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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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DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
6 DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE
7 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
8 BOARD OF TRUSTEES, INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
9
10 The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Chiles
11 presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
12 September 9, 1997, commencing at approximately
9:50 a.m.
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14 VOLUME III
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16 Reported by:
17 LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
18 Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
19 Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
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23 ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
24 TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 Representing the Florida Cabinet:
3 LAWTON CHILES
Governor
4
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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1 I N D E X
2 ITEM ACTION PAGE
3 DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION:
(Presented by Kirby B. Green, III,
4 Deputy Secretary)
5 Substitute 2 Remanded 428
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CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 430
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. BARNEBEY: Governor Chiles, members of
3 the Siting Board, I think it's appropriate that
4 we come after the proponents and before the
5 opponents, because --
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: If you'll excuse me just
7 a minute. Maybe it's a good idea. Let's
8 everybody stand up and stretch just a minute.
9 I think --
10 (Discussion off the record.)
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. I'm reminded
12 that this probably wasn't the 7th inning, this
13 was the 4th inning stretch maybe.
14 Now, we'll try to give you our attention.
15 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
16 MR. BARNEBEY: Governor, I just hope I
17 don't have to sing Take Me Out to the Ball
18 Game. I'm hopeful.
19 Well, I am Mark Barnebey, Senior Assistant
20 County Attorney for Manatee County. And with me
21 today is Manatee County Attorney Ted Williams.
22 It is appropriate that we come after the
23 proponents and before the opponents, and my --
24 my comments will show you why that is.
25 Manatee County is the local government of
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1 jurisdiction over the area in which the plant is
2 located, and a party to this proceeding. And,
3 I guess, technically an agency to the -- in the
4 proceeding as well, pursuant to Section 403.507
5 of the Florida Statutes.
6 As local government of jurisdiction,
7 Manatee County was required to file by statute a
8 report with the Department of Environmental
9 Protection reviewing the application for the
10 proposed Manatee orimulsion conversion project
11 for consistency with the Manatee County
12 Comprehensive Plan, the Manatee County Land
13 Development Code, and the environmental and
14 other regulations of the County to the extent
15 that they apply to the project.
16 I should note that Manatee County, through
17 the Board of County Commissioners, both as an
18 entity and as a party, does not recommend, nor
19 has it ever recommended either approval or
20 denial of the project.
21 In fact, the Power Plant Siting Act is
22 quite clear that all jurisdiction for approval
23 or denial of the project lies with the State,
24 and specifically the Siting Board, and my Board
25 was aware of that.
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1 However, the Board of County Commissioners
2 of Manatee County did complete the required
3 regulatory analysis, and filed a report with the
4 Department of Environmental Protection on
5 August 8th, 1995.
6 With two exceptions, the County found that
7 the project, if ultimately approved by the
8 Siting Board, would comply with Manatee County
9 Comprehensive Plan, Land Development Code, and
10 environmental and other regulations of the
11 County, with the inclusion of 53 specific
12 conditions as set forth in our report for
13 certifi-- regarding certification.
14 Some of those were referenced earlier
15 today. And those 53 proposed conditions address
16 a variety of land use issues, and are necessary
17 to ensure compliance of the project with our
18 plans, codes, and regulations.
19 The two areas which the project does not
20 comply with the Manatee County regulations,
21 Florida Power & Light has requested exemptions
22 or variances from the requirements. The County
23 has no objection to the granting of those
24 exemptions or variances, because the conditions
25 help address those matters, if the project is to
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1 be approved.
2 And FP&L has agreed to be bound by those
3 conditions, and they were a part of the
4 hearing officer, or Administrative Law Judge's
5 recommendation.
6 In May, as Mr. Cunningham noted,
7 Florida Power & Light proposed several changes
8 to its Parrish plant project which were
9 eventually set forth specifically in the
10 addendum to the proposed final order approving
11 certification proposed by FP&L on August 15th,
12 1997.
13 The Board of County Commissioners examined
14 those proposed changes on August 19th, 1997, and
15 determined that the County does not have
16 sufficient information to fully evaluate the
17 impact of those proposals.
18 Therefore, the Board could take no
19 positions on the new proposals. They did ask
20 that the Siting Board determine whether these
21 proposed conditions should be considered at this
22 point in the proceeding -- because there is some
23 debate about that; and if so, whether they meet
24 the statutory criteria for inclusion and
25 certification.
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1 The Board, of course, has not had an
2 opportunity to review the new conditions that
3 Mr. Cunningham proposed today. But I would
4 assume that the same position would apply to
5 those conditions as well.
6 In summary, the project, if approved by the
7 Siting Board, would be in compliance with the
8 County Comprehensive Plan, Land Development
9 Code, and other regulations if the
10 53 recommended conditions are included in
11 certification, and the two exemptions of
12 variances are granted.
13 The Board is -- of County Commissioners is
14 unable to determine the full impact that were
15 reached in the recent proposals by FP&L.
16 As to the project as a whole, I will note
17 that some of our commissioners intend to present
18 their individual opinions on this matter, but my
19 comments reflect the official action taken by
20 the Board of County Commissioners.
21 Finally, as the body designated by statute
22 to make these decisions, the Board of
23 County Commissioners of Manatee County trust
24 that in reviewing the orimulsion issue, and
25 these proposals, that the Siting Board will
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1 protect the interests of Manatee County, as well
2 as those of the State.
3 Thank you very much.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Any questions?
5 Counselor, I want to thank you for that
6 bold statement.
7 I want to ask you, as a learned counselor,
8 could you advise the Governor, and maybe some
9 members of the Cabinet, how we could take a
10 similar stand.
11 I -- I find that I have friends on -- for
12 this issue and friends against it, and I would
13 like to stand with my friends.
14 MR. BARNEBEY: Governor, I would love to be
15 able to do that, but I think the statute puts
16 this one in your court.
17 Thank you.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, just a
19 quick question.
20 Was there any discussion of the
21 County Commission ever taking a formal position
22 on this issue?
23 MR. BARNEBEY: We discussed a variety of
24 things at various times during this --
25 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Well, that's very
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1 apparent from your report, Counselor.
2 MR. BARNEBEY: I was constantly reminded
3 they were discussed --
4 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Bottom line, was
5 there ever a discussion -- was it rejected, the
6 concept of taking a formal position on this
7 issue as a Board?
8 MR. BARNEBEY: They didn't take an actual
9 vote on it, but, yes, it was discussed in
10 various meetings, both -- both on the original
11 proposal and on the -- on the new things that
12 have been proposed by FP&L.
13 In fact, on the new matters, they
14 specifically decided they could not -- did not
15 have enough information in order to -- to make
16 recommendation, because some of the impacts just
17 could not be determined in the time frame we
18 had.
19 All right.
20 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Let me ask one more
21 question.
22 MR. BARNEBEY: From May till now.
23 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Did the County -- did
24 the County Commission ever take a formal action
25 on whether they were going to endorse or not
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1 endorse this particular project? Yes or no.
2 MR. BARNEBEY: The action they took is the
3 one that I just related to you.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: You may step down,
6 Counselor.
7 MR. GREEN: Commissioner Amy Stein,
8 followed by Commissioner Joe McClash, followed
9 by Commissioner Jonathan Bruce.
10 TREASURER NELSON: Commissioner what?
11 MS. STEIN: Hello, Governor, members of the
12 Cabinet. I do want to introduce these two fine
13 young volunteers, Christine and Mal Toth. I did
14 not see the easel, and we were a little panic
15 stricken, and they were going to hold it during
16 the presentation. They're here to learn about
17 Florida government in action.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: We're glad to have them
19 here.
20 MS. STEIN: Thank you.
21 For the record, my name is Amy Stein. I'm
22 County Commissioner elected by the voters of
23 District 1 in Manatee County.
24 For context, the District 1 area comprises
25 most of the area north of the Manatee River,
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1 except a sliver of west Ellington and east
2 Palmetto.
3 It also includes a sizable, densely
4 populated residential area south of the
5 Manatee River in west Bradenton. It is the
6 largest single member district in terms of land
7 area in Manatee County, and both Port Manatee
8 and the Manatee Power Plant are located in my
9 district.
10 Mr. Barnebey alluded to this earlier, but I
11 will say it. I am not speaking for the Board of
12 County Commissioners. I'm speaking for myself,
13 and for my many constituents who share my
14 concerns and objections about the orimulsion
15 project.
16 I had not planned to do this, but I think
17 it's important to interject a little bit more
18 community perspective into the procedural
19 questions that were posed at the outset of this
20 meeting.
21 You should know that there is new
22 information which is favorable to the position
23 of the project opponents, and which, in fairness
24 alone, would need to be considered, too. It is
25 an impossible task to set this forth in
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1 one-and-one-half hours of public comment. And
2 from this standpoint, the process today seems
3 fundamentally unfair to the project opponents.
4 What must not get lost in this shuffle is
5 the due process that needs to be maintained to
6 protect the public interest. And I assure you
7 that a litigation settlement or similar scenario
8 is viewed as an attempt to end run around the
9 public interest, and around the safeguards that
10 a hearing already was held to afford. It
11 happened.
12 And none of this needs to be reached. The
13 Siting Board can do what the appellate court
14 asked: Flush out a detailed basis for the
15 denial decision.
16 This is a visual demonstration of
17 editorials. They represent not only editorial
18 board opinion though, I think they also very
19 well represent the perspective and position of a
20 great number of the citizens of our area. And
21 by this, I mean the greater Tampa Bay and
22 greater Sarasota Bay area, not just my district.
23 And when you take a look at this, I think
24 it's as clear as clear can be. Reaffirm and
25 Respond -- Uphold the Orimulsion Decision and
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1 Follow the Court's Mandate. Don't Make
2 Manatee County a Guinea Pig for Orimulsion --
3 air and Water Quality are Too Precious to
4 Jeopardize for an FPL Business Decision.
5 No to Orimulsion II -- Reaffirm the Earlier
6 Decision to Reject FPL's Application and Follow
7 the Court's Mandate; State Should Again Reject
8 Orimulsion; Block Orimulsion Plan; The Price of
9 Pollution -- Conflicting Values -- More is at
10 Stake than Money in the FPL Fight for Orimulsion
11 Fuel; Cheaper than Fuel Now Used, it Brings New
12 Risks.
13 Another Dirty Fuel -- the Orimulsion Debate
14 Raises Questions About the Direction of
15 Florida's Energy Policy; Unneighborly Acts;
16 FLP's Poor Comparisons; Stick to the Facts --
17 Ample Basis for Denying Orimulsion Permit --
18 Rely on the Evidence Available to Deny Request.
19 This is where the majority of my
20 constituents and I am coming from.
21 Now, when is a precedent-setting decision
22 for the State and the nation with a very
23 practical bottom line effect. First, a no vote
24 is a vote to block introduction of a very dirty,
25 experimental, and problematic fuel into the
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1 Florida electric power generation scene when the
2 record basis to justify its use is
3 insufficient. And most of those shortcomings in
4 the record already have been set forth in
5 detail, and proposed final orders to deny
6 certification which are before you.
7 Now, if certification is granted to burn
8 orimulsion at one plant, certainly applications
9 for other plants will follow, especially in the
10 deregulating industry. And my constituents have
11 told me to tell you that it doesn't matter how
12 many people stand here and tell you anything to
13 the contrary on that point, they are convinced
14 of this, they know this for a fact, they know
15 this for a certainty, no matter who stands up
16 and says what to the contrary. It has to
17 follow. For one thing, it's a precedent.
18 Anyone can file an application and point to this
19 case, and the precedent is there.
20 Now, because of orimulsion economics, which
21 I'll define in a minute, orimulsion would
22 displace and replace use of natural gas at
23 Florida power plants. And orimulsion economics
24 is probably best described in the words of one
25 FPL representative, who said folks who produce
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1 the cheapest power will sell the most power.
2 That's orimulsion economics.
3 Now, a very significant segment of
4 Florida's power generation capabilities would
5 wind up locked up under 20-year orimulsion
6 contracts at the point in time when renewable
7 energy technologies become economically
8 competitive.
9 And instead of being one of three states,
10 Florida, Texas, and California, that would be
11 best positioned to take advantage of these
12 technologies due to population size and
13 geography and climate, Florida would wind up at
14 a real disadvantage with no way out, because it
15 would be contractually wrapped up.
16 Now, all of that is the big picture of
17 public policy landscape, at least as I and a lot
18 of my constituents see it. And it's a real and
19 significant threshold matter.
20 Now, couple that with how dependent the
21 Tampa Bay economy is upon the environment and
22 our shoreline areas for tourism, recreation, a
23 fishing industry, and for our prized quality of
24 life, which continues to make this area
25 attractive, and I submit to you that this fuel
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1 is too problematical to run the risk and harm
2 that spills compose.
3 When you then go on to consider the
4 technical shortcomings and insufficient proofs,
5 and lack of reasonable assurance by the
6 applicant in certain areas -- and that's been
7 detailed in proposed orders to deny
8 certification -- this matter absolutely cries
9 out for a definitive, documented decision to
10 deny the application. And so do members of the
11 public. They are crying out for that, too.
12 To adequately illustrate how strongly some
13 members of the public feel about this matter, I
14 need to share my personal experience in regard
15 to the orimulsion issue.
16 I believe it was one of the most
17 significant factors in the 1996 elections when I
18 ran for a seat on the Manatee County
19 Commission. I received almost 70 percent of the
20 primary vote to defeat the incumbent
21 commissioner, and I also received almost
22 70 percent of the vote in the general election,
23 which most observers characterize as landslides.
24 Today, unlike the situation in 1996, the
25 horizon of the orimulsion issue extends well
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1 beyond the borders of my district and
2 Manatee County. I mean, witness this Board
3 right here.
4 I would like to address
5 Commissioner Brogan's question at this point
6 about our Board. In a recent 4-3 vote taken by
7 the Board of County Commissioners of
8 Manatee County concerning this matter, three
9 commissioners supported taking Board action to
10 ask the Siting Board to deny the application;
11 while four commissioners supported taking no
12 position on this matter -- I think you have that
13 letter -- ostensibly based on the lack of
14 information.
15 By most standards, that is opposed, three;
16 undecided, uninformed, four; and for approval,
17 zero. And that is in the home county to the
18 plant.
19 We did have formal resolutions,
20 Commissioner Brogan. They were tabled by the
21 same 4-3 vote. So they were never reached and
22 discussed.
23 And I guess you also should know that the
24 53 conditions -- I was not on the Board at the
25 time these were negotiated and agreed to. But
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1 it's my understanding that the 53 conditions
2 were adopted at a litigation assessment meeting
3 outside of the sunshine, had a shade meeting,
4 and that was never made a matter of a public
5 hearing in Manatee County to my knowledge.
6 Now, getting back to where I was.
7 I think anyone can appreciate that in the
8 abstract, Florida ratepayers probably want lower
9 electric rates, as much as residents of Parrish
10 want a million dollars for a town improvement
11 fund.
12 However, in the context of orimulsion,
13 Parrish Civic Association members unanimously
14 voted on September the 2nd at a regular meeting
15 to reaffirm their opposition to the orimulsion
16 project. FPL ratepayers reaction probably will
17 follow suit when the complete picture becomes
18 more widely known on a better basis than a
19 massive media blitz, public relations campaign
20 to push orimulsion through.
21 Orimulsion fails for compliance with
22 existing regulatory standards for air and water
23 quality when Tampa Bay is already out of
24 compliance for nitrogen content. Orimulsion
25 fails for lack of a proper backed analysis, and
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1 unnecessary increases in NOx emissions as
2 compared with current plant utilization. That
3 is clear in the record before you.
4 Claims of lower NOx rates and volumes are
5 unproven. Technical backup has not been
6 provided. Even after public requests for it
7 made at our Board meeting, members of our Board
8 have not received the technical backup requested
9 to be able to even assess this.
10 And the claim conflicts with calculations
11 that to operate the plant at 87 percent
12 capacity, the NOx rate would need to be on the
13 order of 0.125 pounds per million BTU. This is
14 a great danger of making decisions outside of a
15 full evidentiary hearing process to even
16 consider going down that road.
17 Orimulsion fails to minimize adverse
18 impacts, unlike natural gas or other fuels which
19 do not have attendant adverse impacts, such as
20 heavy truck traffic, ash handling and storage
21 issues, spill recovery problems, et cetera.
22 Risks of a spill, by the way, can be
23 reduced to zero when you deny this application.
24 And now there's an irreconcilable conflict
25 in the record with respect to transportation of
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1 by-products. And maybe counsel for the
2 environmental groups who are parties will pick
3 up on -- describe that further. I don't want to
4 monopolize the podium here.
5 As discussed earlier, orimulsion fails to
6 serve and protect the broad interests of the
7 public. This project is experimental in its
8 scale, that's unquestionable. And as a
9 precedent setting matter, it would move Florida
10 away from an energy policy that promotes
11 development and use of clean, alternative energy
12 sources.
13 And orimulsion fails because there are
14 still more areas than these to justify rejecting
15 orimulsion, as set forth in proposed final
16 orders to deny certification.
17 All of that is not outweighed by
18 hypothetical cost savings of $3 or less per
19 month for FPL customers. It just is not.
20 In conclusion, I would like you to watch
21 the following brief tape.
22 MR. GREEN: If we can go on to the next
23 speaker while we figure out how to operate this
24 technical machinery.
25 If Commissioner Joe McClash --
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1 We'll try to figure it out in the meantime
2 and --
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right.
4 MR. McCLASH: Kirby, I'd help you out --
5 MR. GREEN: Thank you.
6 MR. McCLASH: -- but I'm not that
7 technical.
8 Governor, Cabinet members, thank you for
9 the opportunity to come before you once again.
