By John Stang
With little discussion, the California State Lands Commission on Thursday unanimously approved the final environmental impact report on decommissioning the two standing reactors at the closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
The three-member panel also signed off on a lease application authorizing decommissioning of offshore components of the plant.
The commission’s staff made minor modifications to the EIR prior to the vote after a long public hearing on the topic in Oceanside, Calif.
With Thursday’s approval, SONGS majority owner and federal licensee Southern California Edison can submit its application for a coastal development permit necessary for decommissioning operations involving ground-disturbing activities to begin at SONGS. The California Coastal Commission is expected to hold a public hearing on the permit this summer.
“We’re committed to completing decommissioning as expeditiously as possible. … The prompt beginning of decommissioning is in the best interest of the stakeholders,” said Doug Bauder, chief nuclear officer at SONGS.
SONGS permanently closed in 2013 following installation of faulty steam generators in its two operational reactors, Units 2 and 3. Unit 1 was largely decommissioned following its shutdown in 1992.
SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, a partnership of AECOM and EnergySolutions, plans to conduct the projected $4.4 billion decommissioning from 2019 to 2028 on behalf of plant owners Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, and the city of Riverside.
The public hearing prior to the Lands Commission decisions lasted almost three hours.
The bulk of the testimony either called for pushing decommissioning as fast as possible, or for the commission to postpone its decision for up to a year to give the public more time to study the EIR. Some speakers also called for the used fuel storage pool to be kept intact while the radioactive assemblies remain on-site in dry storage at the plant — as a safeguard against fuel canisters cracking in dry storage.
“We should get on with the project. The longer you wait, the more expensive it’ll be,” said Katherine Partain, chair of the San Diego chapter of the American Nuclear Society.
Ray Lutz, founder of the local Citizens’ Oversight watchdog organization, said: “I’m happy to see the plant closed. But there’s no reason to push it. Keep the fuel pools until the waste leaves the area.”
The EIR addresses anticipated environmental impacts and mitigation measures in 14 areas, including: hazardous and radiological materials, air quality, biological resources, cultural and paleontological resources, and hydrology and water quality.
Significant and unavoidable impacts related to hazardous and radiological materials, according to the report, are: release of hazardous radioactive materials during decommissioning and disposal, which could be mitigated by a waste management program, dust suppression, and other measures; the need for additional emergency response resources, for which there is no recommended mitigation; and exposure to radioactive groundwater contamination, which also has no recommended mitigation measures.
The final environmental impact report makes changes to an earlier draft, including adding a description of an Aug. 3, 2018, mishap in contractor Holtec International’s loading of a spent fuel canister into the on-site dry storage pad.
In that event, the canister went off-target and became hung up on a ring while being lowered into its slot on the storage pad. The problem was not identified and fixed for nearly an hour. During that time, the 50-ton container was at risk of being dropped nearly 20 feet.
Following a special inspection last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited two potential enforceable violations of federal regulations related to the incident. First, the two straps being used to lower the canister into storage went extremely slack, with neither holding up the canister being lowered. The other potential violation is the three-day delay in notifying the NRC when the legal deadline was 24 hours after the mishap.
The transfer of used fuel from reactor Units 2 and 3 has been suspended since the loading incident. The NRC is scheduled on Monday to announce its decision on enforcement measures.
Holtec as of Aug. 3 had moved 29 canisters and had 44 to go. Southern California Edison has said it intends to complete the fuel project in 2019, but has committed to resuming transfers only after an NRC review of its restart plans and training runs.
The Lands Commission EIR also cites the discovery of a loose shim in a Holtec fuel canister. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating design issues related to the cask that was being used at SONGS early in the fuel transfer.
Storage of spent fuel at the plant has long been a touchy subject. Some locals worry about the danger of a disastrous mishap involving radioactive material in a densely populated region given to earthquakes. Southern California Edison says its storage systems are hardened against seismic activity and other potential dangers. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy is already more than two decades past its congressionally mandated deadline of Jan. 31, 1998, to begin removing spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants.
Earlier in the week, Southern California Edison walked local reporters through the SONGS property to show the safety improvements made since the August incident.
“Nuclear safety is a core value for this company,” said Ron Pontes, manager of SONGS decommissioning environmental strategy, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “And I think that we probably, to be quite candid, we lost sight of that a little bit in this process and we didn’t demand that rigor out of our contractors. We’re going to demand it now.”
A 2017 settlement to a lawsuit challenging expansion of the plant’s spent fuel storage pad, to hold the material from Units 2 and 3, enabled Southern California Edison to move ahead with that program while taking steps to move the used fuel off-site.
One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in that case, San Diego lawyer Michael Aguirre, is asking a federal judge to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to release documents related to its two investigation of problems in transfer of spent fuel to dry storage at SONGS.
Aguirre said the nuclear industry regulator has to date largely ignored his requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
“To date, the NRC has engaged in stonewall tactics and has denied Plaintiff’s request for records without any reasonable justification. The NRC’s actions are inapposite FOIA’s policy of broad disclosure of government documents and maximum feasible public access to government information,” Maria Severson, Aguirre’s law partner, wrote in a complaint filed March 14 in U.S. District Court for Southern California.
Aguirre is seeking the release of the documents, reimbursement of legal fees, and “other and further relief as this Court may deem just and proper.”
On Wednesday, the NRC said it could not publicly discuss pending litigation.
