 through the time-honored process that we use.
14 With the hearing officer listening to
15 witnesses, giving testimony, under oath and
16 subject to cross-examination, the evidence was
17 considered and the hearing officer ultimately
18 made 258 findings of fact.
19 Sticking to the record, unlike some today,
20 I would emphasize that the hearing officer found
21 that the project will result in overall
22 environmental benefits, as well as economic
23 benefits; will result in reduced risk to
24 Tampa Bay from fuel transportation over that
25 which exists now, and would continue to exist
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1 without this project.
2 And that the increase in nitrogen loading
3 to Tampa Bay, attributable to the increase in
4 NOx emissions from this power plant, which is on
5 the order of 18 metric tons per year, out of a
6 total loading per year between three and
7 four thousand tons -- 18 out of three or
8 four thousand -- that that eighteen tons would
9 have no measurable effect on water quality or
10 biologic activity in Tampa Bay, Lake Manatee, or
11 any other water body in the area.
12 And I'd note, because there's been
13 reference to it, that the National Estuarine
14 Program responsible for trying to come up with a
15 way to keep the bay going in the right
16 direction, has not opposed this project. I
17 would not suggest they support it. But they
18 have not opposed it.
19 Regarding a couple specific statements.
20 Ms. Stein suggested, I think, that there's no
21 evidence in the record about what would happen
22 when you burn orimulsion with surfactant in it.
23 Indeed, there is. FPL Exhibit Number 2
24 contains the answers to the more than
25 200 questions that we formally answered in
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1 writing of the agencies.
2 And the answer to that question is that the
3 surfactant is decomposed or combusted at about
4 425 to 450 degrees. These boilers operate at
5 temperatures well over 2,000 degrees.
6 What would be emitted would be
7 carbon dioxide and water. There would be no
8 surfactant emitted.
9 There's also some suggestion that we don't
10 really know what orimulsion will do in Tampa Bay
11 in this bill.
12 Well, we do know, because the laws of
13 physics tell us that. This has been studied to
14 the extent, and by the right people, so that it
15 is known, in fact, how orimulsion would behave
16 in a spill through very sophisticated modeling
17 done by some of the best people in the world.
18 I don't think that Captain Holt would have
19 given you the opinion that he did if he did not
20 believe that were true.
21 I want to mention briefly, because other
22 people have passed paper up here. I'm not sure
23 what it all is.
24 But I'd ask you to look a Mayor -- a letter
25 from the Mayor of Dalhousie down in
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1 New Brunswick, Canada, that has a plant that's
2 been running orimulsion for several years.
3 Based on the evidence in the record,
4 I think that the four tests that were alluded to
5 earlier, I believe by Mr. Oven, are all met by
6 this project.
7 The project will comply with all of the
8 applicable nonprocedural requirements of all of
9 the agencies with jurisdiction.
10 The project will result in environmental or
11 other benefits compared to current utilization
12 of the site. The project will minimize, through
13 the use of reasonable and available methods, any
14 adverse effects on human health, the
15 environment, and the ecology of the land, its
16 wildlife, and the ecology of state waters and
17 their aquatic life.
18 I think there are -- is great support in
19 the record of this proceeding based on the
20 hearing officer's findings for each of those
21 conclusions.
22 Finally, is this in the public interest? I
23 would concede you're in a better position than I
24 am to judge that.
25 But I would point out that the
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1 hearing officer tried to address this and made
2 findings, including ones that the project will
3 produce lower electric costs to FPL's customers,
4 including governmental entities. These lower
5 electric costs will result in other benefits
6 throughout Florida's economy. The project will
7 increase fuel diversity in Florida, the project
8 will improve FPL's competitiveness.
9 Also the project will reduce air emissions
10 on both a local and a statewide level from what
11 they are now and what they will be without the
12 project.
13 They will reduce the health risks from air
14 emissions based on the findings of a
15 multi-pathway health risk assessment. And the
16 fact that emissions of some pollutants that
17 haven't been brought up today -- the so-called
18 air toxics -- will be reduced in all cases from
19 what they are now and what they would be without
20 the project.
21 Again, this project will result in a
22 reduction in the risk of fuel spills in
23 Tampa Bay. And we'll make the risk of a problem
24 from a fuel spill in Tampa Bay lower than it is
25 now.