10 As you may recall, I'm a Manatee County
11 Commissioner. I was here approximately a
12 year-and-a-half ago.
13 And I feel now that you made the right
14 decision then on your vote of denial. And what
15 I interpret from the appellate courts, and I
16 quote out of page 6, just requiring an agency to
17 explain the exercise of its discretion and
18 subjects that explanation to judicial review.
19 So we're not here to change your mind,
20 we're just here to kind of get the -- I guess
21 the things on paper correct so that the
22 appellate courts could have their view at it
23 again if this does go there.
24 And I think you did make the right
25 decision. And over the past year, I think some
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1 of you that voted against it probably can
2 realize that this Siting Board did make that
3 correct decision.
4 There's additional conditions today that
5 weren't even talked about a year-and-a-half
6 ago. In fact, just an hour ago, I heard a few
7 more conditions placed on the table. I think
8 there were five. Maybe we should have waited
9 another hour, and maybe we'd get a few more
10 conditions out of this. I'm not sure.
11 But I just -- I'm just as -- I'm just
12 shocked as far as how the changes keep
13 continuously happening. And it's very difficult
14 for my constituents in my county to understand
15 really what this process is all about, because
16 the facts keep on changing.
17 That's why I'm glad a year-and-a-half ago
18 the decision was made to deny the application.
19 Orimulsion may be looking pretty good right
20 now. But the question is: Why risk Florida's
21 environment for this fuel? Who's it going to
22 benefit?
23 I only know one corporation that really
24 gets the benefit. And I don't think there's
25 enough benefits to warrant approval for the
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1 state of Florida.
2 The people in my county are concerned that
3 you as elected officials might not do the right
4 thing today, because we know that you've been
5 lobbied hard, and you've got friends on both
6 sides of the issue, and it's very tough to deal
7 with these type of situations. I know, I'm an
8 elected official. We go through the same thing
9 in our county.
10 I apologize for our county not making a
11 decision. I wish I could come here today with a
12 unanimous, you know, vote of support or denial
13 one way or the other. But we don't have that.
14 What we do have is people that are concerned.
15 And people's questions that have been unanswered
16 as far as the safety of this fuel.
17 But more importantly, the granting of an
18 approval today would be setting a new policy for
19 the state of Florida, because you're approving
20 not only a fuel, you're really approving a
21 policy for the deregulation of the utility
22 companies in the state of Florida.
23 This policy is something that's
24 monumental. It's kind of compared to what you
25 went through with the deregulation of the cable
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1 industry.
2 Now we have microwave towers going up all
3 over the place. Just a month ago, our county
4 took upon itself to place a moratorium on that
5 industry for six months until we get our act
6 together in light of deregulation of that
7 industry.
8 So I just wanted to make sure that
9 hopefully the leaders in our state -- and I know
10 they look after the best interests of the state
11 of Florida -- but when we prepare for the
12 deregulation of utility companies and the cheap
13 power sources that are going to come forward and
14 be in front of this Cabinet for decisions, just
15 like orimulsion.
16 Some say that this is the fuel of the
17 21st century. That's what Florida Power & Light
18 has been running in the ads and on their TVs.
19 I think the reality of it, it's the tar that
20 nobody wanted in this century.
21 And Florida Power & Light says it's using
22 the 21st century technology to clean the air
23 emissions. However, in a letter from
24 Attorney Cunningham that he sent me when I asked
25 for the information about how he could achieve
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1 these new goals that he, I guess, calls
2 additional conditions. About three weeks ago, I
3 received that letter. And it was one page
4 explaining, in essence, the technology that was
5 around for about the past 20 years.
6 So why didn't the hearing officer hear
7 about how this 20-year old technology could get
8 those NOx emissions down to the levels that are
9 being talked about today?
10 Florida, in cooperation with NASA, has been
11 a leader in fuel cell technology. This is a
12 technology that produces a by-product of water
13 when it -- when power is produced. Now, this is
14 the 21st century type of fuel that Florida
15 should be moving towards, not the orimulsion
16 fuel that's in front of you today.
17 The people in my county want the
18 environment protected, and that's what your job
19 as the Siting Board is here to do today.
20 Florida Power & Light claims that they can
21 prevent any spills. And I don't think this is
22 true. I don't think any of us could sit here
23 and believe that may be true, and that every
24 spill could be prevented. We're going to have a
25 spill.
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1 And the claims that Florida Power & Light
2 is putting before the public and before this
3 Siting Board, assuming the claims of the
4 Titanic -- and we all know what happened in that
5 situation when those type of claims were made.
6 History doesn't have to repeat itself here.
7 A spill of orimulsion is not like the
8 number 6 fuel oil that's currently used. It's
9 mixing with the water column, like chocolate in
10 milk is a good example. And it's also referred
11 to in some of Bitor's videos that they've sent
12 us.
13 It's a tar-like substance. And it may
14 float to the surface, it may go down to the
15 bottom, and some of it stays in the middle of
16 the water column. Totally unlike the oil that's
17 used today.
18 They say that we could use skirted booms.
19 Well, the currents -- I sail Tampa Bay quite
20 often. And I tell you, it's pretty hard to take
21 a course sometimes when the current's going in
22 and out of the Bay.
23 And I could just imagine what that
24 current's going to do to the skirt of that
25 boom. It's like the drapes in your house when
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1 the wind blows. Is it really going to contain
2 it?
3 We have not tested this product in a real
4 life situation. In a controlled environment, if
5 you've seen the same type of tape that I saw
6 from Florida Power & Light, there was a tape in
7 controlled conditions, perfectly calm. And I
8 just don't think that's the real type of
9 experience we want to use to make the decision
10 here today.
11 The cleanup of orimulsion from the water,
12 from the birds, the sea bottom, and the turtles,
13 all -- and the endangered manatees, again, are
14 untested. And if anybody's ever tried to take
15 tar off their hands versus water, you know the
16 difference as far as cleanup.
17 It's a lot harder to take tar off your
18 hands, if you've ever worked on a roof or any of
19 that substance, than it is to wash the oil off
20 your hands. And orimulsion sounds like the same
21 thing.
22 So if common sense prevails, rather than
23 the distorted facts, because the facts keep on
24 changing, the Siting Board is -- is urged to
25 vote for denial once again.
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1 I think this state deserves --
2 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
3 room.)
4 MR. McCLASH: -- what you would call the
5 best type of fuel, and not the cheapest type of
6 fuel.
7 When I was in the Marine Corps, they taught
8 us that quality mattered, not the quantity. So
9 this policy I try to use as an example today.
10 Is this the same thing that you want to do
11 as the state of Florida, is look for the
12 cheapest, not looking for the quality? I don't
13 think so. I don't think this is the practice
14 the state of Florida has been using.
15 I think the Governor and the Cabinet has --
16 have been doing very good things for the state
17 of Florida, and they should be complimented for
18 the leadership that you've taken in the past,
19 and the leadership that you showed a
20 year-and-a-half ago.
21 And I would just urge you today, in
22 closing, to protect our county, protect our
23 state, and not set a new energy policy in the
24 state of Florida without giving it very good
25 thoughts as far as what deregulation will do to
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1 the environment and our quality of life.
2 Thank you for your time.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
4 MR. GREEN: Now I think we're ready for the
5 tape.
6 (The following videotape was published to
7 the Cabinet.)
8 MR. BOB HITE: -- now, however, it won't
9 stay that way, unless something's done about the
10 pollution. The new planned estimates of cleanup
11 costs are about 15.2 million dollars for the
12 year 2005.
13 Tarpon Springs Commissioners say the City
14 can't afford that now. They'll look at other
15 options, including asking Pinellas County to
16 split the expense. That would also be backed up
17 with State and Federal grants.
18 Many of you have heard about the
19 controversial fuel, orimulsion, that
20 Florida Power & Light wants to introduce to the
21 Bay area. Next week, the Florida Governor and
22 Cabinet will begin hearings on whether to allow
23 it.
24 Tonight on Earth News, what might happen to
25 wildlife if there were ever a spill.
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1 They are the most poignant images of any
2 oil spill, and the most innocent victims. The
3 cleaning process is tedious for the workers, and
4 traumatic for the animals. Usually only
5 20 percent of the birds survive.
6 But in the Tampa Bay spill of 1993,
7 volunteers from the Pinellas Seabird
8 Rehabilitation Center achieved a remarkable
9 80 percent recovery rate.
10 For the past week, Lee Fox, Director of the
11 Center, has been conducting tests to see how the
12 birds and their food source would fare in an
13 orimulsion spill.
14 Unlike traditional fuels which float,
15 orimulsion goes into suspension in the water
16 column.
17 MS. FOX: When we're asked to respond to an
18 orimulsion spill, if it ever does happen, we
19 need to know what to do, how to do it quickly
20 and efficiently.
21 MR. BOB HITE: First, Fox and her team put
22 orimulsion to the test alongside the fuels
23 currently coming into the Bay. Unlike the
24 demonstration in a jar viewers have seen since
25 my first report two years ago, Fox used
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1 aquariums filled with sand and living
2 sea grasses simulating Bay bottom.
3 In a report commissioned by Florida Power &
4 Light at a cost of 1.5 million dollars,
5 University of Miami researchers stated that
6 orimulsion did not form a slick and did not
7 stick to mangroves or sea grasses.
8 Within hours after orimulsion was
9 introduced to this tank, there was a slick at
10 one end of its surface, and later a coating
11 appeared on the sea grasses.
12 The report further states orimulsion does
13 not adhere to animals. So Lee dipped a deceased
14 seagull into the slick. Not only did the
15 orimulsion stick to the bird, it stuck better
16 than any fuel she has had experience with
17 before.
18 MS. FOX: Orimulsion's definitely harder
19 and longer to -- the process is a lot longer to
20 get off the feathers of birds, and number 6 oil
21 is a lot quicker as far as trying to get it off
22 the feathers of the bird.
23 MR. BOB HITE: In addition to the media,
24 Jane Urquhart-Donnelly, Emergency Response
25 Coordinator for the Department of
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1 Environmental Protection, was on hand to
2 observe.
3 MS. URQUHART-DONNELLY: A release rate of
4 birds covered with orimulsion would not be as
5 good, because she is finding it so difficult to
6 actually get the birds clean.
7 There would be a large -- a longer period
8 of time for the cleaning, a longer period of
9 time for the birds to have to be in rehab, which
10 increases the chances of them getting secondary
11 infections.
12 MR. BOB HITE: This afternoon I spoke with
13 Dr. Mark Harwell, who headed the
14 University of Miami study. He stands by its
15 findings, citing the total risk of orimulsion is
16 about the same as fuels currently in use.
17 FP&L says orimulsion will save 4 billion
18 dollars over 20 years, or trim an electric bill
19 by about $40 a year.
20 If you would like to voice your opinion
21 about orimulsion, call the Governor's office --
22 (The videotape was concluded being
23 published.)
24 MS. STEIN: Having -- having shown that
25 tape, I think I need to clarify something. I
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1 don't want it to be understood as inconsistent.
2 But I showed it because I think it provides
3 a concise visual illustration of one subject
4 area, among many, that are of real concern to
5 members of the public. And I think you need to
6 know that. And I think one picture does more
7 sometimes than all the words we could speak here
8 for hours on end.
9 And I -- I also think that it visually
10 illustrates a question that members of the
11 public have about the thoroughness and possibly
12 the quality of the proofs below.
13 And to the extent that's something you can
14 consider, fine; and to the extent that's
15 something you cannot consider, fine. I do
16 think -- my position remains the same. I do
17 think you should stick with the record, and the
18 record justifies a vote of no on this fuel, and
19 a denial of certification.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. GREEN: Commissioner Jonathan Bruce.
22 MR. BRUCE: Thank you, Governor and
23 Cabinet, for the opportunity to speak today.
24 And, Governor, along the lines of what
25 you're saying about your friends on both sides,
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1 it kind of reminds me as an elected official --
2 I do serve as a Manatee County Commissioner,
3 District 5. And I am here representing myself,
4 by the way, and many constituents that share the
5 concerns that we have.
6 But along the lines of what you're saying,
7 I'm reminded of the gentleman who watched his
8 friend jump out of the 30-story building. And
9 as his friend was falling down this 30-story
10 building, his friend was watching him from the
11 sixth floor balcony. And as he went by, he
12 waved at him and said, hey, you're doing a great
13 job so far.
14 So -- anyway.
15 I want to tell you a little story about how
16 my family came to live in Manatee County. In
17 1971, my father, who was in the ministry at that
18 time, came to Florida, came to Bradenton for the
19 purpose of looking at a church and having a
20 church look at him. And we were living in the
21 great state of Massachusetts at the time, so
22 you know why he was looking at Florida.
23 And he came down here, and came back to
24 Massachusetts after having spent a weekend in
25 Bradenton. And he told me at that time, and the
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1 rest of our family, about what he saw. And what
2 he saw were -- was clean water. He saw clean
3 air. He saw beautiful beaches. He saw a
4 wonderful quality of life in Manatee County.
5 And so we moved here a month later for that very
6 quality of life.
7 Obviously thousands upon thousands of other
8 people have seen what my father saw in
9 Manatee County. Manatee County's population has
10 grown from less than 100,000 people at that
11 time, to nearly 250,000 people at this time.
12 And little did I know that 26 years later,
13 I would be standing before you in defense of
14 what I believe is a threat to our quality of
15 life in Manatee County.
16 In my quest for the Commission seat that I
17 now hold, I knocked on over 2,000 doors
18 personally, my wife and I, in a golf cart that
19 many people in Manatee County got to -- very
20 familiar with showing up at their front door.
21 And I could tell you in that process, I got
22 to meet thousands -- hundreds of wonderful
23 people. And at their doors, they would share
24 with me their concerns, and we would have
25 dialogue back and forth.
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1 And many, many of them asked me about this
2 very issue, orimulsion. They wanted to know
3 what my position was on orimulsion. And after
4 my research and after my determination, I
5 determined it was not in the best interests of
6 Manatee County, and took a stand against it.
7 And I subsequently won my race with
8 55 percent of the vote in the primary against an
9 incumbent that had been on the Board for
10 ten years.
11 The technical merits of orimulsion are
12 being debated, and as that's done, I don't want
13 us to forget what I believe is the big issue
14 picture here. The one fact that stands head and
15 shoulders above all else in this issue is that
16 this is an experimental fuel, and that these are
17 experimental technologies that are being talked
18 about being used on the plant in order to meet
19 the emission guidelines. And the reason
20 I believe it's experimental is because nowhere
21 that I'm aware of is this technology being used
22 in conjunction with orimulsion in the world
23 today.
24 And, further, nowhere in the world is
25 orimulsion being used in the quantities that are
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1 being proposed at the Parrish plant.
2 It has been said that this is an economic
3 issue. I agree it's an economic issue. But
4 mostly it's an economic issue for those who
5 stand to profit. But for the average
6 Manatee County resident, this is a quality of
7 life issue.
8 The citizens of Manatee County are not
9 interested in compromising their quality of life
10 for two or three dollars a month. It is what I
11 like to call the $3 a month insult.
12 In the real world, there are usually
13 benefits that come along with risks that we are
14 asked to take. And I call that the risk-benefit
15 ratio.
16 And I'm looking for the benefit in this
17 situation for Manatee County, and I've been
18 looking for a long time. But to the average
19 citizen in Manatee County who has been looking
20 also, we keep coming up with a risk-risk
21 scenario, with no corresponding benefit to the
22 average citizen. Two or three dollars a month
23 is not worth the risks that we're being asked to
24 take.
25 So I'm asking you to please not be misled.
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1 As Commissioner Brogan has asked about the
2 position of the County Commission, we did have a
3 meeting, we had a couple of meetings. And
4 several resolutions were brought forward in
5 opposition to orimulsion, and they kept getting
6 shot down 4 to 3. In fact, they ended up
7 getting tabled would be the proper way to tell
8 you what happened.
9 I made several attempts in those meetings
10 to have these resolutions one by one removed for
11 consideration, but to no avail.
12 By in large, my constituents are not happy
13 with the lack of a position on the part of their
14 County Commission.
15 I know that all of you are familiar with
16 Manatee County; I know that all of you are
17 familiar with its beauty, and with its quality
18 of life. And I hope that all of you will not
19 put Manatee County in the position of being
20 ground zero for an experimental fuel that puts
21 it all on the table when we talk about our
22 quality of life.
23 We're talking about a fuel that's not being
24 used anywhere in the United States of America.
25 Why does Manatee County have to be the testing
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1 ground for that?
2 I ask you to join the North River News; the
3 Bradenton Herald; the Sarasota Herald Manatee
4 AM; the St. Petersburg Times; the Tampa Tribune;
5 the Palm Beach Post; the Miami Herald; my --
6 excuse me -- my District 5 Advisory Committee; I
7 ask you to join with my father, who I know has
8 sent each of you a letter this past week, in
9 opposition to this fuel. I ask you to take a
10 stand today and deny this application.
11 Manatee County's quality of life is not
12 worth taking a risk of $3 a month.
13 Thank you very much.
14 MR. GREEN: Senator Crist.
15 SENATOR CRIST: Thank you, Governor, and
16 members of the Cabinet, for your patience. It's
17 been a long day for you, and appreciate your
18 indulgence. I will be brief.
19 My name is Charlie Crist. I'm a State
20 Senator representing parts of both Hillsborough
21 and Pinellas County.
22 When I was in junior high school, we had an
23 oil spill in Tampa Bay actually much more severe
24 than the one that occurred in 1993. It was a
25 heavier, thicker type of oil that was spilled at
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1 that time.
2 And I can remember cleaning off the birds
3 that were involved in that oil spill at that
4 time. As bad as it was, at least with that oil,
5 it floated to the surface, and it was much
6 easier to get a boom around it that would
7 contain that kind of a spill.
