The California Coastal Commission is expected in September to decide whether to issue a permit that is necessary for major decommissioning to begin on two retired reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
The commission had been scheduled in June to take up Southern California Edison’s application for a coastal development permit, but delayed the matter on the advice of agency staff. The September meeting is scheduled for Sept. 11-13 in Newport Beach.
“We are expecting the Commission will take an action,” agency spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz said by email Tuesday. “The decision to postpone it to the Newport Beach meeting in September was initiated by staff, not the Commission itself. As staff we thought it would be a good idea to invite a representative from the [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission] to be at the meeting given the kinds of questions we were getting from the public.”
John Lubinski, director of the NRC’s Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Office, will attend the meeting. “I appreciate the opportunity to respond to any questions related to the August 3, 2018, spent fuel canister misalignment event and associated corrective actions, as well as any questions related to the proposed decommissioning activities,” he wrote in a July 16 letter to Alison Dettmer, deputy director at the state commission.
Last August, a canister of spent fuel at the San Diego County facility was left at risk of an 18-foot uncontrolled drop while being placed into its underground storage slot. The NRC in March fined Southern California Edison $116,000 for violations of federal nuclear safety rules. Transfer of the plant’s used fuel into dry storage resumed last week.
Southern California Edison permanently shut down SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3 in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in both systems. It hired an AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture to manage the $4.4 billion decommissioning, which is scheduled to be completed by 2028.
The coastal development permit is needed for onshore ground-disturbing work in decommissioning. Southern California Edison will eventually need a separate commission permit for offshore decommissioning activities, with an application anticipated in about two years.
Reactor Unit 1 at SONGS was shuttered in 1992 and has been mostly decommissioned.