The impact of global warming in South Florida is particularly daunting, as a sea level rise of between 3 and 5 feet has been predicted by the end of this century in the newest information coming from global warming scientists. Stopping that rise in sea level, through the limiting of greenhouse gasses, was one of the objectives of the demonstration. A catastrophic rise in sea level of that magnitude would literally swamp much of South Florida. Droughts, wildfires, and category 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes are already a fact of life here.
The power plant being built by Florida Power & Light will release 12.3 tons of carbon dioxide a year into an atmosphere already drenched and laden with global greenhouse gasses, and inject an astounding 13.5 million gallons of contaminated cooling water a day “into underground aquifers and allow it to seep into water bodies,” according to Dr. Sydney Bacchus, a hydroecologist, who testified in defense of the protesters at their trial.
In an interview, Dr. Bacchus elaborated on her expert testimony at the trial of the environmentalists. She said that the effects of the “water withdrawals from the aquifers will be catastrophic.” She described the ill effects on both the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and The Corbett Wildlife Management Area. Dr. Bacchus said, “It will kill native wetland species…particularly cypress trees.” The trees that are killed will create a “huge greenhouse gas release and impact global warming,” as the trees in the areas where the power plant is being built are the “largest carbon storage units.” In other words, the trees killed by the massive water withdrawal used in the power plant will in turn release additional amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further accelerating global warming. She compared the “dewatering” of that area as similar to drinking a slushy with a straw, dramatically lowering the area’s aquifers.
During the trial, Dr. John Van Leer, an oceanographer at the University of Miami with forty years of scientific experience testified about the role of greenhouse gasses that will be released by burning fossil fuel at the power station. He stated that greenhouse gasses are expanding the volume of the sea through the melting of the ice caps at both poles and glaciers in places such as Greenland. He predicted an estimated rise in sea level of between 3 and 5 feet by the year 2100, a figure that is in keeping with the predictions of NASA scientist James E. Hanson, well known for his estimates of sea level changes from global warming. The predicted sea level rise would cover all of South Florida up to the north shore of Lake Okeechobee. Dr. Van Leer’s predictions of sea rise will also have a disastrous and profound effect on water supplies in places like South Florida, inundating them with saltwater.
Most alarming during the trial was Dr. Van Leer’s testimony of the direct link between the burning of natural gas at the West County Energy Center and the increase in greenhouse gasses. He noted the psychological impact of building a fossil fuel power plant while expecting countries like China to rein in their emissions. He also noted the waste of energy in the U.S. that consumes twice as much energy per capita as does Europe.
Van Leer sounded hopeful about Governor Crist’s pursuit of a bi-partisan model of energy use that is law in California. With similar laws, Florida would not need any new power plants. Also, a hopeful sign in energy use is Florida’s shrinking population, which will in turn lead to decreased demand for electricity. In his final statements for the defense, Van Leer noted the seriousness of the global warming threat. He likened that threat to a “heart attack,” but “slower. “ He added that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for about two hundred years. During cross-examination, the state prosecutor attempted to partially discredit Van Leer’s testimony by getting him to testify that the predictions of a huge sea level would not materialize in the short term.
I spoke with Lynne Purvis just a few days after she was released from the Palm Beach County Jail. She had been imprisoned for taking part in the power plant protest. She spoke about the recurring droughts that are a fact of life in South Florida, and how “I’m often not allowed to water my vegetable garden, but Florida Power & Light will be able to use millions of gallons a day of water in the new power plant.” Purvis discussed her concern for the huge amounts of carbon dioxide that the plant will spew into the atmosphere hastening an already alarming rise in greenhouse gasses and accelerating global warming.
In terms of the restoration of the Everglades (an ongoing project), Purvis stated, “How can the area be restored if a polluter like Florida Power &Light is out there?” Like Dr. J. William Louda, a senior scientist in environmental chemistry at Florida Atlantic University who testified at the activists’ trial, who I also interviewed, Purvis noted that the “power plant will be within 1,000 feet of the Everglades swampland.” She was critical of so-called experts from the Fish and Wildlife Commission and Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection who disregarded expert testimony during the process of granting permits to enable the building of the power plant.
During the past election cycle, Florida Power & Light contributed a whopping $500,000 to Governor Charlie Crist’s campaign to encourage voters across the state to endorse Amendment 1, which reduced property taxes in Florida. My e-mails to the governor, asking for comment on that contribution, went unanswered. The latter is similar to power industry lobbyists in Tallahassee who “assist” lawmakers in writing laws facilitating the construction of power plants in the state.