8 I think what we're dealing with in this
9 situation, the possibility of introducing
10 orimulsion to Tampa Bay, would be much more
11 risky because of the fact that it does not stay
12 on the surface, but, in fact, floats in the
13 column of water, as earlier witnesses have
14 discussed.
15 I don't think we should risk the beauty of
16 our state and our environment with this sludge
17 that I believe we do not know enough about.
18 No other state in the country has chosen to
19 introduce this product. Why should Florida be
20 the first?
21 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
22 room.)
23 SENATOR CRIST: The Tampa Bay area, and
24 Tampa Bay in particular, has improved its water
25 quality significantly over the past decade. We
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1 have had some previous problems, and great
2 efforts by an awful lot of people, including
3 yourselves, have led to the improvement of the
4 water quality of Tampa Bay.
5 Sea life is coming back in large numbers,
6 and -- and the water is much cleaner than it had
7 been previously.
8 I don't think that we need to have another
9 threatened oil spill in the Tampa Bay region.
10 And I don't think that it's a matter of
11 whether or not there will be a spill, but when.
12 Double hulled tankers, better navigational
13 equipment, and a 200 million dollar cleanup fund
14 is admirable. And I think Florida Power & Light
15 ought to be commended for it, although I'm on
16 the other side of this issue.
17 But the element of human error cannot be
18 taken out of the equation either. And I would
19 ask you to please consider that in your
20 deliberations on this issue.
21 We simply do not know enough, I believe,
22 about orimulsion and the effect that it could
23 have on our environment.
24 On a personal note. I live in
25 St. Petersburg. That's where I was raised. It
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1 is my home, I'm not here as a State Senator, I'm
2 here as a citizen of the Tampa Bay area.
3 My plea to you would be not to risk the
4 quality of life of our state, the beauty of
5 Tampa Bay, and the reason that so many people
6 live in our Tampa Bay area and our state of
7 Florida and choose to come here to visit as
8 tourists.
9 It simply strikes me that this is too
10 experimental and too risky.
11 I thank you for your time and appreciate
12 your consideration.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
14 SENATOR CRIST: Thank you, sir.
15 MR. GREEN: Tom Reese.
16 MR. REESE: Good afternoon,
17 Governor Chiles, members of the Cabinet. I'm
18 Tom Reese. I represent Manasota 88 and
19 Manatee County Save our Bays, who are parties to
20 this proceeding.
21 And we once again recommend that you deny
22 this project, just as you did back in April of
23 1996.
24 And we do that for the same reasons. And
25 the record that's before you is the same
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1 record. There's been proposed new conditions,
2 but those new conditions are not in the record,
3 the hearing officer never considered them, we
4 never were able to subject them to detailed
5 analysis to determine what the effects would be.
6 The case law says that Conditions of
7 Certification must be based upon the record, and
8 it must be based upon findings of the
9 hearing officer.
10 And the appellate court in its remand
11 stated that you shouldn't be making supplemental
12 findings of fact. And that's a difficult area
13 on what is a supplemental finding of fact and
14 what is analysis of the record.
15 But I would suggest that several of the
16 proposals that are on the table by FPL in its
17 new analysis are not only not in the record,
18 they're in direct conflict with the testimony
19 and the findings in the record.
20 Specifically, I'll refer to the rail
21 proposal. The hearing officer found in
22 finding 78 that railing the gypsum and the
23 limestone was not feasible.
24 Now, I attempted to try to prove that rail
25 was available. I had limited resources to do
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1 it. I didn't have a witness there that would
2 testify about emptying rail cars, I wasn't able
3 to do any analysis, or have a witness do
4 analysis of rail cars. But I tried to get FPL's
5 witnesses to discuss rail cars.
6 Barry Webb of Pure Air testified that
7 Pure Air and FP&L had concluded that gypsum
8 cannot be unloaded from rail cars because it's
9 such a powdery consistency.
10 He also stated that that was based on a
11 year-and-a-half of analysis of all available
12 rail cars. And that's a quote, all available
13 rail cars.
14 That's on page 229 of the transcript.
15 Now, we hear a proposal that, well, Tom,
16 you were right. You know, maybe railing's a
17 good idea.
18 Well, you know, it leaves me wondering,
19 well, how do we do that? First of all, you have
20 to now reverse a finding of fact of the hearing
21 officer. And I wasn't able to get anything in
22 the record to the contrary. The only record of
23 evidence is that it's not feasible to do it, and
24 they studied it for a year-and-a-half and
25 concluded that it was impossible.
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1 Now, I guess what came to my mind when they
2 first proposed this was the old phrase that the
3 devil's in the details. And I think that's
4 exactly what's going on here in a number of
5 their proposals. They haven't been analyzed.
6 If you do analyze them, I think you'll find
7 quite a bit of problems.
8 With regard to the railing, they'd have to
9 use the commuter rail line in
10 Hillsborough County. The Hillsborough County
11 Commission is trying to get Hart Line to have
12 commuter rail, and they want to have it go down
13 to Port Tampa. And the citizens of Port Tampa
14 want to have it, this rail line that they're now
15 talking about using to haul the gypsum.
16 They -- it's going to take roughly 20 rail
17 cars -- 20 to 26 are some of the figures I've
18 heard put out.
19 But the rail doesn't go all the way down to
20 National Gypsum. And they're not proposing to
21 take it all the way to National Gypsum. They're
22 going to stop at the CSX rail yard a quarter
23 mile away, and unload in the rail yard.
24 Where they said previously you couldn't
25 unload these cars, they're now going to use some
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1 unknown technique to unload in the rail yard,
2 put it in dump trucks, drive it past
3 Picnic Island, down to National Gypsum.
4 Well, the people in Port Tampa say, well,
5 goll, the only reason people really come to
6 Pic-- to Port Tampa is to go to Picnic Island.
7 We're going to have 160 round trip dump trucks
8 going around, you know, in that quarter mile
9 stretch?
10 Do we know how much dust is going to be
11 involved in trying to unload those rail cars?
12 Those are the type of details that's not in the
13 record. It hasn't been analyzed or
14 scrutinized. We haven't analyzed it.
15 There's also -- with regard to this rail
16 issue, there's a well established line of case
17 law, and it's really what I would refer to as
18 black letter law.
19 If you take a position in an administrative
20 hearing or a judicial proceeding, and you
21 present evidence and argument, and you convince
22 the trier of fact on your point, you can't then
23 say, well, goll, I didn't mean to do that,
24 you know, I presented the wrong evidence. And I
25 want you to take a different position now.
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1 There's a line of case law talking about
2 judicial estoppel. If you convince a tribunal
3 to make a finding, you can't then go back and
4 tell that tribunal to take an opposite position.
5 On the next issue about the NOx emissions,
6 I tried to prove that you could do less
7 than .23 pounds per million BTU. I tried to --
8 I cross-examined their expert witness on why
9 can't you do better than that, either using
10 Selective Catalytic Reduction, or using their
11 reburn technology.
12 And their response was, well, anything else
13 than .23 is really experimental; and the reburn
14 technology, all we have are some vendor claims.
15 There's some people out there selling this
16 equipment that say they might be able to do it,
17 but you can't base a certification -- was the
18 testimony -- you can't base a certification or a
19 requirement on just a -- a raw vendor claim.
20 Now, another detail of that .5 pounds per
21 million BTU is that it still results in
22 1,000 ton per year increase in NOx emissions.
23 If you do .5 pounds -- which I don't have any
24 evidence that they can do --
25 And to regress a little bit, I actually
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1 debated Mr. Cunningham -- or the Agency on Bay
2 Management on July 10th. And at the end of the
3 debate, I asked him -- well, one person in the
4 audience asked -- one of their engineers asked
5 for the information that would show you could
6 do .5. And he said he'd mail it. And I said,
7 would you please mail it to me, too. I've never
8 received it yet.
9 When I showed up at the Manatee County
10 Commission -- you've heard about the vote -- the
11 4 to 3 vote -- I made the statement there in
12 front of the County Commission, well, they
13 promised to mail me this, and they've never
14 mailed it.
15 Commissioner McClash said -- asked
16 Mr. Cunningham, can you get that to Mr. Reese?
17 And he said, yeah, I'll get it to him by
18 Friday. I still don't have it.
19 Now, Mr. Cunningham, says, well, you know,
20 Mr. Reese is up there -- he was at the hearing,
21 he tried to get these lower emission rates. And
22 I don't know why he complains now that we're
23 offering to do it.
24 We're complaining because we don't think
25 they can do it. We don't have any evidence they
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1 can do it. To just say you can do it is much
2 different than proving you can do it, and
3 actually being able to do it.
4 We're concerned that what they're doing is
5 just trying to get an approval. And once they
6 have their foot in the door, nobody's going to
7 shut the power plant down. And that they're not
8 going to do what they said they're going to do.
9 As Commissioner Stein stated, actually to
10 meet their annual NOx cap, and they were using
11 the figure of 7300 tons per year, and you can
12 argue about which baseline to use and whether it
13 should be, you know, in the 7300 or 6500.
14 If you take the -- you know, and
15 disregarding all that, if you just take the
16 issue of can they actually meet the 7300 tons if
17 they operate full capacity, or 87 percent, which
18 they consider full capacity. And at .15 pounds
19 per million BTU, the answer's no. They have --
20 they would have to have an emission rate
21 of .125.
22 That means if they're going to meet the
23 annual cap, which they're talking about, they
24 would have to operate less. And this shows how
25 everything's tied together. If they operate
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1 less, then they're going to have less savings.
2 All the other evidence and all the other
3 testimony gets moved around. All the other
4 findings are no longer any good.
5 That's how the devil's in the details here.
6 Now, you heard Captain Basel for 30 minutes
7 today. I don't -- Captain Basel didn't testify
8 at the hearing. The information he's relying
9 on, a lot of it's not in the record.
10 And I have questions about, you know, some
11 of the -- the statements and information that
12 are in there. It came out at the Cabinet Aides
13 meeting, he's using a figure of 55 ships per
14 year.
15 Well, the hearing officer found there'd be
16 approximately 100 ships per year. Well, it
17 turns out, well, Bitor is now talking about
18 having bigger ships.
19 Well, if you have bigger ships, is that
20 going to cause a problem in navigating the
21 channel? You know, are you actually going to be
22 able to get through?
23 You know, how often is the channel
24 maintenance dredged? What's the depth? What
25 triggers maintenance dredging out there?
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1 You know, how narrow does it have to sluff into,
2 or how shallow does it have to come up to before
3 it gets maintenance dredging. You're bringing a
4 bigger ship in, it changes the scenario.
5 So it's our recommendation that since the
6 appellate remand was just on a procedural issue,
7 wanted to know more details, more specifics. I
8 almost refer to it as they wanted paragraph
9 numbers on which conclusions of law you're
10 referring to.
11 All you need to do is add that additional
12 detail. And there are draft orders that provide
13 that detail there in front of you. And we would
14 recommend that you adopt that, and that it's not
15 appropriate to consider the new information.
16 And thank you for the time you've taken.
17 And I know members in the audience appreciate
18 the fact you started at 1:00 o'clock so they
19 could get here on the bus.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
21 Question.
22 Thank you.
23 MR. GREEN: John Lasita.
24 MR. LASITA: Good afternoon, Governor,
25 members of the Cabinet.
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1 My name is John J. Lasita, and I'm a
2 City Councilman from the St. -- from the City of
3 St. Petersburg.
4 As you should be aware, 12 days ago on
5 August 24th, our Council passed a resolution by
6 a 5 to 1 vote that requested that you once again
7 deny Florida -- Florida Power & Light's permit
8 request in this matter.
9 I might add that we came to this decision
10 after having been provided with most of the
11 information and much of the same presentation by
12 representatives of Florida Power & Light that
13 you have encountered today, and like they are
14 going to continue to encounter.
15 As you should also be aware, our Mayor,
16 David Fischer /*, who spoke eloquently in
17 opposition to this proposal when you last took
18 this issue up, has submitted a letter to you
19 reaffirming his opposition to orimulsion. And
20 were it not for a vacation planned long before
21 this hearing had been schedul-- this -- the date
22 of this hearing was scheduled, confident he
23 would have been here to once again share his
24 thoughts with you in person.
25 Simply put, St. Petersburg, and most of its
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1 surrounding neighbors, have virtually nothing to
2 gain, and almost everything to lose if this
3 request is approved.
4 We have the greatest amount of coastline at
5 direct risk exposure from this project. We also
6 have the greatest amount of population in
7 St. Petersburg and southern Pinellas County.
8 Additionally, we are not in Florida Power &
9 Light's service area. So again we're being
10 asked to assume the risk, and may not even get
11 the rate relief that ultimately might or might
12 not happen. This is neither equitable, nor is
13 it right.
14 But logic and fairness would dictate that
15 if the use of this fuel is ever approved, in
16 Florida especially, that it ought to at least be
17 burned somewhere totally within Florida Power &
18 Light's service area so that those who stand to
19 gain, also would assume the risk aforementioned.
20 We in St. Petersburg have experienced major
21 spills before. And the fact that there never
22 has been a test spill of orimulsion that
23 resembles real world conditions found in
24 Tampa Bay, combined with the fact that the
25 quantity of fuel being transported through
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1 Tampa Bay by FP&L, would increase by some
2 two-and-a-half fold, has our citizens,
3 particularly those residing in Pinellas Point,
4 the area near the Sunshine Skyway, extremely
5 distressed, and just wishing that this proposal
6 would go away once and for all.
7 In summary and conclusion, St. Petersburg
8 City Council; the Mayor of St. Petersburg; and
9 most importantly, the people of St. Petersburg
10 that we represent -- and that I might add, you
11 also represent -- are opposed to this project.
12 We in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay do not
13 want to be a guinea pig in a matter this
14 critical. It is totally inappropriate that an
15 ecosystem as fragile as that of Tampa Bay be
16 exposed to this risk. This is truly the wrong
17 fuel at the wrong time in the wrong place.
18 We respectfully request that you reaffirm
19 your prior decision to deny the use of
20 orimulsion at the Parrish plant.
21 Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
23 MR. GREEN: Rita Carlson, followed by
24 Ernie Bach.
25 MS. CARLSON: Good afternoon.
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1 I'm back again. I was here last year to
2 speak with you. And I'm in opposition to
3 orimulsion. I represent the City of
4 Port Tampa -- the citizens of the City of
5 Port Tampa.
6 We're the small little city that no one's
7 speaking of. We've been mentioned maybe twice
8 here today. We aren't Florida Power customers.
9 We aren't going to get the shipments in of
10 orimulsion, but we are going to get the
11 by-product.
12 The reason I'm here is because of my
13 personal dealings with Pure Air, Bitor, and FP&L
14 and their representatives.
15 For me, a year-and-a-half ago in a civic
16 association meeting, we were told that trains
17 were absolutely not even available, they didn't
18 even make them that would haul the gypsum to our
19 gypsum plant.
20 After a report was paid for, suddenly they
21 were available. Five minutes before I spoke to
22 you last time while I was here to address you,
23 outside the door out there, representatives from
24 Pure Air spoke to me and informed me that if I
25 would, so to speak, keep my mouth shut, they'd
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1 be happy to provide us with the following
2 things, such as no trucks.
3 Today -- this morning when I was listening,
4 I heard an attorney tell you guys some things
5 that I really feel necessary for us to -- or for
6 me to convey how I feel about them.
7 One of the things you were told was that
8 voluntary conditions surpassing legal and
9 environmental minimums were set forth by the
10 law. They were going -- FP&L was going to
11 suddenly, magically, change the facts and the
12 figures now from the facts and the figures that
13 were there.
14 Every time I turn around, the facts and the
15 figures are changing. I don't have a special
16 degree or scientific background. I do teach
17 children about the benefits of a good
18 environment and about thinking before they act.
19 I teach my own child that if she believes
20 in something, she's to stand up and say that she
21 believes.
22 I'm a taxpayer. I represent taxpayers from
23 a very, very small community. We're not going
24 to see any money from this, we're not going to
25 see more jobs from this. We're not going to see
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1 anything but gypsum from this.
2 I spoke to the manager of the gypsum plant
3 there, and he says that even if orimulsion
4 doesn't go through, the gypsum plant will remain
5 on the same schedule, creating the same amount
6 of by-product as they do right now.
7 So they're not going to lose from this.
8 If orimulsion doesn't go through, our
9 little industry of gypsum will not change.
10 The only thing that's going to change in
11 our community is our quality of life. And when
12 that's all that you have, all in the whole world
13 that you have -- we're not a very wealthy
14 community. We don't have much money in our
15 little area.
16 We do have a beautiful library that we're
17 restoring. We do have on this same road where
18 all these trucks -- these three trucks,
19 according to last Tuesday's meeting with
20 Pure Air representatives and gypsum and FP&L,
21 they told us that only three trucks would be
22 going down this road, when we were told no
23 trucks.
24 I'm still having a hard time deciphering
25 between what is real in fact and what is
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1 manipulated somehow to be what it needs to be to
2 get to where we are. It's a great learning
3 experience for me.
4 I'm afraid. I'm very afraid. I wasn't
5 afraid until I actually came back this time. I
6 became afraid watching the amount of power and
7 money and large -- large involvement behind
8 FP&L, Bitor, and Pure Air. They stand to make
9 so much money, that they're willing to
10 compromise the value of my quality of life, the
11 citizens of my neighborhood's quality of life.
12 When and who gave them permission to put a price
13 on my child and her children's head. When --
14 when did that -- I never remember voting for
15 that.
16 I have a suggestion for all of you. You
17 asked a question, Governor Chiles, about how you
18 could -- you and the Cabinet could eloquently
19 remain in the same position as one of the people
20 who addressed you earlier. I have a suggestion.
