Among Hurricane Helene’s roster of disasters is a storm surge that deluged a retired nuclear power plant in Florida. While radioactive material there remains secure, according to operator Duke Energy, one of the plant’s industrial wastewater ponds overflowed amid the flood. With luck, any resulting contamination will be minimal.
Even a near miss reminds us that, as with much else, the question of how we handle our industrial dregs is now shaped by climate change.
As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Mark Gongloff writes, Helene’s shocking destruction in western North Carolina — "a temperate, mountainous place hundreds of miles inland” — mocks the idea of safe havens from the wilder weather that will be unleashed as climate change progresses. This has far-reaching implications for a subject most of us don’t think about, namely waste management.
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