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1 The project will maximize use of treated
2 wastewater. And specifically, the evidence, and
3 the hearing officer concluded, that construction
4 and operation of the plant will not adversely
5 affect the public health, safety, or welfare;
6 conservation of fish and wildlife; fishing;
7 water based recreational values; or marine
8 productivity in the vicinity of the plant.
9 All of these benefits are amply supported
10 by competent substantial evidence. That
11 evidence was a result of the most far-ranging
12 studies for a power plant project ever conducted
13 in this state.
14 The question before you today is not
15 whether or not there will be a power plant in
16 Manatee County. There is now, and there will
17 continue to be, a power plant operating in
18 Manatee County.
19 The question is -- before you today is also
20 not whether FPL will generate electricity to
21 meet the needs of its customers. FPL is bound
22 to do so.
23 The question is where and how that
24 electricity will be generated. By granting
25 certification for this project, you will ensure
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1 that the need for electricity will be met with
2 less environmental impacts than would otherwise
3 occur, while also achieving significant cost
4 savings for FPL's statewide customers.
5 FPL simply asks that you give meaningful
6 consideration and due weight to the
7 hearing officer's studied evaluation of the
8 entire record.
9 When you do so, I would submit that the
10 only reasonable result is to grant certification
11 subject to the conditions, and in accordance
12 with the recommendation of the Siting Board
13 staff.
14 Thank you, sir.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
16 Is there a question?
17 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Governor, if I
18 could, I'd like to make a couple of comments,
19 and then make a motion.
20 It seems like when I was first elected to
21 the Legislature, I remember giving speeches.
22 And as we all do, the -- I always would refer in
23 the speech about how many people were in
24 Florida.
25 I think we started off with about 10
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1 million people. And as time would go by, you'd
2 change the speech, and you'd say, well, now
3 there are 11 million people we have here.
4 And not -- it seems like not long ago, I
5 was making a speech, and one of my staff people
6 came up and said, you need to change that
7 12 million now up to 13 million.
8 And it seems to -- it seems to go on and on
9 with the growth we have in this state, that
10 we -- we pass growth management. But growth
11 seems to be relentless.
12 I think one thing that the people coming
13 here, and the people that were already here,
14 have in common is that when they go to switch
15 that -- that little switch on the wall on, they
16 expect the lights to go on. It's just kind of a
17 peculiarity I guess we have.
18 I guess if -- if we all had our druthers,
19 maybe we -- we wouldn't have any power plants.
20 There's -- they're building a power plant in my
21 home county of Polk. And I guess it's -- if --
22 in a perfect world, we wouldn't have a fuel oil
23 power plant in Manatee County, we'd like to have
24 maybe no power plant.
25 But, unfortunately we're -- we're growing
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1 and we're going to have to have power. If we
2 don't have more power, I guess somebody's going
3 to have to leave. And I'm not sure who's going
4 to volunteer to do that.
5 I guess it's our job then to make sure that
6 these plants are as efficient and as
7 environmentally sensitive as possible. And
8 that's -- that's the tough vote we have before
9 us today.
10 I think somebody mentioned a letter from
11 the mayor of a city in New Brunswick in Canada.
12 If anybody's familiar with this area, they know
13 that they have very strict environmental laws,
14 and they're very environmentally active.
15 There's a mayor of a city called Dalhousie,
16 New Brunswick, and he wrote us a letter, and
17 we've had some communication with him. I just
18 wanted to read one paragraph from the letter
19 that gave me some comfort, although I'm
20 certainly not completely comfortable with all
21 this.
22 But he says that Dalhousie is a beautiful
23 town in New Brunswick's north shore at the mouth
24 of the --
25 (Governor Chiles exited the room.)
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1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: -- famous salmon
2 fishing river called Restigouche. And Dalhousie
3 boasts many unspoiled, natural habitats, similar
4 to many of your towns. Dalhousie depends
5 largely on tourism and a healthy port system as
6 a part of its economic well-being.
7 He says: We're a vibrant, clean community
8 with a power plant, a year-round seaport, and
9 many other activities for the public. Nearly
10 two years after the reintroduction -- and the
11 introduction, I should say, of orimulsion, we
12 are still very vibrant, we're clean, we're a
13 year-round seaport with a healthier economy than
14 before orimulsion.
15 So he's considered to be a pretty
16 responsible person and a mayor at the time they
17 made the conversion. And he tells us,
18 everything's going fine, and the safety aspects
19 are good.
20 Obviously a lot of the conditions that the
21 DEP and the Water Management District, EPA, and
22 all the governmental entities placed on the
23 Florida Power & Light as a condition of
24 operating with orimulsion were good.