21 Is there any way we can put this to the
22 vote, to a vote of the people, the people who
23 pay the taxes, the people who do have the time,
24 fortunately or unfortunately, to sit down and
25 review the facts line-by-line?
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1 For example, in Dalhousie they had no
2 lobster and they had no salmon this year on this
3 trip that FP&L paid for representatives to go.
4 This is the first year in a -- in three years of
5 burning orimulsion in a small fishing community
6 where there's suddenly no crustaceans, which are
7 invertebrates, which feed off plankton. And if
8 there's no plankton, there's no invertebrate,
9 and no salmon. That was the chief complaint
10 about the entire trip.
11 When I asked FP&L about that, I was told --
12 I was asked where I got the information. I got
13 it from their own publicity campaign, what they
14 issued. They just didn't edit quite well
15 enough.
16 But I have the time to pour over that,
17 because this is everything in my whole life. I
18 am a lifelong resident of the City of
19 Port Tampa. I was there when my dad drove
20 tractors down to clear the palmetto bushes out.
21 I don't want orimulsion. I call it Just
22 Say No to the Big O, because anybody who votes
23 or proceeds with even considering something that
24 is so experimental at best.
25 I don't care if every country in this
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1 entire planet decides orimulsion is the newest,
2 best, most phenomenal product on this planet,
3 after they run it -- or burn it -- for 20,
4 30 years, and we see what the effects of it is,
5 if they'll bring it back to me with the true
6 results, not the results offered up by a company
7 who stands everything to gain or lose at my
8 expense. Not only mine, but seven generations
9 later.
10 I live on the bay. I've seen it go from
11 worse to better. I used to not take -- let my
12 child go swim in the bay that I swam in because
13 it was so bad. Now we can go and swim.
14 Please consider the facts. Please look at
15 the facts. Take the time out. I, a taxpayer,
16 the citizens of my community, the people in this
17 room, if money weren't involved, if there were
18 no money involved in this picture, nobody could
19 make a dime, I wonder if we'd still be standing
20 here today. I wonder if anybody'd even be
21 considering this as an option.
22 Natural gas that can't be used? I don't
23 understand how we can't have a pipeline to pump
24 it in to the Parrish plant, but we can have that
25 same pipeline pump in orimulsion. I'm having a
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1 problem.
2 And maybe it's because I'm not an expert.
3 I was told to refer to the experts. And
4 every -- all the experts seem to change what is
5 real and what is fact and what is of value from
6 moment to moment. I can't be bought, so I can
7 stand here before you.
8 I can't be purchased, so I can say to you,
9 I know it's rough what you've got to face.
10 Believe me, I had no clue until I got here this
11 week, and got to actually listen in on some
12 things.
13 But I understand your predicament. But I
14 beg of you, please, long after we're all long
15 dead and gone, when we are no longer here, our
16 children should not have to see a mammal or a
17 dolphin or a fish or a crab in a book that says
18 this is what earth used to be.
19 My child, your children and grandchildren,
20 should not have to walk on this planet with a
21 gas mask on their face to be able to breathe.
22 Please listen and think. We little
23 people -- and there's a lot more of us than
24 there are of them -- vote. We vote because
25 that's all we have. We don't have the money.
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1 Thank you for your time.
2 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
4 MR. GREEN: Ernie Bach.
5 Deb Swim, I believe.
6 MS. SWIM: Governor Chiles, and members of
7 the Cabinet, thanks for the opportunity. I'm
8 Deb Swim. I'm with the Legal Environmental
9 Assistance Foundation. We focus on the state of
10 Florida energy policy.
11 LEAF and the National Natural Resource
12 Defense Council filed amicus briefs in support
13 of your decision denying orimulsion last year.
14 The appellate Court order asks you to better
15 explain which findings of fact were accepted or
16 rejected.
17 And, therefore, the way we see it, you're
18 here to explain your decision, and not really to
19 make another one. And I urge you to do that by
20 denying -- by adopting one of the draft orders
21 that would deny Florida Power & Light's permit
22 application.
23 We also urge you to firmly reject
24 Florida Power & Light's last minute efforts to
25 change its project. There's no record support
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1 for these offers because they were not made
2 until after the record was closed.
3 They were not merely after the jury was
4 out, Commissioner Brogan, they were after the
5 jury came back with its verdict.
6 As such, they're not part of the record,
7 and, in fact, as Manasota 88's attorney
8 explained, they directly conflict with
9 Florida Power & Light's sworn testimony to the
10 Administrative Law Judge.
11 Remanding the case under these
12 circumstances would be truly unfair and an abuse
13 of judicial resources, and discourage people to
14 participate in procedures that are set up to
15 find facts.
16 It would really be very wrong to reopen the
17 hearing because Florida Power & Light is now
18 willing to do things that it previously claimed
19 were not feasible to be done.
20 If it's a new project, as I submit to you
21 it is, then tell Florida Power & Light to file a
22 new permit application, and don't allow the
23 judicial process to be abused by this last
24 minute change of position.
25 You were right the first time. There's not
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1 a need to pollute Florida any more and make our
2 state the testing ground for another dirty
3 fossil fuel. There are cost-effective, and much
4 more sustainable options, like natural gas,
5 renewable energy, and energy efficiency, options
6 that other utilities are making some progress
7 on, options that would be displaced if we set
8 down the road to orimulsion.
9 You were right the first time. We urge you
10 to adopt one of the draft orders denying
11 orimulsion again.
12 Thank you.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
14 MR. GREEN: The opponents have 30 minutes
15 left. And the next speaker is Early Sorenson.
16 And then Lea Fox, and then Dorothy Mullins.
17 And after that, Gerry Swormstedt and
18 Paul Sayers.
19 MS. BARBARA DUTTON: What's the point of
20 order? I just -- I'm asking you a question
21 about the time. Could I ask you a question
22 about the time?
23 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I will.
24 How much time does either side have, and
25 who is it -- I'm confused as to who you're
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1 introducing, and how much time each side has.
2 MR. GREEN: The opponents have 30 minutes
3 left, and the proponents have --
4 MR. ODOM: Nineteen.
5 MR. GREEN: -- 19 minutes left.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: So you're continuing
7 with the opponents' side.
8 MR. GREEN: Yes, sir.
9 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Okay.
10 MS. BARBARA DUTTON: Could I ask you,
11 Mr. Brogan, to -- Mr. Brogan to ask again?
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I didn't hear you
13 when you -- no.
14 MS. BARBARA DUTTON: What I was wondering
15 is, there was a long speech that looked to me
16 like the world's biggest endorsement from
17 someone that said he wasn't endorsing. And do
18 you split that time -- I think that'd be fair.
19 But also, are they still keeping time for
20 the rebuttal that they requested, or have they
21 shot that wad? Speaking legally.
22 MR. GREEN: The opponents have 30 minutes
23 left, and the proponents have 19 minutes left.
24 MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: I question
25 30 minutes. I've been keeping time. They have
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1 over 90 minutes for the proponents. So where
2 does the 30 minutes come in?
3 MR. GREEN: My time keeper says we --
4 there's 30 minutes left for the opponents, and
5 19 minutes left for the proponents.
6 MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: But you're putting
7 in some of their people in between ours.
8 MR. GREEN: No, we're not. Early --
9 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
10 MR. GREEN: -- Early Sorenson.
11 Are they there?
12 Lea Fox.
13 Dorothy Mullins.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Can we have your
15 attention now, please.
16 MS. FOX: My name is Lee Fox. Thank you
17 for allowing me to speak today.
18 I apologize for my nervousness. I am not a
19 public speaker, I'm a wildlife rehabilitator.
20 Pinellas seabird Rehabilitation Center is a
21 volunteer organization that responded, and was
22 also hired by Buschard Transport, one of the
23 responsible parties in the August '93 spill in
24 Tampa Bay.
25 Our organization has continued to train
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1 volunteers around the state in a comprehensive
2 oiled wildlife response program we developed
3 five years ago.
4 One reason we did the test on orimulsion
5 was to document a protocol for the care and the
6 washing of wildlife, and to incorporate it into
7 our training program.
8 We did not approach this program to condemn
9 orimulsion. However, we did not expect to find
10 what we did find; and the more we did, the more
11 questions I had.
12 (Governor Chiles exited the room.)
13 MS. FOX: Our approach was a logical,
14 common sense approach; not a clinical, removed
15 from reality experiment.
16 As you have seen in the tape, we found it
17 difficult to remove the orimulsion from
18 feathers, especially around the eyes. As
19 sensitive as eyes are, we would never expose a
20 sensitive area to a toxin form-- a toxic formula
21 like PT-33, or what we call D-limonene.
22 Another area of concern as the -- as we
23 conducted our test, as was not clearly stated in
24 our video, the film formed on the top of the
25 tank and covered 90 percent of the surface.
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1 We purposely left it in the rain, and found
2 that the film redispersed throughout the entire
3 tank, this time visibly covering all the
4 sea grass.
5 The main staple to manatees is vegetation.
6 Now their entire food source has been
7 contaminated. As they swim through orimulsion
8 in a suspended state, their eyes are also
9 affected.
10 For our sea birds, fish, coral reef,
11 dolphins, and other sea mammals, their main food
12 source has now been greatly affected. Fish
13 filtering the suspended product through their
14 gills, and ingesting it as they feed will suffer
15 internal damage.
16 Our sea birds; shore birds; and depending
17 on the time of the year, migrating birds, will
18 have the impact not only on their feathers, but
19 by ingesting contaminated fish, which will give
20 them all -- impacted twice as much internal
21 damage.
22 As birds preen, they will ingest the
23 product many times over, until they are unable
24 to care for themselves before we are able to
25 rescue them.
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1 By then, it may be too late, washing will
2 not be necessary.
3 Shellfish will also be filtered --
4 (Secretary Mortham exited the room.)
5 MS. FOX: -- filtering the product as it is
6 still in suspension. People enjoy clams,
7 oysters, and fish from our bays. How will we
8 know if the fish we are eating are not ill --
9 (Governor Chiles entered the room.)
10 MS. FOX: -- from the effects of the
11 orimulsion, but not ill enough to die.
12 My question to the Commission is, we are --
13 are we willing to make -- excuse me -- are we
14 willing to take the chance of losing our most
15 precious resources that we had worked so hard to
16 stabilize from past mistakes.
17 The impact of a spill may not be seen
18 immediately. However, where are -- what are the
19 internal and the eye effects on our most
20 valuable wildlife -- vulnerable wildlife over
21 the long-term?
22 Our manatees, which are close to extension,
23 face human impact every day in many ways. Do we
24 want to place another life threatening obstacle
25 in their path?
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1 Why can't we find an alternative fuel that
2 won't harm humans or wildlife?
3 The meager savings to customers is not
4 worth the high price and the consequences.
5 You can help me put my oil wildlife
6 response training workbooks on the shelf to
7 collect dust, and I'll go fishing.
8 Don't approve the orimulsion.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
10 MR. GREEN: Dorothy Mullen.
11 (Secretary Mortham entered the room.)
12 MS. MULLEN: Good afternoon,
13 Governor Chiles and the Cabinet.
14 My name's Dorothy Mullen. I represent the
15 Save Our Bays organization in Sarasota County.
16 We're celebrating our 30th anniversary this
17 year.
18 My statement is this: When a foreign fuel
19 source introduction by foreign utilities
20 threatens to destroy the health of the Florida
21 citizens; the quality of the Florida
22 environment; the economy of Florida's fishing
23 industry; tourism, Florida's most profitable
24 industry, it must be stopped.
25 Orimulsion is a high sulfur fuel, and the
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1 risk of its use does not outweigh the benefits.
2 Florida is the Sunshine State. And solar
3 energy should be the future of Florida. A no
4 vote to orimulsion is a yes vote to protect
5 Florida and Florida citizens for generations to
6 come.
7 Vote no to orimulsion, and let the
8 Venezuelans try it first.
9 Thank you.
10 MS. SWORMSTEDT: Hello, I am
11 Gerry Swormstedt. I'm Chapter Chair for the
12 Florida Sierra Club.
13 And I want to thank you. I know we're kind
14 of glazing over at this point. One of the
15 things we've talked about are the particulates.
16 And as we talked about them, I got a C in
17 physics. And so I asked -- I asked one of our
18 members and professor at New College to bring it
19 down to where I could understand it. And so --
20 because this is a main concern.
21 Among the many misleading claims,
22 Florida Power & Light would like you to believe
23 that since now they spew 1,768 pounds of
24 particulates per year at the Parrish plant, they
25 pledge to spew the same total weight with
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1 orimulsion, that, therefore, particulates should
2 not be a part of the discussion.
3 Nothing could be further from the truth.
4 When you think about it, it's obvious that
5 particulates can vary in size, in density, and
6 composition. Therefore, all particulates are
7 not created equal.
8 Normally when we want to point out that two
9 things are not comparable, we say that's like
10 comparing apples and oranges. But apples and
11 oranges are both the same size. Since
12 particulates from number 6 fuel oil and
13 orimulsion are so dissimilar in size, we need to
14 say it's like comparing plums and grapes.
15 It may not be easy to think in terms of
16 10 micron size particles, so let's use the
17 analogy imagining enlarging the 10 micron
18 particle to the size of an unhusked coconut.
19 Didn't say I was going to introduce
20 coconuts.
21 This coconut is the length of ten small
22 plums, and each plum is roughly the length of
23 three grapes.
24 Based on the News -- New Brunswick
25 experience in Dalhousie, more than half the fuel
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1 oil particulates by weight were plum size or
2 larger, while half of the orimulsion
3 particulates were grape size or smaller.
4 And I think you had that -- the information
5 came from the evaluation and handling combustion
6 in commercial utility boilers from the
7 New Brunswick Power.
8 EPA has concluded that particulates smaller
9 than 2.5 microns in size are coarse
10 particulates. Those -- I mean, larger.
11 I'm sorry. Are coarse.
12 The smaller than 2.5 microns are fine
13 particulates that can be inhaled and travel deep
14 into your lungs. Burning orimulsion produces
15 more of these fine particulates -- problem
16 particulates.
17 And we have a graph here that shows that
18 the smallest ones, .3, will increase more than
19 50 percent. And you'll see that the large
20 particulates will decrease.
21 So how many of these small things really?
22 Let's stop pretending. These particulates are
23 the size of plums and grapes. They're more like
24 the size of a white blood cell, which is only
25 about 10 millicrons -- microns.
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1 EPA finds that particles smaller than
2 10 microns are inhaleable, and those
3 2.5 microns, smaller fine particles, can be
4 inhaled all the way to the deepest area of our
5 lungs. Particles this size, .3 or less, are
6 50 percent more prevalent in orimulsion fly ash
7 than in the number 6 fuel oil fly ash.
8 Can you imagine how many particles this
9 size it takes to make a pound, or a ton?
10 So if you, Governor Chiles, and Cabinet
11 members, were to approve orimulsion as proposed,
12 Florida Power & Light customers, and other
13 citizens, could expect to get more than just
14 electricity and a bill. That's right. A
15 dramatic increase in the worst form of
16 particulates, those smaller than 2.5, the kind
17 EPA finds are linked with premature death,
18 chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, acute
19 respiratory symptoms, and on and on.
20 So the next time Florida Power & Light
21 tells you, the particulate emissions will be the
22 same before and after orimulsion, take a deep
23 breath, it may be your last chance.
24 Then tell them you don't care about the
25 total weight of the particulates, you care about
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1 the 50 percent increase in the finest of fine
2 particles that travel long distances and can be
3 inhaled deep in the lungs where they are very
4 difficult for the body to remove.
5 Tell them your plan makes me sick.
6 MR. GREEN: Re Walsh. Re Walsh.
7 Paul Sayers.
8 MS. WALSH: It's Ro.
9 MR. GREEN: Okay.
10 MS. WALSH: It's Ro Walsh. I didn't know
11 you had another Walsh.
12 MR. GREEN: I'm sorry.
13 MS. WALSH: You had a previous Walsh.
14 So --
15 Good afternoon, Governor and members of the
16 Cabinet. I'm Ro -- short for Rosette -- Walsh,
17 and I'm President of Florida Consumer Action
18 Network.
19 I'm also a Florida resident for the last
20 30 years, and as board president of a voluntary
21 board, I'm here as a citizen lobbyist. Nobody
22 paid me to come here today, and nobody paid my
23 way, nor offered me a day's wages.
24 Florida Cabinet should again reject
25 orimulsion. You were correct when you made this
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1 decision before. And the fuel, orimulsion, has
2 not changed or in any way improved, only
3 Florida Power & Light's story about it has
4 changed.
5 Can we believe them?
6 First time around, they insisted orimulsion
7 standards that would allow twice as much
8 nitrogen oxide as it now -- as it is, now says
9 it will release less, but there's been no change
10 in the technology.
11 First time around, they said the powdered
12 gypsum and limestone and lime rock cannot be
13 unloaded from conventional rail boxcars. Now,
14 all of a sudden, we can use rail boxcars.
15 Florida's energy goal should be toward
16 efficiency, conservation, and alternative
17 cleaner fuels, such as natural gas or others
18 that may come along.
19 Orimulsion is a dirty fuel; adds to the
20 nitrous oxide; releases 38 percent more carbon
21 dioxide than natural gas; has more sulfur than
22 most fossil fuels; its surfactant has been
23 banned in parts of Europe because it mimics
24 estrogen and is an endocrine disrupter, which
25 can alter genetic structure.
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1 And spills cannot be cleaned.
2 This is a fuel that's not worth the risks.
3 And nobody has mentioned our risk in the
4 Tampa Bay area of being the lightning capital;
5 nor the risk that a major hurricane, such as
6 Andrew, would bring to our area.
7 Saying that orimulsion solves environmental
8 problems is like saying that smoking cures
9 cancer.
