Coral Gables to study impact of proposed power lines

A story in the Miami Herald says Coral Gables city leaders are following the lead of nearby communities in looking more closely at FPL's proposed route along US-1 of 230-KV high voltage electric transmission lines, hoping to assess the impact on residents and schoolchildren of the projected power lines.

According to the article by staff writer Elaine de Valle, which appeared in the zoned Neighbors section for Coral Gables and South Miami:

Acting on the concerns of residents in the city and nearby communities, leaders in Coral Gables want to find out the impact of controversial proposed new power lines that could traverse part of the city as part of Florida Power & Light's expansion project.

City Manager Pat Salerno got approval from the City Commission to hire a consultant to analyze the impact the new lines proposed along U.S. 1 will have on nearby residents.

Salerno told the newspaper that Coral Gables does not expect to receive details from FPL until June, when the utility expects to file its application for construction in the Gables.

"It's really for us to be prepared so that, once we've received the package of information from FPL, that we don't just have to take FPL's word for it that there will be no negative impact on the residents,'' the manager said. ``We want to have an independent way to validate what they are telling us.''

Read the full Herald story online, here.

South Daytona challenges FPL to show them the money!

The city of South Daytona is challenging FPL to show it the money!

The city's challenge to drop FPL as its local electricity distributor, reported earlier at Stop FPL, have expanded to a demand that the power giant justify its recent request for a base-rate increase to electricity customers.

South Daytona has demanded that FPL open it's books to show why the base-rate increase is necessary and are meeting with stone silence from the publicly trade energy utility.

The ongoing saga is getting some real press coverage up in Volusia County at the News-Journal online and at the websites of WTFV-9 and CFNews-13.

Coconut Grove FPL Committee Update at Village Council Meeting

Hat tip to West Grove Political Beat blogger Stephen Murray for this item.

Seems tonight (April 16) is the Coconut Grove Village Council meeting at City Hall and on the agenda is "an update on the Florida Power and Light Committee" ...

The FPL Committee is headed by Harlene Kennedy and is trying to prevent high voltage, above-ground lines from being installed in the Grove. An ideal situation for our safety during a hurricane would be for FPL to install the cables underground.

The meeting is televised locally in the Grove on cable Channel 77 and streamed online at http://videos.miamigov.com.

FPL prominent in Eye On Miami roundup on 'Environmental Issues We Are Facing'

Genius of Despair gives a nice (well, frightening, really!) roundup today at Eye on Miami of the pressing environmental issues facing all who live in Miami-Dade.

FPL related exigencies noted, include numbers 1, 2 and 6, which we've taken the liberty of reprinting here:

1. Nuclear and Coal Technologies Need to be Removed from the Renewable Portfolio:
These two technologies will take away funding for development of real renewable energy sources like solar and wind. This week there were important State Senate Committee Hearings on SB 1154 and it will be important to be vocal on this issue.

2. Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve:
At least $10 million for water managers to buy endangered Biscayne Bay wetland is gone, and more than $140,000 has been slashed from the Coastal and Aquatic Managed Areas program. As Laura Reynolds (Tropical Audubon) sees it, Biscayne National Park's fragile ecosystem is suffering a slow "death by a thousand cuts." (Hit read more).

Without management, the Bay will degrade. For example boat propeller scarring in shallow sea grass areas of the bay is a problem in the preserve. Boaters disregard markers and just plough through the flats. Eventually, these scars erode and become trenches. For history buffs, who could forget the FP&L debacle of the 1960’s, when hot water was dumped into Biscayne Bay by the Company from their nuclear reactors. Large areas of sea grass and masses of marine organisms – both plants and animals – were killed.

Action: Press county and state officials to protect the bay and South Miami-Dade's fresh water supply.

6. Rock Mining Near Biscayne National Park:
Turkey Point Nuclear Power plant needs to raise the grade to expand and build two more reactors. They need enormous amounts of fill and it is feared that they will excavate near the park, causing saltwater intrusion and endangering our water supply. Also Cemex had a permit application last year to mine 26 million cubic yards on 200 acres very close to the park, at Florida City Quarry. Rock mining near Biscayne National Park will seriously affect water quality in the Park. This is one obvious problem. There is no doubt that marine life in the park will be detrimentally impacted, counter to the Park’s Management Plan.

Do check out the full post: Rundown of Environmental Issues We Are Facing. And be sure to follow Genius's counsel to "write to the Governor about all these issues. Express your concern for the future of the environment in Florida."

Michael Mayo: FPL executive pay jolts the outrage meter

Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo has been doing some further reading into executive pay levels at FPL ... and he's outraged.

