By John Stang
Southern California Edison plans in 2021 to apply for a second California state permit in order to remove parts of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) that are in Pacific Ocean.
If approved by the California Coastal Commission, the offshore permit would authorize the utility to tackle the portions of the plant’s offshore intake and discharge conduits that are above the sea floor.
Last week, the commission unanimously approved a coastal development permit for onshore decommissioning of the retired SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3. Both the onshore and offshore decommissioning operations are scheduled to be completed by 2028.
Each reactor had a pair of conduits, which pumped cooling water in and out of the systems. The offshore permit for their removal is being sought two years after the onshore permit because SCE might need a conduit for some of the initial decommissioning work in case water needs to be pumped out of the subterranean structures for Units 2 and 3, according to SCE spokesmen John Dobken.
The conduits are the largest offshore underwater pieces of SONGS. They extend up to 8,000 feet offshore and are primarily buried 5 feet beneath the ocean floor. When openings to the conduits are removed, they will be replaced with barriers that will allow sand to fill in the tubes.
Southern California Edison, the plant’s majority owner and federal licensee, permanently shut down Units 2 and 3 in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in both reactors. Unit 1 was shuttered in 1992 and has been largely decommissioned.
The company in 2016 hired SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions, as the general contractor for the $4.4 billion project. While preparations are underway, full decommissioning is expected to begin in 2020.
Coastal development permits are necessary for the ground-disturbing cleanup at the oceanside site, on the U.S. Navy’s Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County.
Southern California Edison and the other owners of the plant (San Diego Gas and Electric Co. and the cities of Riverside and Anaheim) submitted the application for onshore operations in May of this year. Staff at the Coastal Commission filed a report recommending approval in September.
The onshore operations will encompass radiological remediation, tearing down the reactor domes and containment structures, and extraction of other large equipment. Decommissioning will begin with dismantling parts of the reactors, removing the administration buildings, and preparation for demolishing other structures.
The local advocacy organization Public Watchdogs has since August filed two lawsuits and a separate petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt decommissioning at SONGS, along with the transfer of spent fuel from the two reactors into dry storage.
In a related matter, SCE on Oct. 1 suspended expansion of the artificial Wheeler North Reef offshore from SONGS for lobstering season, according to Dobken. The work is expected to restart next spring and be finished by September 2020.
Warm discharge water from SONGS’ former power operations killed the kelp growing on an existing nearby natural reef, which had a ripple effect on the area’s fish. Consequently, the Coastal Commission directed SCE to build a $45 million artificial underwater reef — dubbed the “Wheeler North Reef” —where kelp would grow that fish could feed on. That work was finished in 2008.
The Wheeler North Reef is a mix of sand and rock covering 174.4 acres of ocean floor, and is supposed to house 150 acres of kelp — a brown algae stretching toward the surface in shallow water, which looks like a forest. That kelp is intended as a food source for 28 tons of fish, but has actually provided enough to feed an average of 14 tons of fish annually, according to an SCE publication.
Southern California Edison needs to do more work on the Wheeler North Reef and its kelp because it has not met commission’s requirement to feed the 28 tons of fish, according to a staff memo earlier this year to the commission.
Consequently, the commission wants to expand the Wheeler North Reef to 385 acres — a $20 million project. A staff memo recommended that the 175,000 tons of rock — each 500 to 1,000 pounds in weight — be barged from two Santa Catalina Island quarries and from a third quarry in Ensenada, Mexico, to 23 locations adjacent to the existing reef. Work began in July. The rocks are being dropped into water ranging from 38 to 49 feet in depth. The rocks are an anchor for the kelp to bond to and grow, the SCE publication said.