10 Please vote no on orimulsion.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
13 MR. SAYERS: I'm Paul Sayers from Parrish,
14 Florida.
15 I'd like to say good afternoon and thanks
16 to Governor Chiles. I wrote and faxed and got
17 responses. I certainly appreciate that.
18 And to the remainder of the Board, I'm
19 happy to be here, and thank you for allowing me.
20 I'm going to be very brief, because I think
21 there's probably some other people who may bring
22 up some new things. However, I would simply
23 remind you that last year when I spoke, I felt,
24 and as Tom Reese pointed out, Florida Power &
25 Light could do much better with their numbers.
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1 Since 1993, Florida Power & Light has
2 consistently been a reactive company, rather
3 than a proactive company. Each time a
4 condition --
5 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
6 MR. SAYERS: -- or a concern comes up,
7 Florida Power & Light reacts to that condition
8 or concern, and says, oh, okay, we can do that
9 now, because it's important. Why wasn't it
10 important before the citizens reminded them?
11 I'll simply end by saying that in all of
12 the discussions, all of the presentations, ask
13 yourself this question before you make the
14 decision: Has Florida Power & Light presented
15 to you irrefutable evidence that they can do
16 everything they now say they can do.
17 I think your answer will be no. I hope it
18 will be no.
19 Thank you.
20 MR. GREEN: Dan Kumerich, then Pat Rose,
21 then Corbin Ball.
22 MR. KUMERICH: Thank you for hearing me
23 today.
24 You'll have to excuse me. This is not my
25 forte. I have to cut this short, too.
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1 I wanted to refer to a particular study
2 which I think has been circulated, and you have,
3 which is done at the University of
4 Massachusetts, and the study is the orimulsion
5 surfactant NPE in the context of a simulated
6 spill in Tampa Bay.
7 This study was reviewed by Dr. Warhurst,
8 who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and
9 environmental chemistry at the University of
10 Glasgow, and has numerous publications related
11 to the environmental impact to this chemical
12 group of surfactants.
13 Some of his comments: Relative to the
14 modeling of a 10,000 barrel spill in Tampa Bay,
15 University of Massachusetts study states: If
16 orimulsion were spilled into the marine
17 environment, 56 to 78 percent of the surfactant
18 may be separated from the fuel by dissolution in
19 the water column.
20 In spite of the fact that the authors
21 acknowledge that most of the surfactant will not
22 be associated with bitumen, they go on to a
23 Model A spill, which by their own admission,
24 tracks the bitumen particles. It does not
25 explicitly predict the fate and transport of the
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1 surfactant.
2 Therefore, this model is not designed to
3 cope with the dissolved fractions, so the
4 results given in this study are completely
5 meaningless. That's the comment of
6 Dr. Warhurst.
7 Two, the breakdown of the surfactant in
8 laboratory experiments. University of
9 Massachusetts report found that in the average
10 of 49 percent of the alkyl phenolic compounds in
11 the test sample remained after 183 days, which
12 was the end of the -- their test period,
13 confirming that these chemicals are extremely
14 persistent in the environment. Yet the study
15 concludes that once in a water column, the
16 surfactant will be degraded, and that will
17 happen rapidly.
18 It is, therefore, apparent that the
19 conclusions of the study, which are those being
20 quoted by Bitor and FPL officials, are not
21 supported by the data presented in their study.
22 Dr. Warhurst summarizes his critique as
23 follows: The methodology of this assessment has
24 many fundamental flaws. Contrary to the way it
25 has been summarized, its results provide further
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1 evidence that a spill of orimulsion will do
2 substantial damage to the environment.
3 Reports published during the past year by
4 the National Science Council and the U.S. EPA
5 implicate this group of surfactants as potential
6 endocrine disrupters.
7 And a report for the American Chemical
8 Society states: It was discovered in 1984 that
9 APE breakdown products are more toxic to aquatic
10 organisms than their intact precursors are, and
11 they were banned or restricted in Europe.
12 The University of Massachusetts study
13 confirmed that 49 percent of the precursor was
14 present as these breakdown products, and
15 persisted for at least six months.
16 And, therefore, the NPE did not degrade
17 rapidly the carbon dioxide in water as they've
18 stated in the past.
19 As you know, many countries in Europe have
20 limited the use of these substances. They've
21 been banned in Switzerland.
22 A chemist responsible for APE's -- from the
23 Swedish EPA states, quote: The intrinsic
24 properties of NPEs with respect to toxicity,
25 persistence, and liability to bioaccumulate have
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1 led to phaseouts.
2 As you also know, Denmark is not -- will
3 not accept orimulsion containing this NPE
4 surfactant after 1998. Yet, this is a product
5 which is proposed for use in much larger
6 quantities in Florida.
7 Based on all this information, it appears
8 justified to raise this question:
If the
9 industrialized countries of western Europe are
10 banning the surfactant, and Denmark wants the
11 surfactant changed, why would we risk importing
12 seventeen million six hundred thousand pounds of
13 this substance into Florida each year for
14 20 years?
15 I'm sure you have seen the -- the report
16 from Mote Marine, and they raise severe
17 objections to some of the reports which have
18 been published by FPL, particularly those
19 involved in the ability to clean up an
20 orimulsion spill.
21 That latest test was done in Venezuela was
22 done in calm seas with a containment boom in
23 place -- recovery equipment in place, and they
24 used just two barrels of orimulsion in that
25 test.
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1 Locally, we have serious concerns -- safety
2 and health concerns related to increased truck
3 traffic, increased NOx emissions, possible open
4 storage toxic combustion by-products if they
5 cannot be sold.
6 As you know, FPL stated recently that they
7 will now be able to reduce the traffic using
8 rail, they can keep the NOx emissions to present
9 historic levels.
10 Yet, as in the case of the University of
11 Massachusetts' publication, their proposals have
12 not been subject to independent technical review
13 to ensure their validity.
14 This new information cries out for
15 independent peer review, and not just acceptance
16 of expert testimony from researchers who are
17 commissioned by Bitor or FPL.
18 Now, in exchange for all the risk factors,
19 the average residential Florida Power & Light
20 consumer may be rewarded with the savings of
21 between 10 and $36 per year; and based on some
22 recent comments, maybe no savings at all.
23 They stated -- Florida Power & Light stated
24 previously that they had missed the balance.
25 Area residents don't see this as a pocketbook
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1 issue, but rather as a quality of life issue.
2 They were correct. We still see this as a
3 quality of life issue.
4 Two weeks ago, the Parrish Civic
5 Association, which I am a member -- and many
6 members are present here today -- voted
7 unanimously to reaffirm our opposition to
8 orimulsion, notwithstanding that FPL has offered
9 monetary grants --
10 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
11 MR. KUMERICH: -- that the community could
12 readily use. We are not an affluent area.
13 We commend you, all of you, for doing the
14 right thing by rejecting the FPL orimulsion
15 permit last year. We know that you will do the
16 right thing again today.
17 Thank you very much for your time.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
19 MR. GREEN: Pat Rose.
20 MR. ROSE: Governor and members of the --
21 distinguished members of the Siting Board, I'm
22 here to represent Save the Manatee Club and our
23 40,000 members. I'll be brief.
24 A lot has been said, but we are concerned
25 about the effects of burning orimulsion and
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1 bringing it in to Tampa Bay, and all those
2 associated activities that would go with it, and
3 its effect on the aquatic environment.
4 I have more than 20 years of experience as
5 an aquatic biologist in Florida, working very
6 directly with sea grass issues and manatee
7 issues historically. And I just want to
8 register our concern for that.
9 I want -- I would like to ask you to
10 reaffirm your prior decision on this matter, and
11 to deny the application. There's a lot of --
12 there is at least some new information that may
13 be legitimately brought before you as a new
14 application in the future, and we would urge you
15 that that would be the time to consider new
16 information and let it be exhaustively
17 reviewed.
18 We consider this an experimental process
19 with too many risks, and we thank you for this
20 opportunity.
21 MR. GREEN: Corbin Ball, and then
22 Mary Ann Hubbard.
23 MR. BALL: Good afternoon, Governor Chiles,
24 and distinguished Cabinet members. And to the
25 audience.
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1 Today I've come here to represent my
2 community, which is Port Tampa City, and its
3 constituency, and the concerned citizens of the
4 community.
5 We've heard a lot of talk here today about
6 emissions and probabilities and statistics and
7 studies. And we've heard a lot about the
8 quality of life.
9 And what I came here to discuss is in the
10 community that I live in, the quality of life
11 does not exist. Where I live, well, we put up
12 with about 400 trucks every day round trip on a
13 small, narrow street called Commerce.
14 We're now being asked to put up with
15 24 rail cars with some by-product of
16 orimulsion. We've been told at least six
17 different stories on how this is going to be
18 taken from the trucks -- from the rails to the
19 trucks to the plant.
20 For the first time since gypsum's
21 existence, since they first came into our
22 community, they came to talk to us on the 5th of
23 this month. I met with the President, and I met
24 with representatives of Pure Air.
25 We told them our concerns, which were
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1 numerous. One was we'd like you to have some
2 consideration for Picnic Island; some
3 consideration for the people that live in that
4 community; and some consideration for the local,
5 as well as the public at large traffic that goes
6 to Picnic Island.
7 Picnic Island for many years looked like
8 Devil's Island. After numerous complaints and
9 numerous tax dollars, we finally got it to look
10 something like a beach.
11 And now we can't get to the beach. Every
12 day we have to deal with fuel trucks, gypsum
13 trucks, spills, potholes, and a variety of other
14 disasters just to get to Picnic Island. It's
15 very discouraging to the elderly that live in my
16 community, it's very discouraging to the young
17 people. We have no way to get there, other than
18 at your own risk.
19 What I'm asking you is to not allow these
20 24 rail cars to come in and sit out on Commerce
21 and unload themselves right there on Commerce
22 for 12 hours a day, five days a week, 40 round
23 trips, with no safeguards whatsoever, no
24 guarantees whatsoever from gypsum or Pure Air.
25 When I asked them to show us the product,
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1 they told us that the product was safe,
2 containable, and showed me a little jar of
3 powder that was wet. They opened the powder up,
4 and the guy offered to eat some.
5 I told him, how about it? Because as far
6 as I'm concerned, we've been eating it for a
7 very long time.
8 I'm not here to gain applause. I'm -- when
9 I say that, I really mean we have been eating it
10 and eating it and eating it.
11 It's all over our streets; it's all over
12 Picnic Island; it's all over my car; it's all
13 over the citizens that live in the
14 neighborhoods, houses, cars, trees, et cetera,
15 et cetera, et cetera. This has been going on
16 for years totally unnoticed.
17 Like I said, I met with gypsum for the
18 first time in the history of Port Tampa. My
19 family's been in Port Tampa since 1902, and my
20 grandfather and my uncles and my mother used to
21 fear to go to the beach because of gypsum.
22 Okay?
23 I don't see how if gypsum for all those
24 decades never paid any respect, consideration,
25 or regard for our community, how all of a sudden
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1 I can meet with them on the 5th, just a few days
2 before it's time to come here, and they're going
3 to do the right thing, all of a sudden.
4 I'm asking that you reconsider this -- this
5 proposal of the 24 cars, because they gave me no
6 guarantees. They gave me a promise, and I asked
7 for it in writing, and they gave -- they didn't
8 give me that either.
9 So what we would ask you to do is to
10 reconsider. I sent each one of you a petition
11 signed by about 193 people yesterday. And
12 that's only because -- I would have had more,
13 but I didn't have any more time, okay?
14 These people are all concerned, and they
15 all -- not one person did I run into tell me
16 that this is something that they really wanted
17 to deal with.
18 I'm asking that you say no to orimulsion,
19 and say no to the by-product. We've said no for
20 a long time and they have not heard us.
21 Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
23 MR. GREEN: Mary Ann Hubbard.
24 MS. HUBBARD: Hi. My name is
25 Mary Ann Hubbard of Bradenton, Florida. I'm
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1 thirteen and I go to King Middle School.
2 I have been studying orimulsion for a long
3 time. And what I have learned about orimulsion
4 leaves me very worried about the environment.
5 Orimulsion is composed of thick tar, so
6 thick that they had to mix it with water and
7 phenyl, which can mimic a hormone called
8 estrogen.
9 Now, if this fuel gets approved in
10 Manatee County, it will come in Port Manatee.
11 If this fuel happens to spill and mixes like
12 chocolate milk in the water, and more than
13 likely be impossible to clean up.
14 Then it will get into our sea life and
15 damage our marine life, and disrupt the life
16 cycles of many marine animals.
17 To burn orimulsion, the fuel must go
18 through many safety precautions. When handling
19 this fuel, people must wear special protection
20 over their body.
21 There are machines that clean the fuel, and
22 it'd be just one time, the machine will shut
23 down and the deadly fumes will be sent out into
24 our air. The sky will turn yellow-brown and an
25 aqueous sulphuric odor will be here, and we will
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1 now live in a polluted area.
2 I have learned all my life from teachers to
3 clean up our environment. Don't litter, pick up
4 beaches, and recycle. We have done that now,
5 and we want to bring in a dirty fuel that is
6 worse than not picking up the beach, worse than
7 littering, and worse than not recycling. We
8 will be taught the exact opposite of what we
9 should be learning. We will be taking one giant
10 step back.
11 Maybe all the things I just told you about
12 the risks of orimulsion will never happen.
13 Maybe it will. But is that the kind of risk you
14 want to take for our environment and the only
15 place to live?
16 But, please, for my generation, don't mess
17 it up, and please vote no for orimulsion.
18 MR. GREEN: Governor, we're at an
19 hour-and-a-half for the opponents, and we have
20 approximately 20 speakers left.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: How many speakers left?
22 MR. GREEN: About 20 for the opponents.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Twenty.
24 MR. GREEN: And about the same number for
25 the proponents.
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Four hours
2 now. We've been here 4 hours. How much time do
3 you have --
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: How did what?
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: We've been
6 here for 4 hours.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yeah.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That'd be
9 another hour-and-a-half to go. That would be
10 two-and-a-half hours went somewhere else.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yeah. But the original
12 group took -- you know, I mean, the State's --
13 we took 30 minutes -- 30 minutes up here. Then
14 about -- you know, we didn't start on the --
15 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Ask some of them to
16 waive their --
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yeah.
18 I -- I wonder if some of those can waive
19 their time. Can we -- you know, we just have to
20 have time to listen to the other, and then to
21 deliberate up here.
22 I don't want -- like to cut anybody off,
23 but --
24 MR. GREEN: You want to go with the
25 proponents, and see if we can't --
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Pardon?
2 MR. GREEN: You want to go with the
3 proponents? They've got 19 minutes left.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: I want to hear -- I want
5 to hear from ten more opponents. And let them
6 figure it out how it's going to be. And I want
7 them to be brief.
8 MR. GREEN: Okay. I'll just call out the
9 next ten in line. Lila Johnson-Thomas,
10 Alice Barbara Dutton, Jiri Taborsky, Don Borum,
11 Sarah Robinson, JoAnn Hodges.
12 (Commissioner Brogan exited the room.)
13 MS. JOHNSON-THOMAS: Good afternoon. I'm
14 Lila Johnson-Thomas --
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. If we can
16 have your attention, please, ma'am.
17 Yes, ma'am.
18 MS. JOHNSON-THOMAS: -- from Tampa,
19 Florida.
20 I know we've heard a lot of discussion this
21 afternoon about orimulsion, the scientific data,
22 and all of that. I want to tell you how
23 orimulsion will affect my community. I live in
24 Port Tampa city, which is an area in Tampa.
25 It's a small little place, and it's off the
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1 beaten path. We still have the small streets of
2 the 1800s. We still have some streets that are
3 uncut, and so that we have only one way into
4 Port Tampa, and one way out.
5 The way that the trucks take to get to the
6 dock is our one way out. Actually, we are
7 surrounded by oil tanks, CRS -- CSX's railroad
8 station, and the gypsum plant.
9 We live with this traffic on a daily
10 basis. Last year, orimulsion proposed to
11 increase our traffic by some 200 trucks, and we
12 are real pleased that they decided that it was
13 possible to bring the by-product of orimulsion
14 into Port Tampa in a rail car. That decision is
15 appreciated.
16 But where the rails stop, the gypsum plant
17 is still --
18 (Commissioner Brogan entered the room.)
19 MS. JOHNSON-THOMAS: -- about 300 feet away
20 from the rail cars. So now in our meeting with
21 them on the 5th, they told us it would be
22 15 trucks a day. Now today we heard that there
23 are going to be 30 trucks a day.
24 Well, we are not kidding when we say that
25 to enter our roadways, you take your life in
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1 your hands. Pedestrians and bikers don't dare
2 go on Commerce Street, because you are in danger
3 of risking your life.
4 These are just some of the situations that
5 are confronting us. And where they propose to
6 stop those trains, there are not even any
7 roadways for the trucks to unload -- to be
8 loaded. It is impossible.
9 We ask you to consider our plight and vote
10 no on orimulsion.
11 MS. ALICE DUTTON: Hello. My name is
12 Alice Dutton, and I'm twelve years old, and I
13 attend the Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences,
14 which is a new charter school this year.
15 And one of its goals is that students take
16 what we learn and apply it to our world. And I
17 want to try to do that in a few seconds here.
18 As far back as when I was in third grade in
19 Fruitville Elementary, we were taught some
20 important things about science, one being that
21 new technology doesn't always improve life on
22 earth, but often destroys elements which can't
23 be replaced, such as things in the rain forest.
24 Also, that when you do an experiment, if
25 you don't control the variables honestly, you
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1 have not received a reliable result; that you
2 have to be careful mixing dangerous chemicals;
3 and you also have to be careful not to spill
4 them on the carpet.