25 But, frankly, I think some other conditions
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1 should be placed on it before we would consider
2 adopting it.
3 And I'd like to -- I have a list here of
4 seven conditions that I would like to offer as
5 amendments, and incorporate them into a motion.
6 We've worked on these amendments in the last few
7 days, and our staff has been working on them
8 even as we've been hearing from the audience
9 here, and some of my colleagues here at the --
10 on the Cabinet about their concerns.
11 (Governor Chiles entered the room.)
12 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: And these seven
13 conditions, I think, would at least help give us
14 more comfort as it relates to adopting the final
15 order.
16 I'm going to summarize the amendments, and
17 then I'm going to offer the amendments in their
18 entirety, and anyone'd like to discuss them in
19 more detail, be glad to do that.
20 The first condition that I would offer is
21 that Florida Power & Light shall offset nitrogen
22 loading to Tampa Bay attributable to NOx
23 emissions from the facility by 100 percent.
24 This is a -- an issue that Treasurer Nelson
25 raised. We had some language dealing with this
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1 over -- that we -- came in today. But I think
2 his point about the 100 percent is -- it's
3 laudable, and we should hold them to that
4 standard. I haven't heard their response to
5 that yet.
6 Furthermore, Florida Power & Light will
7 identify and implement methods, including but
8 not limited to, water reused to permanently
9 secure these nitrogen load offsets.
10 A second condition would be an
11 environmental and information review room will
12 be established in the vicinity of the plant to
13 allow public access to both current and
14 historical environmental monitoring data
15 associated with Florida Power & Light's
16 operations.
17 Third, a nine-member community advisory
18 panel will be established to select an
19 appropriate and independent firm on a five-year
20 interval to monitor, conduct, and submit
21 research to DEP relating to Florida Power &
22 Light's environmental performance relating to
23 the use of orimulsion.
24 Such appointment shall be made as follows:
25 One member appointed by the Governor, one member
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1 appointed by each member of the Cabinet, one
2 member appointed by the Manatee County
3 Commission, and one member appointed by the
4 Florida Power & Light.
5 The funds for that independent firm would
6 be paid for by Florida Power & Light, but would
7 be -- that person would -- that firm would be
8 selected by this independent panel.
9 Fourth, we would require that Florida Power
10 & Light, and project participants, shall
11 under -- shall, under agreements with the
12 City of Tampa, mitigate Port Tampa area truck
13 traffic impacts based upon the usage of local
14 roadways in the vicinity of Port Tampa directly
15 associated with by-product delivery. This
16 condition would be effective as long as
17 by-products are delivered to the National
18 Gypsum's Port Tampa facility.
19 Fifth, the number of truck trips used to
20 deliver limestone to remove by-products from the
21 Manatee plant shall not exceed a total of 290
22 one-way trips, or 145 round trips per calendar
23 day.
24 If, however, a loss of backhaul ability
25 occurs, and approval has been granted by DEP,
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1 DOT, and the Manatee County, truck -- truck
2 trips may exceed the 290 one-way trip limit in a
3 24-hour period for no more than 30 days per
4 calendar year, as long as the maximum number of
5 truck trips shall not exceed a total of 440 --
6 404 one-way truck trips, or 202 round trips, per
7 calendar day at any time.
8 Sixth, the Community Assistance Trust
9 Fund -- a Community Assistance Trust Fund shall
10 be established, and $25,000 shall be deposited
11 on an annual basis by Florida Power & Light,
12 and/or Pure Air.
13 This funding source will be earmarked for
14 projects benefitting the Parrish and Port Tampa
15 communities.
16 An additional $500,000 will be provided
17 up-front by Florida Power & Light, Pure Air, or
18 Pure Air for local roadway improvements in these
19 communities.
20 And I think Commissioner Brogan suggested
21 that when -- I incorporate into the amendment,
22 and can be allocated for a portion of -- to
23 construct a byway. So those dollars can be used
24 for that.
25 In addition, a seventh and final
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1 recommendation. Also, Commissioner Brogan
2 suggested -- recommend the -- the approval of
3 the hearing offic--
4 Well, let me get to that. Be the seventh
5 in the package.
6 Commissioner Brogan suggested that on a
7 rehearing -- or reissue of the -- prior to the
8 renewal of the Florida Power & Light's air
9 permit, following the conversion of -- to
10 orimulsion, DEP shall report to the Siting Board
11 on Florida Power & Light and Pure Air's
12 compliance with all the conditions of all
13 permits.