In the face of a 30% base-rate hike request, he's outraged at FPL executives' shameless "country club memberships, home security systems, leased vehicles and gasoline, even flights and lodging for an annual physical."

FPL's response? Spokesperson Jackie Anderson resonded to a query from Mayo that given record profits last year the executives' perquisites were "reasonable, appropriate and in line with the needs of the business."

Huh?!?!?!?

Want to read more? Take your blood-pressure medicine first, then sit down at your computer screen to read Michael Mayo's full column online, here.

FPL requests OK on $1.5 billion 300-mile gas pipeline from Palm Beach to Gainesville

The Sun-Sentinel's Julie Patel reported today that on Tuesday Florida Power & Light proposed to the Florida Public Service commission the construction of "a $1.5 billion underground pipeline that stretches 300 miles from Palm Beach County to Bradford County near Gainesville as early as 2014."

The exact route will be determined after a "comprehensive public outreach process to obtain feedback” about it, FPL said. The pipeline proposal comes during the annual legislative session, where lawmakers are considering requiring utilities to have 20 percent of their energy come from renewable resources such as the sun and wind by 2020.

Read the full post online at the newspaper's House Keys blog, here.

More Follow the Money: Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo on ... flights & lodging for exec physicals?!?

You could wonder all day long what your monthly FPL bill goes to pay for, but ... out-of-state flights and loding so that FPL's top execs can go get a physical checkup?

And, this when they're proposing a $1billion base rate hike for their Florida customers.

'You gotta be kidding!' you say ... Well, Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo isn't.

Read his full column online, here.

Follow the money: your monthly bill, FPL CEO compensation and sleeping guards at Turkey Point

Ever wonder how much of our monthly electricity bills go toward supplying us with ... well, electricity?

The Miami Herald reports today on the annual salary increases of the CEOs of FPL Group and its Florida Power & Light subsidiary, which of course comes right out of all our monthly electricity bills.

According to the Herald:

FPL Group (FPL), the parent of Florida Power & Light, announced that its chief executive, Lewis Hay III, received $11.5 million in total compensation in 2008, a 9.9 percent increase from his compensation package in 2007.

Armando Olivera, president of the FPL utility, received $3.6 million, an increase of 11 percent. Armando Pimentel Jr. received $1.7 million in his first year as chief financial officer.

Nice work, when you can get it! Especially when all the rest of us are threatened with loss of our jobs and our homes ...

Wonder how much of the ever-rising monthly cost of our electricity goes to pay for special entertainment pavilions at Golf tournaments, or slick marketing brochures that tell us that nuclear energy is "clean and safe" or the salaries of hoards of outside consultants and PR spinners and attorneys and lobbyists who we pay to help FPL sell its unchecked expansion to politicians and back to us, the customers.

Oh, and add one more cost that gets passed back to us on our monthly bills because it's tallied as an "operating expense" in FPL's annual budget ...

The Palm Beach Post reports today that in January, FPL paid the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission a $130,000 fine because six security guards at Turkey Point nuclear plant either "slept or served as lookouts for other guards who were sleeping "on multiple occasions" between 2004 and 2006."

Go figure! Wackenhut security guards don't do their job, endangering FPL customers living near the nuclear plant, and those same FPL customers ultimately get stuck with the $130,000 bill!

It's official! FPL selects US1 corridor for high-voltage transmission line

Of course everyone knew this would be the case: FPL has announced that it has selected US 1 as the route for the Turkey Point 6 & 7 Transmission Line project, running 100-foot towers carrying 230-KV high-voltage lines from Palmetto Bay, through Pinecrest, South Miami and Coconut Grove.

The Village of Pinecrest posted a copy of the official FPL letter and accompanying map, here.

Now, the ball is in the court of the local communities to see whether or not they are going to stand and fight or cave in to FPL's pre-determined route right through their business and residential districts.

Grove Village Council, South Miami Commission (again) considering FPL Transmission Lines

The Miami Herald reported online Saturday that the Coconut Grove Village Council has set up a committee to look at FPL related issues, including "burying overhead power lines underground to preventing power outages to finding out if the utility has plans to install new high-voltage transmission lines within Coconut Grove or nearby."

Meanwhile, the South Miami City Commission has posted two FPL-related agenda items for its meeting tomorrow night "opposing the proposed routes along the Ludlum Trail or along US Highway 1, for the FPL Transmission Line" and also "supporting House Bill 1315 and Senate Bill 2644 relating to construction of electrical transmission lines."

The Herald story gives a preview of how FPL will seek to divide communities along US 1, telling them that because the proposed high-voltage power lines would be on the West side of US 1 it would not actually impact Coconut Grove, Pinecrest or Palmetto Bay.