5 Florida Power & Light is experimenting with
6 taking orimulsion across our water and are not
7 following the safety rules, and so would get an
8 F on their science project had it been done for
9 my class.
10 That's all.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
12 MS. BARBARA DUTTON: I'm also here as a
13 descendent of several generations of
14 Floridians. And though my mother raised us to
15 conserve land and water, we watched our woods
16 and pastures paved over, our public beaches
17 polluted while paved -- while access to the
18 shrinking pristine shoreline is sold off to high
19 priced development, by those who value profit
20 above people's rights to enjoy nature.
21 I would rather take my child here to swim
22 in Tampa's old sulfur springs. But due to
23 contamination beyond repair, I'm bringing her
24 here instead to make a stand for what is left.
25 And what we do have left, we cannot afford
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1 to risk.
2 I've listened here to statements and
3 assurances from FPL advocates, including the
4 U.S. Coast Guard officer, with a rosy
5 description of Bitor and FPL's safety plans.
6 As to Coast Guard safety standards,
7 14 years ago, there was a small oil spill in
8 Boca Grande right by my house. While
9 investigating its cause when a coupling burst
10 open during a fuel loading, I went through the
11 records at the Coast Guard office in Tampa.
12 I found out that a little attachment -- a
13 little coupling flange opened, and a lot of
14 stuff spilled out before they did anything about
15 it. And that was right there, not on high seas,
16 not choppy water, no problem. Still a lot
17 spilled out.
18 And I said, well, isn't there a safety
19 valve? Isn't there a safety thing they could
20 use?
21 They said, well, yes, there's a thing
22 called a butterfly flange that the coupling is
23 safer and it's wrapped around. And --
24 I said, well, doesn't the Coast Guard
25 require that then?
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1 Well, no, we don't require it. They -- we
2 suggest it.
3 So I'm not that impressed with their world
4 class standards. No offense.
5 Or offense, whatever.
6 Also, I didn't hear when he was talking
7 about screening the ships coming into the harbor
8 about screening the pilots' sober driving and
9 piloting records. I wondered about that. Is
10 that going to change with these ships?
11 Also, I wonder why, with other spills that
12 have happened, other problems in slow booms
13 arriving on the scene, why would you buy a
14 burglar alarm system from a company that's been
15 broken into several times already?
16 And I know rebuttal time is coming up. And
17 I'm aware that the paid or swayed experts can
18 juggle statistics and semantics. But when you
19 look at a situation where two diametrically
20 opposite truths are presented, my detective
21 mystery mind tells me to ask: Which one would
22 have a motive to hide the truth? Which would
23 profit?
24 Thank you.
25 MR. GREEN: Don Borum, Sandra Robinson, and
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1 Joan Hodges.
2 MR. TABORSKY: Hi. My name is Taborsky.
3 I'm a hydrobiologist from Manatee County. I
4 mean, private, not from Manatee County.
5 There was a question, what is the new
6 evidence and what are the other propositions.
7 Well, Florida Power & Light delivered a number
8 of evidence under the oath last time, last
9 year. Now we have found out that it was a false
10 evidence, and that what they said under the oath
11 is not truth.
12 Now they are coming with other proposition,
13 and though statements, they are not given even
14 under the oath. So I don't know how could we
15 believe them?
16 To the question of -- of gypsum. They
17 claim that the by-product will be gypsum. It
18 will not be gypsum. It's -- it will be calcium
19 sulphide, which is a material which is not
20 suitable for mobile, and which is much more
21 difficult to be transported.
22 This material can be converted to -- to
23 gypsum, but it's extra -- extra expense. I
24 don't know if Florida Power did consider it.
25 But it wasn't the part of the evidence, the
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1 evidence whether it will be a gypsum.
2 Florida Power didn't -- didn't make those
3 numbers in all those proposals based on the
4 model for orimulsion, but on models which are
5 not suitable for -- for studies like this.
6 These are models for coal and for liquid for the
7 fuels like number 6, for example.
8 You have to realize that the coal and other
9 fossil fuels, they have just 2 percent in
10 average water, while --
11 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
12 MR. TABORSKY: -- orimulsion have
13 30 percent of water. You don't need to be a
14 professor to know that there is a big difference
15 in combustion of those two material.
16 There is a very large amount of water
17 vapors by burning orimulsion that's about
18 1400 percent more than by any other fuel. And
19 it change completely the model between -- they
20 were using.
21 So I can state -- and they have number of
22 experts here, and they can stop me and tell me
23 I'm wrong. But I'm stating that all the numbers
24 Florida Power and Bitor gave by the first
25 hearing, and by all the other hearing are
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1 false. They are just guesses, they are not
2 numbers based on any scientific evidence.
3 Thank you.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
5 MS. ROBINSON: Governor Chiles, members of
6 the Cabinet, my name is Sarah Robinson. And
7 this is my son Benjamin, and he's earned a trip
8 to Chuck E Cheese because he's been so patient
9 during the 5 hours that he's been in this room,
10 plus the 5 hour bus trip up here.
11 He's missing his 1st grade class today; and
12 I'm here, missing my own job, because I believe
13 as a good American, I must participate in the
14 democratic process. I'm trying to instill the
15 same --
16 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
17 MS. ROBINSON: -- values and belief in
18 Benjamin, and hopefully set a good example for
19 him. Because my son will live the majority of
20 his life in the 21st century, as a mother, it's
21 my responsibility to make sure that the people
22 making the decisions affecting his future do so
23 with foresight and great consideration of the
24 long-term implications.
25 FP&L would have you believe burning
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1 orimulsion is good for Florida's future. I
2 respectfully disagree.
3 Last year, I followed this issue closely
4 and was pleased when this Cabinet denied the
5 permit. This year, when I realized the amount
6 of money being spent by this huge utility on TV
7 and radio, following closely wasn't good enough.
8 So for the first time in my ninth year of
9 teaching, I left my portable classroom -- which
10 is another issue -- and I came here to be here
11 today.
12 As a teacher, I try to prepare my students
13 for the future, and I try to get them to think
14 critically and to think in new ways. Burning
15 orimulsion is not thinking about energy in a new
16 way. It's a definite step backward.
17 You've heard a lot of reasons today why
18 citizens are against this. This is not the type
19 of fuel that Florida should be moving toward as
20 we move into the new millennium.
21 I teach in Tampa, which was recently ranked
22 as one of the worst places in the nation to
23 raise a child. Orimulsion would certainly not
24 raise any standard of living for children in
25 Tampa Bay. It does have great potential to make
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1 it and the lives of Tampa Bay's children worse.
2 FP&L would have to remove 99.8 percent of
3 the fine particulates to protect Tampa Bay
4 children. And no one has mentioned children
5 with asthma or respiratory problems.
6 FP&L has spent a great deal of time and
7 money to convince you that profits are more
8 important than -- or most important. But I'm
9 here to tell you that I don't believe that you
10 believe that.
11 You did the right thing last year. Please
12 do it again.
13 Today my students took a test on the
14 puritans in my American literature classes, our
15 forefathers. And today in this room,
16 government --
17 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
18 MS. ROBINSON: -- of the people, by the
19 people, and for the people is also at test here.
20 It's being tested. Let's not fail this
21 test.
22 Thank you.
23 MS. HODGES: Good afternoon, ladies and
24 gentlemen. I -- I'm in -- so in awe of being
25 able to speak to this honorable group. And
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1 after the events of last week, I almost feel
2 like saying your Majesties? Is this really
3 the -- the Kingdom?
4 But my name is Joan Hodges, and I live in
5 Parrish, Florida. I come before you not as an
6 expert witness, but as a citizen to defend the
7 children and grandchildren within the state of
8 Florida.
9 I bring with me out in the audience a
10 ragtag army of citizens that have been portrayed
11 as rabid environmentalists that oppose
12 everything. Nothing could be farther from the
13 truth.
14 We are, and always have been, a grass roots
15 movement. We are concerned and we're mad as
16 hell. We really are.
17 Why should we be forced to fight this
18 greedy monopoly almost single-handedly. Why are
19 we committed to riding buses 600 miles, attend
20 rallies, carry protest signs, spend our money to
21 try to stop the FP&L mobsters, I like to call
22 them, and their pals in Venezuela.
23 The true reason is -- I'm going to answer
24 those questions for you, in my mind. You don't
25 even have to answer them.
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1 The true reason, from the onset, is that
2 the Florida Department of Environmental
3 Protection did not do their job.
4 The hearing officer, J.L. Johnston, did not
5 do his job, and he found our protest novel
6 theories that have no merit.
7 The Manatee County Commissioners at that
8 time did not do their job, and four of the seven
9 are still not doing their job. You've heard the
10 three speak here today that are doing their job.
11 And finally, three members of your esteemed
12 body did not do their job. The voters of this
13 state will not forget the names of Brogan,
14 Crawford, and Mortham.
15 Luckily, four of you -- luckily for us --
16 did your job, and I'll have every confidence --
17 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
18 MS. HODGES: -- that you'll do your job
19 today.
20 It should -- listen to this -- this is
21 really good.
22 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Well, you got my
23 attention now, lady.
24 MS. HODGES: All right. You ain't heard
25 nothing yet, honey.
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1 I stayed up all night writing this.
2 It should be interesting to hear what FP&L
3 and Bitor have to say when the first orimulsion
4 spill demolishes our beaches and pollutes our
5 Bay.
6 When the noxious fumes spewing from the
7 stacks sickens the residents and damages the
8 crops, I'm confident -- tongue-in-cheek -- that
9 FP&L will be able to do creative things with
10 115 foot high -- imagine how high is that --
11 gypsum mountain covering 100 acres of
12 Manatee County, and the adjacent 45 foot hill of
13 fly ash drifting in the prevailing wind.
14 Perhaps they could carve the likeness of
15 FP&L presidents, one of them that's present, so
16 they'll be remembered in perpetuity.
17 And there's the -- then there's the matter
18 of transporting the stuff. These trucks -- all
19 those trucks and trains hauling the limestone
20 by-products, damaging the roads, endangering the
21 children, trains that go through 150 road level
22 crossings in Manatee County, and in
23 Hillsborough County, as well as downtown Tampa.
24 Then they promise to use double hulled
25 vessels. Bitor America, Venezuela, will have no
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1 legal binding requirement for the use of double
2 hulls.
3 Thus -- think of this -- if Bitor would be
4 the subject of a takeover and come under a new
5 government, there is no guarantee that
6 undertaking to use double hulls would be
7 honored.
8 There's also grave doubt about the
9 availability of double hulled vessels for the
10 transport of 44 million tons per year to this
11 one plant only.
12 Since 1960, 592 oil spills greater than
13 10,000 gallons have been reported in the U.S.;
14 45 percent, or 267 spills have occurred in the
15 Gulf of Mexico. Imagine. From Texas to west
16 Florida.
17 Remember now, this is only the beginning.
18 If they win this approval, they'll continue to
19 convert plants up and down the coastline.
20 They're planning to produce the cheapest power
21 possible, and when deregulation comes about,
22 they'll sell this power all over the south and
23 southwest.
24 Dr. Steve Legore, Senior Scientist from
25 Mote Marine Laboratory, stated that a spill is
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1 inevitable. That's exactly what he said. And
2 since this fuel sinks and disperses, no one can
3 assess what devastating effects this'll have on
4 the bay and the creatures therein.
5 Does it make any sense to you,
6 Governor Chiles, and the rest of the Cabinet, to
7 put ourselves at the mercy of a politically
8 unstable country?
9 Why depend on another foreign country for
10 fuel? Isn't our oil addiction to the
11 Middle East lesson enough for us?
12 The answer, of course, is natural gas,
13 clean and safe, as the bridge fuel until solar
14 technology is perfected. You know that, I know
15 that. Someone needs to teach these people that.
16 I thank you so much for your time and
17 patience. It's truly been an honor to speak to
18 you.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
20 MS. HODGES: Thank you.
21 MR. GREEN: Charlie Moss, Socrates, and
22 Jean Jochens.
23 MR. MOSS: Thank you.
24 I'm Charlie Moss, and I volunteer on the
25 Manasota Key Sea Turtle Patrol. But even though
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1 I see no turtles in the audience trying to
2 represent them, I am just representing myself
3 and my family and several friends.
4 Even though I'm not representing them,
5 since I volunteer, I believe I am most concerned
6 about the fact that orimulsion does not float as
7 other oil products, but sinks, and may be
8 consumed by the sea turtles.
9 If, however, that was the only known
10 problem, I might be willing to agree somewhat
11 with Florida Power & Light. But -- however, it
12 is not, sadly. There have been several other
13 problems found, including air pollution and
14 water pollution.
15 Imagine, just for a moment, not being able
16 to go to the beach because of the stench of the
17 fish and birds killed by the split -- by the
18 spilled orimulsion,. Sounds gross, doesn't it?
19 But right now, you have the choice to present --
20 to prevent this scenario.
21 I am interested in business and the stock
22 market, and I was somewhat disappointed on the
23 bus trip not to be able to know what happened
24 yesterday to the Dow Jones Industrial. But I
25 feel it was worth it to be able to come and
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1 attend this meeting.
2 I do understand the want for profit in
3 business, and I can somewhat see Florida Power &
4 Light's view. But is it worth the loss of
5 environmental quality just to secure a profit?
6 It would also probably hurt the amount of
7 tourist dollars coming into the state of Florida
8 if tourists began hearing rumors of dead or
9 injured animals and plants washing up on the
10 beach.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
13 MR. BIERSKY: My name is Socrates Biersky.
14 And I have to tell you that I -- quite capable
15 of knowing that I'm not as great as the man was.
16 Now, putting that aside, I'm standing here,
17 Governor, Cabinet, lady, because I'm a --
18 totally personally affronted by the daring
19 brazenness of a small group of wealthy, powerful
20 people to dare to tell you -- to dare to tell my
21 Governor and my Cabinet that they have legal or
22 judicial or other kind of crummy reasons to stop
23 you from knowing everything that you must know
24 to govern us. How dare they. That's all we've
25 got is the ballot and this freedom.
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1 And the lady before me earlier said for the
2 people, all of the people; that's for all of
3 them, including FPL. But it seems they don't
4 give me that same right. That's no good.
5 And I know you're all intelligent enough to
6 know exactly what I'm talking about. I am
7 affronted by that. They must be castigated.
8 How dare they.
9 Now that said, I was in Venezuela.
10 Orimulsion is a waste product. They don't use
11 it in Venezuela. That's garbage that they would
12 gladly give for free. And I don't know how many
13 pennies per ton these guys are paying for it.
14 But, you know, you might as well use a --
15 the stuff that farm animals sometimes leave, and
16 that you can burn. You can do that, too.
17 This sludge produces volcanic-like ash.
18 Now, let me ask you, ladies and gentlemen -- and
19 I told your staff last week the same thing, I'm
20 quite serious about it. I can't believe that
21 anybody can't even think that way.
22 You really want your children and your
23 grandchildren to die so that these guys can make
24 some profits? You really want that? I can't
25 believe it. Really, we have gotten to that
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1 level in this country, that power wins? A small
2 group of profit making people. They wouldn't
3 even be here if you don't pay their salaries.
4 Nobody's paying me to get here.
5 Speaking of salaries, I'm incredibly in awe
6 of the millions of dollars of brain power that
7 can't tell you a single thing that come up
8 here. Scientists, specialists, and they're
9 hemming and hawing. And, of course, you know
10 that. I know you know that. You're at least as
11 intelligent as anybody else here. You can't buy
12 that guck.
13 I'm a navigator. I'm appalled that
14 Coast Guard people, present and past, can be
15 bought by a private organization.
16 It's 45 miles from the light where these
17 so-called tugs are going to pick up these
18 massive instruments. If they could make the
19 trip in 1 hour, which means 45 miles an hour --
20 and I don't think that you are under that
21 impression -- they would -- they would have to
22 be going at what's called cruise speed. We're
23 just making enough -- enough way so that you can
24 keep the ship under control.
25 And we have four tides. And the tide goes
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1 in, which means the current goes in, fills up
2 the bay; and it goes out again. It takes
3 3 hours to do one and the other.
4 There is a -- there is a stand, a point
5 where the water appears to stand still. This
6 Coast Guard Commander is telling you that the
7 stand occurs at any time? It doesn't. It goes
8 perhaps 10, 15 minutes, and then it starts going
9 the other way. You've got to make 45 miles
10 doing that, current going and past.
11 But I have a simpler solution that I
12 heard. Again, I'm stealing from another lady
13 earlier today.
14 Where there is nothing broken, don't fix
15 it. Just don't have anything to do with these
16 tankers, and you have no problem of pollution or
17 anything. Nothing. Nothing at all.
18 Use gas. We have all of the gas necessary
19 in this country. We don't do it because it's
20 cheaper and more profitable to use garbage so
21 the children, your grandchildren, are going to
22 die. For money? Forget it. Please do not do
23 that.
24 You are my Cabinet. And you're not owned
25 by a special private special interest group that
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1 will do anything for money, including kill.
2 Thank you.
3 MS. JOCHENS: Governor Chiles and members
4 of the Cabinet, my name is Jean Jochens, and I'm
5 the President of the League of Women Voters of
6 Manatee County.
7 The Board of Directors of the League of
8 Women Voters of Manatee County, on advice of our
9 Natural Resources Study Committee, have taken a
10 position objecting to the certification of
11 Florida Power & Light's orimulsion project.
12 The League of Women Voters of the
13 United States supports regulation and reduction
14 of air pollution from stationary sources, and of
15 ambient toxic air pollutants.
16 Notwithstanding the technically possible
17 preventive procedures advanced for consideration
18 today, and the current climate of emphasis on
19 reduced regulation, we are afraid that
20 government agencies may be underfunded and
21 unable to carry out sufficient supervision.