Purvis commented on trial Judge Laura Johnson and the judicial system in general. She noted that, “serious criminals can walk away with less punishment” than both she and her co-defendant Panagioti Tsolkas received for their acts of civil disobedience. Of the judge and prosecutor’s reaction to the issue of civil disobedience, Purvis said, “their careers are built on a belief in the system without questioning it.” On her use of the “necessity defense,” which holds that a law should be broken to stop a greater evil, “they disregarded that defense.” She believes that they enforced the letter of the law while abandoning its spirit and the history of the respect for acts of civil disobedience in the U.S.
Purvis discussed her views on anarchism as it related to the power plant, her trial, and imprisonment. “Law is a system to make things more convenient. Laws should not supersede an individual’s conscience.” She believes that the laws she broke, “we never agreed to abide to, but we’re expected to abide by them.”
Purvis felt that she was treated like other prisoners in the county jail. She felt that prisoners, most awaiting trial on various charges, were treated as if they had already been convicted of crimes for which they had been charged. On one occasion, while in jail, she had the rules of the jail snatched out of her hands when she asked that she be given time to read them before signing a statement that she would agree to abide by them.
A major focus of the trial was the $21,000 that the county assessed the protesters for the cost of policing and cleanup of the demonstration. Purvis believes that the fine “doesn’t hold up legally.” Indeed, in two separate trials of other protesters from the same demonstration, Judge Barry Cohen ruled against imposing the $21,000 fine, saying, according to Purvis, that the fine was a “discouragement of civil disobedience.” She observed that, “Corporations don’t get charged for these kinds of things” (like damaging the environment). She is concerned that being on probation, after her sentence was served, prevents her from taking part in future demonstrations.
I interviewed Dr. J. William Louda, a senior scientist at Florida Atlantic University in environmental chemistry, about the effects of the power plant. Dr. Louda puts the figure of spent wastewater at 22.5 million gallons a day in the form of a concentrate, which will be injected into deep wells beneath the power station, that can migrate between the various aquifers in the vicinity of the power plant and end up in drinking water supplies. Dr. Louda stated that the water injected into deep wells in the aquifers are within 1,000 feet of the aquifers of the Everglades. He noted that this huge amount of tainted effluent needs to be factored in when considering the enormous cost and scope of the plan to revitalize the Everglades called the Everglades Restoration Project. When interviewed for this article, Dr. Louda referred to the effects of the power plant as a “Pandora’s box of things being done wrong.”
Astonishingly, regarding the problem with wastewater deep-well injection, one scientist, Thomas Missimer, who has represented Florida Power & Light, co-authored an article in Hydrogeology Journal titled “Vertical migration of municipal wastewater in deep injection well systems, South Florida, USA.” (24 April 2007). He states that, “The greatest potential risk to public health associated with deep injection wells in South Florida is vertical migration of wastewater, containing pathogenic microorganisms and pollutants, into brackish-water aquifer zones that that are being used for alternative water-supply projects such as aquifer storage and recovery.”
One of the protesters at the February 2008 demonstration, arrested, tried, and convicted of “unlawful assembly, resisting arrest without violence and trespassing,” Panagioti Tsolkas, stated that FP&L “hires lobbyists who write the laws that facilitate issues like deep-well injection.” Tsolkas noted that the state’s attorney, Danielle Croke, stated at trial, “climate change is theoretical.” Of the trial judge, County Judge Laura Johnson, who presided at the trial of nine of the activists, he said, “she aligned herself with industry,” and was both “aggressive and insulting,” toward the defendants. When the state prosecutor called for a sentence of 30 days, the judge ordered Tsolkas to serve 60 days in the Palm Beach County Jail, and sentenced co-defendant Lynne Purvis to 30 days in prison. Tsolkas recalled that the judge, and Assistant State Attorney Danielle Croke, treated Dr. John Van Leer’s testimony about sea level rise with “total disregard.”
Tsolkas attempted to use, like Purvis, the necessity defense at the trial. The defendants believe that this defense will be “crucial in coming years…a powerful tool of public commitment.” The “crime,” according to Tsolkas, that the protesters committed was less than the impact of the wrong that would be done if the power plant fouls the atmosphere and water sources. Unfortunately, each state and county has its own interpretation of what constitutes a necessity defense. Indeed, former Vice President Al Gore, now one of the best-known spokespersons for the environmental movement and Nobel Peace Prize winner, endorsed acts of civil disobedience in response to the construction of coal-fired power plants. Gore hasn’t, however, taken as strong a stand on the building of other types of power plants.