14 Specific information regarding the effect
15 of the burning of orimulsion on human and
16 environmental health and safety shall be
17 reported to the Board at that time.
18 So, Governor, with those additional
19 qualifications and requirements of
20 Florida Power & Light, I would then move, sir,
21 that we then approve the hearing officer's final
22 order approving the use of orimulsion by
23 Florida Power & Light.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is there discussion?
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I didn't
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1 hear a second.
2 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Oh. There is a second.
4 Okay. Is there any discussion --
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, I'd like the
6 gentleman that spoke at the end for
7 Florida Power to respond to these specific
8 amendments, and also for staff to respond as
9 they see the amendments.
10 TREASURER NELSON: And give us the posture,
11 Governor. This is an amendment to the final
12 order? Is that it?
13 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: That's -- that's
14 correct. It would be a recommendation of
15 accepting the hearing officer's final order with
16 these additional requirements.
17 TREASURER NELSON: So we will vote on the
18 amendments first, and then the final order as
19 amended?
20 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No. This is
21 the whole thing.
22 TREASURER NELSON: Is this the --
23 everything wrapped up in one vote?
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I believe we could
25 do it that way if that's the pleasure of
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1 the Board.
2 TREASURER NELSON: Well, I -- you know,
3 from our old parliamentary procedure --
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, I -- I mean, if
5 somebody wanted to question it, you know, you
6 couldn't exactly do it that way.
7 If nobody wants to question it, I think you
8 could --
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: My question,
10 because we haven't heard from these people yet.
11 But --
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yeah. Well, I -- I think
13 we're going to hear from them before we do
14 that. Then we'll pose the question.
15 Let's hear what -- let's get a response
16 from --
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'm here to respond any
18 way I can. I -- I'm not sure I had copies of
19 all those. I was trying to follow along with
20 Commissioner Crawford.
21 But some of these things are things we've
22 been being asked about --
23 Thank you.
24 And if I might take a minute, make sure
25 they're the ones that I have seen.
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1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I think the most --
2 the one that has the -- a significant change
3 that -- has changed from the wording that I had
4 when we came to this meeting is the 100 percent
5 compliance that Commissioner -- Treasurer Nelson
6 raised --
7 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
8 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: -- with Mr. Woody.
9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That is an addition.
10 I think there might have been a few others that
11 tighten these up.
12 But I'm prepared to say on behalf of
13 Florida Power & Light Company, that if it's the
14 Siting Board's desire that these conditions be
15 attached to certification, that we would,
16 unhappily, but reluctantly, find that
17 acceptable.
18 MR. GREEN: Staff indicates that as long as
19 these are made part of the certification process
20 in the final order, that we can enforce those
21 additional standards and conditions. So we --
22 we just need to make sure as staff that we put
23 them in as part of -- as part of the order. And
24 then we can -- we can enforce them.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. Is there
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1 further discussion?
2 I -- it's been a long meeting. We've had a
3 Cabinet aides meeting before this. We've all
4 seen material on this.
5 First, I want to say that I think the --
6 the Department of Environmental Protection, plus
7 the hearing officer, have worked long and hard
8 on this.
9 I don't really dispute most of what they
10 have done. But they don't sit as the -- as the
11 Cabinet does -- as the Governor and the Cabinet
12 does as the Power Plant Siting Board.
13 We sit in a different capacity, we sit to
14 decide the public policy. And this is a unique
15 public policy question new to Florida. And --
16 and I think it's a very close question,
17 personally.
18 I think what we're talking about is we have
19 a technology -- or a new product here, an
20 orimulsion -- orimulsion that is -- certainly is
21 cheaper.
22 I think what we have to come to grips with
23 is does the fact that we have something that
24 will be lower in price outweigh potential
25 problems, the risks, and certainly some of the
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1 real problems that will come to people involved
2 with -- if this change is made.
3 I -- I think that as far as the -- most of
4 the findings of fact, I don't dispute those
5 findings of fact. But I think there are -- the
6 hearing officer are some mixed with -- there are
7 findings of fact mixed with conclusions of law,
8 I do think there are some disputes in those.
9 When I look at do the benefits -- how do
10 the benefits stack up against the current
11 utilization. And I think that's what you have
12 to look at in this plant. But I think that's
13 what we look at. I think that's one of the four
14 criteria that we look at.