22 We're concerned that the use of orimulsion
23 will result in great increases in nitro--
24 nitrogen oxides, with possible degradation of
25 air quality that could affect the health of
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1 people, plants, farm lands, marine life in
2 Tampa Bay.
3 Recent editorials in all of our local
4 newspapers, but specifically the
5 Bradenton Herald and the Sarasota Herald
6 Tribune, reflect our view. Florida Power &
7 Light officials may have valid amendments to
8 improve their permit application.
9 But those changes should undergo the same
10 scrutiny by all parties that focused on the
11 original application.
12 We strongly urge that the earlier decision
13 rejecting the use of orimulsion be reaffirmed.
14 Thank you for your consideration.
15 MR. GREEN: Governor, the proponents have
16 16 speakers left, and they say they can do
17 theirs in about 35 minutes.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: The what now, the --
19 MR. GREEN: They have 16 -- the proponents
20 have 16 speakers left. They have 19 minutes
21 left on their hour and 30 minutes --
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, I think -- I assume
23 that we've got to give them some more time if
24 they want it as well because --
25 MR. GREEN: Yes, sir.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- we've given the other
2 side time. I --
3 MR. GREEN: They say they can finish in
4 about 35 minutes.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: I hesitate to say
6 anything about what anybody's testimony is
7 here. I think everybody's entitled to speak.
8 I am a little concerned, and I should have
9 said something at the time. I think I've stayed
10 silent too long.
11 Our next to the last speaker talked about
12 things he was appalled about. I'm appalled that
13 he would come here and say a Coast Guard Captain
14 had been bought. I -- I appreciate the service
15 to the United States, and I -- I want to make
16 that statement.
17 MR. GREEN: Glen Gauvry, Carl Schucks,
18 Joe Shary.
19 MR. GAUVRY: Governor Chiles, members of
20 the Cabinet. Thank you.
21 My name's Glen Gauvry. I'm the President
22 of Ecological Research and Development Group.
23 It's a nonprofit organization dedicated to
24 mitigating damage to wildlife populations from
25 human activities, to research, development, and
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1 training.
2 I'm an expert in oiled wildlife
3 rehabilitation and natural resource contingency
4 planning. My professional experience with
5 wildlife incident response issues include over
6 35 oil spills; cleaned thousands of animals; and
7 during the 1993 Tampa Bay spill, I directed all
8 wildlife cleaning operations.
9 I have trained literally thousands of
10 wildlife rehabilitators in over 75 workshops in
11 the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. And I've
12 conducted extensive research in the development
13 of appropriate cleaning agents and techniques to
14 remove orimulsion and heavy fuels from birds.
15 Governor Chiles and members of the Cabinet,
16 what you saw earlier in that tape demonstrating
17 the inability to clean impacted wildlife is
18 simply wrong. There is nothing experimental
19 about removing heavy fuels from wildlife. The
20 80 percent release rate from the 1993 spill is a
21 tribute to the effectiveness of our cleaning
22 agents and methodologies. For we were dealing
23 with a very heavy weathered number 6, those of
24 you who remember.
25 I know because I was there. I was in
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1 charge of all the wildlife cleaning protocols.
2 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
3 room.)
4 MR. GAUVRY: I trained Mrs. Fox in 1992 and
5 all of her people, and I trained her people
6 during the whole 1993 spill that we're talking
7 about.
8 Frankly, I am puzzled as to why she did not
9 use in the test that she showed and the tape
10 that you witnessed earlier, the cleaning agents
11 and methods that she was already -- has already
12 learned, and has informed me just the other day
13 when I did a demonstration for the press, that
14 she continues to use, including the agent that
15 she mentioned, D-limonene, which, by the way, is
16 an FDA food grade citrus product, and it's only
17 one of several tools that we use when we try to
18 remove heavy fuel oils and orimulsion.
19 Orimulsion is not unique in this regard.
20 All of the research that I have conducted
21 to date on orimulsion, and all of my experience
22 from the 35 spills, and thousands of animals
23 that I have cleaned, many involving heavy fuels,
24 most involving weathered products, indicate that
25 we have sound cleaning agents and techniques to
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1 remove orimulsion from birds.
2 In fact, as Dr. Harwell earlier indicated,
3 there will be fewer surface dwelling animals
4 impacted from orimulsion than number 6, because
5 of its dispersion properties.
6 And this will result in fewer birds being
7 impacted, a less dense accumulation on their
8 feathers, and a much easier job for the
9 people --
10 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
11 room.)
12 MR. GAUVRY: -- who are trying to move that
13 concentration. I demonstrated this yesterday
14 for your Aides, and I gave them all a copy of
15 the tape of that demonstration for later
16 review.
17 Bottom line, we have effective tools to
18 remove orimulsion from avian feather structures,
19 just as we do for any other heavy fuel product
20 or weathered product.
21 Thank you very much for hearing me out.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
23 MR. SCHUCK: Governor Chiles, members of
24 the Cabinet, good afternoon.
25 My name is Carl Schuck, and I would like to
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1 thank you, first of all, for the opportunity to
2 appear before you today in support of FP&L's
3 application to convert Parrish generating plant
4 to orimulsion.
5 I would like to point out that I'm not
6 employed by, nor an investor in, Florida Power &
7 Light. I'm an electrical engineer by
8 profession, and this technical background has
9 helped me understand some of the issues involved
10 in this conversion project.
11 My wife and I have been full-time residents
12 of Manatee County, District 1, for the past
13 nine years. We were extremely fortunate to have
14 our home on Terra Ceia Bay, which has been
15 designated as a Florida Outstanding Water.
16 Our concern for the environment in which we
17 live, work, and play is very keen.
18 We certainly wouldn't favor FP&L's project
19 if we were in -- in the least felt that we were
20 unduly hazarded by this project to our beautiful
21 environment.
22 It is out of my environmental concern that
23 I became interested in this project, and have
24 continued to follow it over the several -- over
25 previously several years.
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1 I have requested from Florida Power &
2 Light, and they have provided me a copy of the
3 Gluckman & Gluckman report, which I am told you
4 are all very familiar.
5 Based on the -- excuse me.
6 (Comptroller Milligan exited the room.)
7 MR. SCHUCK: Based on the Gluckman
8 findings, I believe that we have a unique
9 opportunity to secure many significant
10 environmental gains with very little negative
11 impact.
12 The opponents' case against Florida Power &
13 Light's project is of negligible substance.
14 Their opposition plays on our emotions, and
15 attempts to divert our attention away from the
16 many facts supporting this project.
17 Like an aroma wafting out of the kitchen,
18 you can sense it, but you can't grasp it. If
19 this project does not receive approval, the
20 Tampa Bay area will suffer from the loss of
21 reduced air pollution, the loss of greatly
22 enhanced transportation safety for all of
23 Tampa Bay's shipping, and loss of reduced risk
24 of an oil spill.
25 There are also significant economic
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1 benefits that would be forfeited as well.
2 In conclusion, I strongly urge you to
3 approve Florida Power & Light's orimulsion
4 conversion project to significantly reduce air
5 pollution, to greatly improve safety for all of
6 Tampa Bay's shipping, to provide for the
7 improvement of the Tampa Bay ecosystem, and to
8 strengthen our local and state economies, and
9 bolster Florida's industry.
10 (Comptroller Milligan entered the room.)
11 MR. SCHUCK: I thank you for your time and
12 consideration.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
14 MR. GREEN: The next three speakers are
15 Steve Tirey, John Schantzen, and Mike Hofer.
16 MR. SHARY: Mr. Governor and Cabinet
17 members, my name is Joe Shary. I'm a Tampa Bay
18 harbor pilot, a member of the Pilot's
19 Association.
20 And in my business, as well, the safe
21 movement of ships is the bottom line. The
22 requirements orimulsion would have to abide by
23 enhances safety and the safe movement of ships,
24 mainly through the use of double hulls and the
25 safety zones that have been already described by
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1 Captains Basel and Holt. In my mind, there's no
2 doubt about this.
3 The Tampa Bay pilots are happy to endorse
4 the Orimulsion Marine Transportation Safety Plan
5 which contain these safety measures.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. TIREY: Governor Chiles, members of the
8 Cabinet, good day. My name is Steven Tirey.
9 I'm the President and the Chief Executive
10 Officer of the Chamber of Southwest Florida.
11 The Chamber of Southwest Florida is a regional
12 business membership organization with offices in
13 Fort Myers, Florida.
14 Our nearly 600 members represent leading
15 companies in the southwest Florida region. Our
16 member's interests in responsible growth and
17 economic development in the region are coupled
18 with a strong commitment to balance the
19 management, conservation, and preservation of
20 our natural environment.
21 This unique blend of economic vitality and
22 environmental quality are hallmarks of the
23 overall quality of life we are working to build
24 and to maintain in our region of Florida.
25 I am speaking today in favor of the planned
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1 improvements of the current Florida Power &
2 Light Manatee plant. It's apparent, upon review
3 of the data, and testimony of many qualified
4 experts, that the planned improvements resulting
5 in the use of orimulsion as the source of power
6 for this facility is a good environmental, and a
7 good economic, decision for our state and our
8 region.
9 This improvement is beneficial to the
10 customers of Florida Power & Light, as well as
11 the balance of Florida's citizens. My comments
12 today center on key economic and environmental
13 considerations supporting your decision to
14 approve this new development.
15 The positive economic benefits are
16 significant. The value of improvements to the
17 capital infrastructure of the FP&L Manatee plant
18 is considerable. The additional taxable value
19 of planned improvements will add hundreds of
20 millions of dollars of new construction to the
21 tax rolls.
22 Additional jobs and payrolls estimated to
23 be in the millions of dollars will be generated
24 as a result of these improvements.
25 Additionally, contributions to the Parrish
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1 community with the establishment of a Community
2 Assistance Trust Fund, and a second trust fund
3 to be used for the environmental enhancement and
4 sustainability of Tampa Bay, are long-term
5 enhancements to the environmental infrastructure
6 of the region.
7 Lower electricity costs are an important
8 by-product of this conversion to orimulsion.
9 Lower electricity costs benefit all consumers of
10 the FP&L service area.
11 Lower electricity costs improve the costs,
12 competitive position of our southwest Florida
13 communities in our efforts to expand existing
14 companies and attract new business and industry,
15 and create jobs for our citizens.
16 The environmental improvements benefit
17 all. A cleaner environment is a worthy
18 objective for Florida and the southwest region.
19 The economic underpinnings of our economy depend
20 on a sound environment. Tourism that is growing
21 beyond domestic to international prominence
22 depends on a high quality natural environment.
23 The environment that attracts our visitors
24 also serves to attract and expand business and
25 create jobs.
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1 The fabulous quality of life available to
2 southwest Florida's working citizens depends on
3 continued commitment to an outstanding natural
4 environment.
5 This project demonstrates the ability of
6 the private and public sectors working together
7 to ensure a balance for our citizens.
8 On behalf of business in southwest Florida,
9 let me urge you to be leaders. Let me urge you
10 to approve the application and move this project
11 forward today.
12 Your support represents an important
13 commitment to our environment, our economy, and
14 our future.
15 Thank you.
16 MR. GREEN: The next three speakers are
17 Mike Shiro, Betty Taylor, and John Hubbard.
18 MR. SCHANTZEN: Good afternoon, Governor --
19 Governor and Cabinet. I am John Schantzen. I
20 am the business manager, the representative duly
21 elected by the employees of Florida Power &
22 Light.
23 I represent some 3500 employees around the
24 state, out of the company's 10,000 employees. I
25 do represent the employees of this plant who
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1 operate and maintain this plant and are proud of
2 their excellent environmental record.
3 As a matter of fact, I'm proud of the
4 Florida Power & Light environmental record. We
5 have made many sanctuaries; the company has made
6 recreational areas of their cooling lakes; they
7 have reclaimed land where previous power plants
8 existed; and made parks, and donated that
9 property to the State of Florida and to the
10 communities in which they reside.
11 Our employees, our members reside in these
12 same communities.
13 Their children grow up in the same
14 communities. They do have concern for the
15 environment. Florida Power & Light has said
16 that they will live to the spirit of the
17 environmental regulations, not only to the law.
18 They require that of the employees, and it
19 is a condition of employment that we do live to
20 the spirit of environmental regulation.
21 As a matter of fact, they have put some
22 teeth in that, in that their officers and
23 managers have at risk pay, their compensation,
24 if they cannot live to environmental excellence.
25 But my largest concern is concerns of
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1 jobs. Not only jobs of the membership that I
2 represent, because most definitely as employees
3 of Florida Power & Light, they do have their
4 jobs at risk. But the jobs in transportation,
5 environmental compliance, shipping,
6 construction, manufacturing, and in-service
7 sector, and electrician -- electric production
8 are at stake.
9 These jobs are needed to absorb those who
10 are unemployed and those joining the work force
11 from the welfare rolls.
12 Are these jobs going to go to Georgia,
13 Alabama, Mississippi, because they will be the
14 ones to have the low cost production of
15 electricity, be it through coal, or be it
16 through orimulsion?
17 Are they going to get the gross receipts
18 tax, are they going to get the real estate
19 improvement taxes that is going to be from such
20 a project? Because we do not want to be the
21 first in the United States -- not the first in
22 the world, because others are using the product.
23 Some of these jobs that I am looking for
24 are paying better than $50,000 a year. Those
25 are jobs that we should treasure.
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1 The consumers not only of Florida Power &
2 Light will save, but because of the Florida --
3 Florida broker system, all the consumers in the
4 state of Florida would save in the lower cost
5 electricity. Because of the broker system, the
6 plant that produces the cheapest, of course,
7 comes on the line, and that way all the
8 consumers in the state of Florida do save.
9 We've heard a lot relative to facts, we've
10 heard a lot relative to emotion. Look at who
11 are those that are against from corporate
12 standpoint. Are the coal companies against it,
13 most certainly; are the oil companies against
14 it, most certainly; are the railroad
15 transportation who handles the coal across this
16 nation against it, most certainly.
17 Because competition, which deregulation in
18 the electrical industry is going to bring about,
19 threatens them, and this threatens our jobs, and
20 we do have a concern for that.
21 Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
23 MR. HOFER: Thank you, Governor Chiles, and
24 members of the Cabinet. I'll try to be as brief
25 as I can and move this along.
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1 My name is Michael Joseph Hofer, II. I'm a
2 resident of Ellington in Manatee County. I've
3 lived in northern Manatee County and southern
4 Hillsborough County for more than 20 years.
5 As I was sitting back there earlier, and
6 Commissioner Nelson had a question concerning
7 the -- the clarity to try to clear up the
8 question of savings on the Space Coast, it's my
9 understanding that the 5 percent savings would
10 be to all FP&L customers, not only the west
11 coast customers served by Manatee plant, but
12 everybody in FP&L's system.
13 I don't know whether that answers your
14 question. But from a layman's point of view,
15 that's the way I understand it.
16 It feels that those of us that support the
17 orimulsion project are being labeled as not
18 caring about the environment, and the health and
19 welfare of the state, people of the state of
20 Florida. This is not true.
21 Whether I work for Florida Power & Light or
22 not, we still reside in Hillsborough, Manatee,
23 and Sarasota Counties. Our families still
24 breathe the same air, drink the same water, and
25 use the same beaches as those who oppose the
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1 orimulsion project.
2 My wife; my mother, who is eighty-two years
3 old and lives in District 1 in Manatee County;
4 and I, all live within 15 miles of Manatee
5 plant.
6 It doesn't make a bit of difference if I
7 work for Florida Power & Light or not. If I did
8 not believe this project was of environmental
9 and health benefit, I would not be here
10 expressing my support for the project.
11 I do not know how active those who oppose
12 the project have been in the areas of
13 environment, health and welfare of the Tampa Bay
14 area. I myself have been involved for more than
15 20 years in various ways to try to ensure that
16 the waters that are discharged into Parrish Lake
17 are the best that they can be, and that the
18 discharge from the stacks at Manatee plant are
19 within conditions of the permit.
20 I have also been involved in cleanup
21 benefits in Tampa Bay, tributaries of
22 Manatee River, and Little Manatee River.
23 In the area of health and welfare, I've
24 been a first aid CPR instructor in
25 Manatee County for more than 15 years. I
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1 have -- another employee and myself have
2 provided CPR and first aid instruction to
3 various groups in Manatee County, including the
4 Special Olympics coaches, and the employees of a
5 day care center in Parrish.
6 For these reasons, I take personal
7 exception to the perception that those of us
8 that support the orimulsion project do not care
9 about the environment and health and welfare of
10 the people of the state of Florida.
11 In fact, for the very reasons that I have
12 stated, I do believe that we should, at this
13 time, approve the project and move on, and allow
14 us to have cleaner, better air and better water
15 in the Tampa Bay area.
16 Thank you very much.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
18 MR. SCHIRO: Good afternoon, Governor,
19 members of the Cabinet. I'll keep my remarks
20 brief.
21 My name is Michael Schiro, a retired
22 Coast Guard Captain with 30 years of experience
23 in marine safety. I've been involved in
24 enforcing and protecting the safety of the
25 marine environment.
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1 I'm a native of Tampa, former Captain of
2 the Port of Tampa, and I'm an expert in marine
3 casualities and resultant spills in Tampa Bay.
4 My first exposure to a large oil spill was
5 the Delian Apollon on Friday the 13th,
6 8:00 o'clock in the morning, February 1970,
7 which is the oil spill that Senator Crist was
8 speaking of.
9 The reason that that spill was worse than
10 the spill in '93 was because the -- it occurred
11 in upper Tampa Bay. It was the same type of
12 product, it was a black oil, a heavy oil; and it
13 was a Greek tanker that ran aground in the
14 morning in the fog.