According to the Herald report:

When asked if FPL has plans to install the transmission lines within the boundaries of the Grove, [FPL spokesman Mayco] Villafaña said, "None of the potential routes identified by FPL and discussed with customers and elected officials has an impact on those areas described by you as the Grove." He added: "One of the potential routes would use the Metrorail corridor, along U.S. 1, but lies outside of the Grove boundaries."

In Coral Gables, without the citizenry noting much of a difference, the existing 60-foot distribution lines running along Ponce de Leon parallel to US 1 and ajacent to the Metrorail could be increased in height another 20 or 40 feet to become high-voltage transmission lines.

That leaves South Miami as virtually the only city along US 1 that would be split right down the middle by the proposed high voltage lines.

FPL will clearly have its way with the US 1 route if the other communities are gullible enough to fall for the FPL argument -- that they are not negatively impacted because the 230-KV high-voltage lines would run on the West side of US 1, just 50 feet outside their boundary lines.

Who are they trying to kid? Letter from Treasure Coast newspapers reader

The Scripps-Treasure Coast newspapers published a letter to the editor today at their TCPalm.com website that says it all:

Who are they trying to kid? In order to get customers to pay an additional billion dollars a year in their base rates, Florida Power & Light has applied for a base rate increase of 31 percent.

According to Charlie Beck of the Office of Public Counsel, this is the biggest rate increase he has ever seen. The base rate on the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month is now $39.31 and will be $51.71 with the new base rate increase.

Read the full letter to the editor online, here.

Ah, the chutzpah! FPL rate hikes not kosher, says Sun-Sentinel reader

Doncha just love those Sun-Sentinel readers?

In response to the paper's coverage of the FPL base rate hike request, reader Bronen Bello of Pompano Beach responds:

Re: "FPL seeks 30 percent increase in base rate" in your March 19 edition. I read that a primary factor in the increase is to "retain investor confidence" by providing a 12.5 percent rate of return to the company's stockholders. Where do I sign up? If the rate increase is not granted, FPL stockholders will have to settle for a measly 4.7 percent and 3.1 percent in 2010 and 2011. A cursory survey of the low rates of return currently available shows the 12.5 percent return FPL wants to soak its consumers for would make Bernie Madoff proud. The only thing standing between us and this rapacious scheme is Florida's Public Service Commission. Where is Michael Mayo when we need him?

Online, here.

After heated debate, "clean" energy bill moves out of Senate committee

This morning SB 1154 moved out of the Florida Senate's Communications, Energy and Public Utilities committee "after heated debate," reports the Sun-Sentinel's Julie Patel on the "House Keys" blog.

If the Bill makes it into law it would require 20 percent of Florida's power to be "clean" energy by 2020 -- though nuclear energy would be allowed to constitute a full 25% of that quota, with 50% coming from wind and solar and an additional 25% from biomass and other renewables.

As Patel writes, "FPL has said it supports including new nuclear power to help curb costs and promote fuel diversity."

You bet! And, hey, the bill includes language that would authorize a "Go Green Florida" license plate, to boot!

Read Julie Patel's full blog post on SB 1154, here.

FPL, solar and RECs: higher costs, fewer jobs and less clean energy for consumers

Interesting story last week in the Sarasota Herald Tribune outlines the battle over solar energy looming between big power companies like FPL and consumers, as the legislature is poised to pass a new energy law requiring power companies to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

The story, by Zac Anderson, points out that State legislators are favoring the system known as renewable energy credits, or RECS, which some business groups and environmentalists believe "would give windfall profits to large energy companies, cost consumers more and generate fewer local jobs and less clean energy."

The REC system would ...

... allow utilities to decide who can sell them solar energy based on a bidding process, resulting primarily in large, centralized solar developments. Opponents of the REC system say an alternative program, called a "feed-in tariff," encourages more small-scale solar development on homes and businesses by setting a price for solar energy that makes it profitable for anyone with open land or roof space. The system also forces electric utilities to buy energy from everyone.

And where does FPL fit in this story? The paper writes:

Florida Power & Light, the state's largest energy provider, criticizes feed-in tariffs as expensive and anti-competitive. So do representatives for large solar companies such as Maryland-based SunEdison, which has begun contracting with utilities to build big solar power plants in Florida. The deals have stirred intense infighting in the solar industry nationwide as small local businesses are pushed aside by larger corporations. Dismissing the Renewable Energy Lab's conclusions, FPL's vice president and chief development officer, Eric Silagy, said, "Any time you get into prescriptive government-set rates, you chill innovation."

And, why would FPL and other energy giants favor RECs? Take a guess ...