Tsolkas faulted the use of the now-popular concept of trading carbon credits. In this scenario, the marketplace assigns a credit or debit to a particular company based on how much or how little that industry pollutes. Companies can trade these so-called carbon credits among themselves, thus theoretically lessening the total amount of carbon emissions. Tsolkas also criticized the use of “greenwash,” a technique employed by polluters to put an environmentally friendly face on their record of fouling the environment through planting trees in a park, and other similar vehicles that do little to ameliorate global warming but put a positive spin on the polluters’ environmental record. Tsolkas called greenwash an “advertising scandal.”
The Palm Beach Post (27 February 2009) reports that FP&L’s top executive, Lew Hay, said of the Obama administration’s carbon reduction plan of “cap-and-trade,” that, “This is an encouraging sign that proves the president is serious about enacting legislation to put a price on carbon dioxide.” The Post (3 March 2009) also notes that Juno Beach-based FPL Group is on the list of “Most Admired Companies” according to Fortune magazine.
While there is much discussion nationwide about investing in massive renewable energy resources such as wind and power, the actual use of such existing technologies is in reality very, very limited. The major limitation for power companies making investments in renewable energy sources is that once those technologies are in use the company gains little in future profits, and profits are the name of the game. Although nuclear power has been touted as a way out of fossil-fuel dependence by the power industry, there is no known technology for recycling spent nuclear fuel.
Tsolkas saw the time he spent in jail as “a small price to pay compared to the threats to the environment from ecological disasters.” He found that fellow prisoners awaiting trial were knowledgeable about his case and were eager to discuss the issue of global warming. He is out of jail during an appeal of his sentence and still faces an additional 40 to 50 days in prison if the appeal is denied.
During the interview with Tsolkas, I asked if any major environmental groups came forward to offer help with legal assistance and paying the hefty fine that the trial judge ordered protesters to pay. He said that some groups offered help, but assistance came mainly from individuals interested in environmental issues. He was critical of groups like the Sierra Club that “won’t endorse civil disobedience” as a protest tactic to stave off grave threats to the environment.
Tsolkas was critical of FP&L lobbyists in Tallahassee who helped write the state’s laws regarding the building of power plants. He also mentioned Amendment 1 that he felt was supported by FP&L to enhance the company’s public image.
Following the jailing of Purvis and Tsolkas, a biting commentary appeared in The Palm Beach Post (8 February 2009) by Dan Moffett entitled “Dishonoring civil disobedience.” Moffett argues that Tsolkas threw a “public tantrum” when ordered to jail. He concludes in the piece that “Anarchists make terrible activists,” and that unlike Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, Tsolkas had “no second act” after the “street theater” that Moffett used to label Tsolkas’ actions. In response, on February 22, 2009, The Post published a series of letters critical of Moffett’s commentary. The letter writers credit the protesters as people with high “ideals,” a modern version of “canaries in the coal mine (referring to the danger of fossil-fuel burning power plants), and view the commentary as an insulting, “untruthful attempt” to turn readers of the paper away from serious environmental concerns in Florida. Tsolkas answered Moffett’s charges in his own letter, stating that the protest was in the best tradition of civil disobedience of those like Dr. King and Henry David Thoreau. He states that he was jailed “for asserting my right to defend land, liberty, and the water we all drink from.”
In February 2008, scores of protesters momentarily stopped the construction of what soon will be one of the largest fossil-fuel burning plants in the U.S. They faced the power of an industry entrenched in the political establishment of Florida that can purchase enough lobbying muscle to do just about anything it wants done. These protesters faced jail time and a huge fine levied against them for acting out of moral courage in pursuit of the greater good. They faced a hostile judge and prosecutor who belittled the environmental alarm that is so apparent in South Florida. A huge amount of good science was thrown out of the courtroom in return for what was convenient and expedient for the purpose of supporting a major industry player in Florida Power & Light. These protesters faced hostility against the firmly established tradition in the U.S. of risking personal safety for the greater good and were belittled for that moral courage in the newspaper. They followed directly, and without fear, in the historical footsteps of giants like King, Thoreau, the unnamed of the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, anti-globalization activists, and the band of renegades who boarded an English vessel in Boston Harbor and dumped its precious cargo of tea into the sea.
Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
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