Floating power plant controversy in Florida

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33453, 7 February 1974, Page 15

Floating power plant controversy in Florida

will provide jobs for about 10.000 workers. The project would be the largest single industrial complex in the state, bringing an ■: extra 14,000 people to the , city and producing an extra SUSSm in taxes for the JackI sonville treasury. About 400 . new businesses would be established, and the prospect ■ is held of a spurt in industrial ( capacity for the region. The two companies appar- ’ entiy worked swiftly to hamless the support of the black i community against tne cont servationists, agreeing with 1 representatives of the blacks - that at least 23 per cent of i the workers required would . come from minority races— Jin practice, mostly Negroes. ■ The civic authorities in are right behind jthe project: the city council •Ipresented the holding comdpany of the two corporate •(giants with a huge candle to 1 j mark the first year of their ' operations in the area. ! But the joy in the ranks ; of officialdom and of the I minority community has not . softened the opposition of the conservationists, who : argue that the swamps are • the breeding grounds of twothirds of the fish and shell- , fish of the state’s east coast.

t.V.Z.P.A. Stall Correspondent) MIAMI BEACH (Florida). A proposal to 'construct a $US25Omi, factory in Florida to build floating nuclear - reactor power plants is the subject of a battle between conservationists and industry. Two of America’s largest companies, Westinghouse and Enneco, are involved in the construction project. They say that they have eight orders for such power stations, four of which would be anchored off the coast of New! Jersey State. Final approval of the fac-l tory project is not due from! the Atomic Energy Commis--sion until late next year, and in the meantime, controversy rages in the city of Jacksonville, the nearest important centre of population to the building site, which is on 900 acres of swamp and wasteland. Thousands of Negroes are unemployed in the district, and they are naturally in favour of the project, which, the two companies maintain,

t. A study by the Florida Department of Natural Resources is frequently cited _ by them. It declares that ’(Seriously adverse effects will p wreak havoc among the a

marine biological resources of the north-eastern shores (of Florida. And in the view of the (conservation movement, it does not make sense for the corporations to begin the destruction of the area bejfore the Atomic Energy Commission has granted its approval of floating nuclear I power plants. The conservationists are seeking to have the courts rule against a continuation of preliminary construction work, at least until approval from the A.E.C. is forthcoming; black groups and civic officials, and, of course, the !corporations, oppose them in court. Environmentalists in the (United States are now more determined than ever to press cases against the despoliation of such natural resources. They believe that they are being clobbered by jthe Nixon Administration in the American drive for "energy self-sufficiency." i It is evident that they see the Jacksonville project as I one they may be able to turn (into a cause celebre in their ‘nation-wide effort to stem I despoliation of the environjment. Tennis.—.l Simpson, of Neu (Zealand beat 1 Santeiu. of Ku'mania. 6-1. 4-6. 6-4 in first round play at the Arkansas international tennis tournament.