15 The resultant spill, since we didn't have
16 at that time the technology to recover oil on
17 the open water, was flushed back and forth in
18 the bay for about five days until it was either
19 grounded on St. Pete -- and that's where most of
20 the oil usually goes when you have a spill in
21 Tampa Bay -- or on the beaches in the Gulf.
22 The technology that we had at that time --
23 or the state of the art of cleanup, was hay and
24 pitchforks. And we've come a long way since
25 then. And I can understand why St. Pete is
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1 concerned about a spill in Tampa Bay.
2 The only good spill is no spill. And the
3 only way to react -- or deal with spills is
4 prevention. And we don't need to have more
5 spills, we need to have less.
6 And the way to decrease risks is what
7 Florida & Power has done with their safety plan,
8 emphasizing safety.
9 With their plan -- with the constraints in
10 their plan, the spill that occurred in the
11 Delian Apollon would not have happened. Double
12 hulls would have prevented that accident from
13 happening. We would not have that spill.
14 The spill in '93 would not have occurred
15 because of the safety zone that the Coast Guard
16 is going to enforce.
17 Collision is the biggest factor we have to
18 be concerned about in transporting products with
19 a double hulled vessel.
20 Orimulsion will lend to an overall decline
21 in spill risks in Tampa Bay, mainly by replacing
22 the black oil that is being transported in
23 single hulled vessels with orimulsion which --
24 which is being transported in double hull
25 vessels.
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1 So St. Pete can rest assured that by using
2 orimulsion and transporting it, we will be
3 reducing the threat to the St. Pete beaches, as
4 well as the other beaches in the Bay.
5 I recommend that you approve FP&L's request
6 for use of orimulsion.
7 Thank you.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
9 MS. TAYLOR: Governor and members of the
10 Cabinet, I thank you for letting me be here.
11 I'm just an ordinary person. My name is
12 Betty Cook Taylor.
13 I moved to Florida in 1946 to be a teacher
14 in the schools here. I later married a native
15 Floridian, and now our grandchildren are fifth
16 generation native Floridians. And it's because
17 of them that I'm here.
18 I approve of use of orimulsion. I have
19 read pros and cons as far as the economics, as
20 far as the environment, the use of Tampa Bay,
21 and the roads.
22 I am in favor of it.
23 I know what the other countries are doing,
24 how they have accepted it, and how they're using
25 it. And there, too, I'm in favor of our using
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1 it.
2 I thank you for your attention. I hope you
3 will agree with me. Thank you.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, ma'am.
5 MR. GREEN: Jerry Bishop will be the next
6 speaker.
7 MR. HUBBARD: Mr. Governor, members of the
8 Cabinet, my name is John Hubbard, and I've lived
9 in Manatee County for over 23 years. I own my
10 own business, Bradenton Access and Alarm, in
11 Bradenton.
12 I am here today because I am concerned that
13 we are at risk of losing the benefits that
14 orimulsion will bring to Manatee County
15 residents and the business community in
16 Bradenton.
17 From the environment viewpoint, I believe
18 what Florida Power & Light has said in their
19 recent ads, that they will reduce air pollution
20 in my county, that they will lower our
21 electricity costs, that they will provide a
22 cleaner and safer bay, that the Power Plant
23 Siting Act is the right mechanism for this
24 project. Otherwise, we could never build
25 another plant in the state of Florida.
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1 I remember only too well the oil embargo of
2 the 1970s, and what it did to our electricity
3 rates and the impacts on business and industry
4 in this nation.
5 I have been told that orimulsion is not a
6 subject of OPEC. What a great opportunity that
7 is for this nation.
8 It is my understanding that orimulsion will
9 be burned cleaner and reduce emissions from what
10 FP&L is currently doing.
11 How can anybody be opposed to that? It is
12 my understanding that the proposed shipping plan
13 is true -- truly on the cutting edge, and will
14 bring new worldwide emphasis on safer ocean
15 shipping. How can anyone be opposed to that?
16 In fact, I have heard nothing that when
17 subjected to logical thought would not call for
18 approval of orimulsion in my community, and I
19 urge you to approve this project.
20 If there is a risk, it is to Florida Power
21 & Light. If they cannot do as they have
22 promised us they will, my county will see to it
23 that they are not allowed to continue to burn
24 this. And so will your DEP.
25 Let's just do it for the environment and
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1 economic benefits that we will gain.
2 Thank you for the opportunity to speak
3 today.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
5 MR. GREEN: Ed Swindle, and then
6 Jerry Bishop.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: How many more do we have
8 now?
9 MR. GREEN: Two after these last -- these
10 two, and then two more.
11 MR. SWINDLE: Governor and fellow Cabinet
12 members, my name is Ed Swindle. I'm President
13 of Energy Services. We are an installation and
14 boiler and lightning contractor. And we also
15 are in the asbestos abatement and land abatement
16 business, which makes us very sensitive to all
17 environmental issues.
18 We have been in the contractor business for
19 47 years. And we have worked for every power
20 company in the state --
21 (Secretary Mortham exited the room.)
22 MR. SWINDLE: -- of Florida; and in every
23 power plant in the state of Florida, including
24 the ones here in Tallahassee.
25 We would say beyond a shadow of a doubt,
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1 after working 35 years with Florida Power &
2 Light, that they have the most conscious and
3 strong safety department in any environmental --
4 environmental department as any company that we
5 work with. Regardless of how small or how large
6 the job is, they never sacrifice either one of
7 them.
8 And a prime example of that was back when
9 they had -- Hurricane Andrew came into south
10 Florida and severely damaged Florida Power &
11 Light's Turkey Point plant. It created a
12 massive cleanup restoring job to this particular
13 plant.
14 But regardless of how critical the path
15 was, or how critical these units was, there was
16 no work could be done until we formulated a plan
17 showing how we was going to guarantee the safety
18 of each individual, as well as the environment,
19 and presenting that to FP&L before they would
20 even consider starting any type of work on this
21 particular plant.
22 And regardless of all the major critical
23 path, and the damage to this plant, this job was
24 completed without any major accidents, and
25 without any environmental regulation
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1 violations.
2 I would say beyond a doubt that
3 Florida Power has been up-front and honest in
4 every dealings, especially the environmental
5 dealings.
6 And, Governor and Cabinet, I have a wife of
7 47 years, two sons, two daughter-in-laws, four
8 grandkids, and we're expecting our first great
9 grandchild in December. And no way would we be
10 a part of recommending anything that would
11 affect these people, or any other resident of
12 the state of Florida.
13 Thank you.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
15 MR. BISHOP: Good evening.
16 Governor Chiles, and members of the
17 Cabinet, my name is Jerry Bishop. I'm a Florida
18 cracker for over 48 years, and been around a
19 long time, fifth generation family. Been a
20 resident of Manatee County for over 20 years.
21 I've worked with FP&L for about 21 years.
22 And -- as a mechanic. And no matter what
23 decision is made today, I will lose my present
24 position just due to the restructuring. So I
25 have no benefit for doing this, other than what
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1 I really truly believe and feel.
2 Florida Power & Light didn't ask me to
3 speak. I asked them. Not only did I ask them
4 to speak for my family and for the fellow
5 workers that I work with each day.
6 The employees of the Manatee plant, none of
7 them -- none of us at all feel that
8 Florida Power & Light would risk our health, or
9 anything that -- of our environment. And we
10 truly believe that.
11 Many of the employees have volunteered to
12 do many things to help protect our environment.
13 We've all been into the great Tampa Bay scallop
14 search with Peter Clark, annual coastal
15 cleanups, adopt a highway program, Little
16 Manatee River cleanups, just a few to mention.
17 And we're talking about us as citizens, our
18 families, and everything has been committed to
19 make sure that we do the best for our
20 environment, which says a lot.
21 Most of you may not even remember back
22 years ago -- and even myself, I did a little
23 research myself -- that years ago, the state of
24 Florida didn't -- or wasn't able to even make
25 their payroll. And this is back some odd
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1 50 years.
2 Florida Power & Light stood out and paid a
3 year's taxes in advance to help out with that
4 payroll. And I'll tell you something, that
5 makes me mighty proud.
6 We've had a lot of opposition against FP&L,
7 who we are, and what we're doing. And I'm
8 telling you right now, the employees -- all the
9 employees, including myself, and our families,
10 we're tired of it. All we want to do is be
11 listened to, and be treated like anyone else is,
12 because we are a citizen.
13 FP&L is trying to carry us -- run us
14 through the 21st century with a new fuel and
15 up-to-date technology. What would happen if we
16 would have stopped people like Edison, Ford, and
17 other great forward thinking people? To me,
18 that is something to be said. We can't afford
19 not to be forward thinking.
20 Our country has been a world leader in new
21 technologies, and that has -- that is what's
22 made us so great. I think all of us can realize
23 that, or we wouldn't be where we're at today.
24 So I ask you today to stop Florida -- or
25 to -- not to stop Florida from being a leader in
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1 today's competitive market.
2 The State and the County and the
3 environment will prosper from the orimulsion.
4 If this Cabinet thinks that we need guidelines
5 and stipulations to govern this new technology,
6 then we ask you, please do so. But don't hold
7 us back.
8 We believe that FP&L has every intention to
9 make orimulsion, coupled with the new
10 technology, as safe, or better, for the
11 environment than the new fuel -- or the fuels
12 that we're presently using. And we do believe
13 that.
14 There's a lot of the employees that
15 couldn't be here today, and I'm telling you now,
16 we all feel the same. We don't have anything in
17 our heart that we believe that this company
18 would be trying to do something wrong that would
19 hurt our environment.
20 We may hear and see a lot more than the
21 normal people that's out in the counties and the
22 state, but we make it our decision to do so, to
23 make sure that we're abreast of what's happening
24 and what's going on.
25 We don't say that Florida Power & Light
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1 does everything correct, but I'll assure you one
2 thing, for what they have done, we stand behind
3 them 100 percent.
4 Thank you.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
6 MR. GREEN: Wade Hopping.
7 MR. HOPPING: There's one more after me.
8 It's been a long day, and you all have been most
9 patient, and you've heard both sides.
10 But I want to make three quick points that
11 are really based on questions that were sort of
12 asked by members of the Board as we went along.
13 The first is, what's the posture of the
14 case right now? Well, as Perry Odom told you,
15 the holding of the District Court of Appeal was
16 clear, simple, and concise. Your previous order
17 was vacated. It's gone.
18 And the case was remanded, sent back to
19 you, for -- and I quote -- entry of a final
20 order comporting with the requirements of the
21 Administrative Procedures Act. Court said that
22 twice in this opinion. That's the real holding
23 of the case.
24 So, in other words, you have in front of
25 you now, and the only thing you have in front of
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1 you, is the recommended order of the
2 hearing officer based on the certification
3 hearing and all that long process he went
4 through, and his recommendations. That's what
5 you have in front of you. You're free to make
6 motions on that issue and act.
7 The second point I want to make is, you've
8 heard a lot today. What I tell you, what Peter
9 tells you, what the Captain tells you, what
10 Tom Reese tells you, what all these folks in the
11 audience tells you is very important; but it is
12 neither testimony, nor is it evidence.
13 It's, in essence, argument, because the
14 record's closed. The record was closed after
15 the hearing.
16 By the way, that's what the Power Plant
17 Siting Act is about. We give people at those
18 hearings adequate opportunity to both appear as
19 parties. It's very easy to appear as a party.
20 And we give them adequate opportunity to
21 comment. They don't even have to be sworn.
22 They can comment.
23 So the hearing officer heard a lot of this
24 stuff, too. So what you are hearing today is
25 not evidence, it's arguments from the parties,
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1 as well as comment by interested groups and
2 individuals. And that includes me.
3 The last point I think I'd make is:
4 There's been some question raised about your
5 ability to put conditions on whether -- and
6 under what circumstances you can put conditions
7 on that are different or in addition to.
8 And I've looked at the law, and it's my
9 opinion -- and that's argument, too -- it is my
10 opinion that you can do this for a number of
11 reasons, provided the new conditions don't
12 conflict with specific findings of the
13 hearing officer's recommended order, or the
14 law. That's the first criteria.
15 The second criteria is that the conditions
16 must be in furtherance of applicable statutory
17 criteria. And in this case, you look at one
18 section of the statute, 403.5175(4). In other
19 words, do the new conditions -- we couldn't add
20 new conditions that lead to violation of any
21 agency standard or any statutory criteria.
22 The new conditions, when you look at that
23 statutory provision, should better protect the
24 environment.
25 And the -- and what's known as the broad
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1 public interests.
2 The new conditions cannot be arbitrary or
3 capricious, and it's important that they be
4 agreed to by the person they're binding. And
5 the new condition should result in environmental
6 and other benefits.
7 In this case, the new commitments achieve a
8 better environmental result; better protect the
9 air, the Bay, and the neighbors; they move
10 closer to what the party opponents requested at
11 the hearing; they achieved environmental
12 protection greater than the hearing officer or
13 the agencies required; and they're not
14 inconsistent with the hearing officer's order,
15 which my partner will speak to.
16 I can't find anything in the new APA, the
17 case law, or the Power Plant Siting Act, or
18 403.5175 that precludes you from incorporating
19 these commitments as conditions. And from
20 making them enforceable.
21 And by the way, that argument is one I'm --
22 have trouble making, because I'm usually up here
23 arguing to you that, wait a minute, you can't do
24 this. But I went back and looked at the law,
25 and if you meet the criteria I stated before,
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1 you can do it. And as a matter of fact, you've
2 done it before.
3 You've done it in at least six Power Plant
4 Siting Act cases and Transmission Line Siting
5 Act cases, and at least one FLAWAC case which
6 involved Chapter 380.
7 And so I would say to you that you ought to
8 be careful here and not establish a policy that
9 says, hey, I can't impose new conditions without
10 a remand. I just think you need to be careful
11 what those conditions are, and they need to --
12 to fit and not be in contradiction to anything
13 the hearing officer puts forward, and be in
14 furtherance of the statutory criteria, which is
15 very simple. If you want somebody to read it to
16 you, it's very simple.
17 If you decide you never can add a condition
18 without remand in an APA case, you will
19 foreclose your ability to really improve
20 projects as you have done in the past.
21 And -- and also, if you do that, you tend
22 to make a mockery of the -- the conditions of
23 the way the statute's written. You'll unduly
24 undercut your ability to exercise common sense
25 discretion in future cases.
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1 I guess the only other comment I'd make to
2 you is, I've heard some rumor about remand,
3 and -- and I won't sit here and inveigh against
4 remanding or not remanding. That's a
5 discretionary matter. That's what you all have
6 to decide.
7 But in a case -- just remember that if you
8 do remand, it'll be back here.
9 You're going to do this again. Okay?
10 You're going to do this again.
11 And you ought to keep that in mind.
12 It may not be a good Christmas present, or
13 a Thanksgiving turkey.
14 MR. GREEN: Peter Cunningham.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: How many times are we
16 going to close?
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM: This is it, Governor.
18 I'll be brief. I know it's been a long day.
19 I think it's impossible not to be impressed
20 by the sincerity of many of the speakers who
21 spoke against this project. But they are
22 sincerely misinformed and --
23 As a result of a sophisticated campaign of
24 disinformation, they've gotten to the point that
25 their concerns reflect totally false and
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1 distorted notions that are completely contrary
2 to the truth. And you heard many of these.
3 And I can only represent to you that when
4 people say they're concerned about more air
5 emissions, they should be for the project. The
6 project will result in less. If they want a
7 safer Bay, the project provides that.
8 They talk about profits to FPL. There are
9 no profits. All these savings -- and this
10 illustrates my point.
11 The record is clear. You heard the
12 statement of the president of the company. All
13 of the savings owed to the customers.
14 MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: What savings?
15 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The ultimate example I
16 think was this bird video that
17 Commissioner Stein showed you. It's totally
18 misleading.
19 And for me, the most discouraging and
20 disheartening thing in this whole process has
21 been this campaign of misinformation and fear
22 mongering.
23 But putting that aside, the basic facts of
24 this case are legally beyond dispute. They were
25 tried with witnesses under oath, subject to
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1 cross-examination; the hearing officer
2 considered all the evidence; and he found the
3 project will make things better. The project
4 meets all of the statutory criteria, with or
5 without any additional conditions.
6 I would suggest that the law clearly
7 supports approval. And it is supple enough, it
8 is flexible enough to allow the Board to require
9 a better project, if that is your choice.
10 I would simply recommend to you that this
11 project meets Wade Hopping's four-point test
12 that he explained in terms of these additional
13 conditions. They do not conflict with the
14 record.
15 In any event, these conditions are better
16 on their face, the additional conditions,
17 including those suggested by
18 Comptroller Milligan's staff, and no new
19 evidence is legally necessary.
20 But since the -- the only rationale I can
21 understand for people suggesting that you
22 shouldn't consider these new conditions is that,
23 well, we're not sure that FPL can or will comply
24 with them.
25 And to take this off the table, I will
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1 hereby stipulate that Florida Power & Light
2 waives its right to seek modification of the
3 site certification to increase the NOx limits
4 that we've put in the additional conditions, to
5 increase the particulate matter limits that we
6 put in those conditions, or to change the limits
7 on trucking.
8 A vote for approval is a vote for cleaner
9 air, a safer bay, and less expensive power. We
10 can freeze ourselves out of fear of change, even
11 out of fear of change to something better, and
12 stay on the pathway of the past.
13 Or we can seize the opportunity to make a
14 change that clearly benefits both the
15 environment, human health, and the State's
16 economy.
17 The choice is obviously yours. I simply
18 ask that you make it based on the facts.
19 And on a very last point, while you don't
20 need them in my view, if you do want more facts,
21 evidentiary fact finding, I would suggest you
22 certainly can remand this case.
23 Only Mr. Reese, to my knowledge, has argued
24 that you can't remand. Yet he cites no legal
25 authority for that proposition.
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1 And