The REC system has resulted in substantially higher energy profits in places like New Jersey and the United Kingdom and much higher electricity prices for consumers than the more simplified feed-in tariff policy.

Read the full Sarasota Herald-Tribune story online, here.

Palm Beach Post readers weigh in on FPL base rate hike

Palm Beach Post readers weigh in on FPL base rate hike:

Reality check for FPL; fuel prices won't be dropping ...

When oil goes back up, so will bills ...

Public counsel should block increase ...

Read the letters to the editor of the Palm Beach Post, here.

Turkey Points ... new artist's graphic from the creators of "When the Turkey Points at You!"

This just in from the creators of When the Turkey Points at You!

Hmmmm ... what's that Turkey blowin' out it's tailfeathers? And, is that FPL in the Caterpillar trying to 'doze public opposition?

We'll add this one to our list of Stop FPL Favorite Cartoons ...

p.s. something strange happened to the original colors in the upload ... will try to figure it out and repost if we do!

ONLINE PETITION: STOP FPL's TURKEY POINT 6 & 7 NUCLEAR REACTORS NOW

Here's your chance to tell your elected and appointed local, state and federal officials that you do NOT want FPL's Turkey Point reactors 6 & 7 to be licensed and built ...

Click here to sign the online petition now ...

WE THE UNDERSIGNED CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS OF FLORIDA AND MIAMI-DADE COUNTY EXPRESS OUR COMPLETE OPPOSITION TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF TWO NEW NUCLEAR REACTOR UNITS 6 & 7 AT THE TURKEY POINT POWER PLANT AND ON THE BASIS OF ... SAFETY, SECURITY, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC RATIONALE DO CALL ON ALL LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL OFFICIALS AND AGENCIES TO DENY THE TURKEY POINT LICENSE HOLDER -- FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT -- THE ABILITY TO CONSTRUCT AND OPERATE THESE ADDITIONAL NUCLEAR UNITS AT TURKEY POINT.

Click to sign the petition online now at ipetitions.com ...

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TurkeyPoint/

Competing FL Senate bills signal battle over "clean" vs "renewable energy"

The Tampa Tribune reports today on the battle lines being drawn in the State Legislature over the definition of "clean" energy versus truly "renewable" energy sources.

Sen. Lee Constantine (R-Altamonte Springs) has introduced "Senate Bill 2490, a measure requiring that 20 percent of the power provided by Florida electric utilities be made with renewable resources such as wind and solar," the paper reports.

That bill is now up against "SB 2328, that would require utilities to get 20 percent of their power from 'clean' energy sources, including nuclear, by 2020," introduced by Sen. Charlie Dean (R-Inverness).

Dean's bill supports the efforts of FPL and others to have "nuclear" defined as clean energy within the parameters set by Gov. Christ for taking Florida "green" by 2020. The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) has already rejected that definition, but it appears that nuclear-friendly lawmakers are now trying to legislate the definition in Tallahassee.

According to the Trib, "nuclear power accounts for 18 percent of the electricity produced by Progress Energy. FPL produces about 19 percent of its power from nuclear plants."

The Tampa Tribune story can be read online, here.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hold Turkey Point 6 & 7 hearing in Homestead in April

Miami-Dade County residents will have a chance to speak their mind at the public meeting convened by County Commissioner Katy Sorensen this Thursday, March 26th at 6:30 PM at the South Miami-Dade Government Center, 10710 SW 211 Street, Room 203, Cutler Bay.

But, that won't be the end of it ... EyeOnMiami has informed that there will be an additional opportunity for the public to participate in a discussion of the role of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission "in eventual review of FP&L's application for Turkey Point Unit 6 & 7 combined license including details of safety and environmental reviews."

That meeting will take place from 6-9pm on Thursday April 23rd in the "Palm Room" of the Keys Gate Golf Club, located at 2300 Palm Drive, Homestead, FL.

This is a potentially VERY important meeting, given the fact that a three-judge panel of the NRC recently put on hold plans to build two new nuclear reactors at a Georgia plant, ruling that the application to build the reactors was incomplete because it had not taken into adequate consideration management of radioactive nuclear waste when the new reactors begin operation.

According to a notice in the NRC's public meeting schedule, participating on behalf of the NRC will be representatives of their Office of New Reactors, from the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, Region II. The general public is also invited to participate.

Another Brilliant FPL Cartoon: Courtesy of Jim Morin, The Miami Herald

Another brilliant FPL cartoon in today's Miami Herald, courtesy of Jim Morin, showing two FPL "suits" and their out of work victim. In clear reference to the requested FPL base rate hike, the caption on the cartoon reads:

THERE GOES ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN... 'TASE HIM, BRO!!!