15 Then I do look at the 400 trucks per day,
16 and what will -- what will come from that. I'll
17 have to tell you that personally, regardless of
18 what modeling can do, I'm concerned that we
19 don't know what a major spill of this product,
20 which goes into the water column, which goes to
21 the bottom, what the effect of that will be, and
22 what the outcome of that will be.
23 We know that there will be additional
24 shipping. And while it may decrease some
25 shipping some places, we know the treachery
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1 of -- of the bridge, we know what's happened
2 before in the bridge, and we know that there
3 will be certainly additional shipping in that.
4 If we were in a situation now where we were
5 concerned about the availability of product
6 in -- from the Mideast, an OPEC situation, this
7 would be pretty clear to me.
8 I also would say that I suspect that this
9 country will use orimulsion. I'm not sure that
10 Florida should rush to be the first to use it.
11 I have some concern as to whether we embark on
12 that, or whether you should start in this size
13 until we have cleared up some more questions. A
14 very close question for me, I think.
15 But under the circumstances that -- that it
16 is one of price, not the need at this stage for
17 having to have an additional fuel, I think some
18 day, as I say, we would look for that. And
19 we're looking for it in other things. We're
20 using much more gas now in producing than we
21 were before, if you look at the last ten years,
22 what Florida has done in natural gas.
23 We did not exactly try to encourage the
24 Chevron lease, but they hit gas, a big find,
25 4 million cubic things of gas. I understand
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1 that's four or five times bigger than most of
2 the gas wells that you're going to hit out
3 there.
4 TREASURER NELSON: Where is that,
5 Governor?
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's in the Destin Dome.
7 It's right out in the Gulf. And -- that's the
8 well that they already had the lease right to
9 do.
10 But with those circumstances, I'm just not
11 ready for my vote to roll the dice on this one
12 and to take a chance of how this would come
13 down. I -- I know a lot of work has gone in, a
14 lot of money has been spent, a lot of work has
15 been done by our people.
16 But it comes now to the point that -- that
17 Governor and the Cabinet have to sign, and that
18 is the sign-off on the public policy question.
19 And for that reason, I'm uncomfortable with
20 it, and I would -- I would not support the
21 original order.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor,
23 I --
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I have a
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1 suggestion.
2 I concur completely on what you stated.
3 I would offer a substitute motion to move
4 the draft final order -- which we all have a
5 copy of -- which on page 2 of the -- of the
6 final order, the last paragraph says -- the
7 first sentence says:
8 The Board after consideration of the record
9 as a whole in the application of the appropriate
10 statutory requirements hereby enters its final
11 order denying the application to burn orimulsion
12 submitted by FPL.
13 You have that motion.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Do you make that as a
15 substitute --
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Substitute.
17 Substitute motion.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is there a second?
19 TREASURER NELSON: I second it.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's seconded.
21 Is there discussion?
22 Call the roll. Substitute.
23 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, we're --
24 this is --
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Let me understand --
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1 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: -- on the substitute.
2 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- what we're doing,
3 Governor.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Pardon?
5 On the substitute motion.
6 Yes, sir.
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: What are -- what are
8 we doing here now exactly?
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Pardon?
10 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Denying.
11 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: We're denying it?
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: The substitute would deny
13 it.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
16 COURT REPORTER: Commissioner Brogan.
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Vote no on the
18 substitute motion.
19 COURT REPORTER: Commissioner Crawford.
20 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: No.
21 COURT REPORTER: Commissioner Nelson.
22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Yes.
23 COURT REPORTER: Comptroller Milligan.
24 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes.
25 COURT REPORTER: Secretary Mortham.
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1 SECRETARY MORTHAM: No.
2 COURT REPORTER: General Butterworth.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yes.
4 COURT REPORTER: Governor Chiles.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes.
6 By a vote of 4 to 3, you have accepted the
7 substitute.
8 Meeting is adjourned.
9 (The Department of Environmental Protection
10 Agenda was concluded.)
11 *
12 (The Cabinet meeting was concluded at
13 4:21 p.m.)
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3
4 STATE OF FLORIDA:
5 COUNTY OF LEON:
6 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
7 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
8 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
9 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
10 pages numbered 1 through 251 are a true and correct
11 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
12 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
13 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties,
14 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
15 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
16 DATED THIS 6TH day of MAY, 1996.
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19 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR
100 Salem Court
20 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
(904) 878-2221
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