A California advocacy group this week petitioned a federal appeals court to require the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to order a halt to decommissioning and spent fuel offload operations at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
If approved, the writ of mandamus from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would remain in place until the NRC issues a decision on a petition filed in September by Public Watchdogs.
The enforcement petition, filed under federal nuclear regulations, demands that the industry regulator put an “immediate halt” to the transfer of SONGS’ spent nuclear fuel into underground dry storage. In its court filing Monday, Public Watchdogs said federal judicial action was necessary because the fuel movement will otherwise continue at an accelerated pace while the NRC considers the petition.
Chuck La Bella, the attorney representing Public Watchdogs, said in a statement Friday that the federal regulator only on one day earlier acknowledged receiving the month-old petition.
“We think the lack an enforcement environment at the NRC has resulted in a recklessly cavalier environment at San Onofre,” Public Watchdogs Executive Director Charles Langley told RadWaste Monitor.
There was no immediate comment on the matter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or Southern California Edison (SCE), the majority owner and federal licensee for the Pacific Ocean-adjacent facility in San Diego County.
This is San Diego-based Public Watchdogs’ latest legal salvo against current operations at SONGS. The organization in August filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Southern California that also seeks a freeze on decommissioning and used-fuel transfer. There has been no ruling in that case.
Southern California Edison permanently closed the plant’s two remaining operational reactors, Units 2 and 3, in 2013 after they were equipped with faulty steam generators. The utility in 2014 hired energy technology firm Holtec International to manage the move of used fuel from the reactors’ cooling pools to an expanded dry-storage pad that already held the spent fuel from the long-decommissioned reactor Unit 1.
When the project is complete, roughly 3.5 million pounds of used fuel assemblies from the three reactors will be in place in the independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI).
Public Watchdogs and other nuclear advocacy groups believe generally it is not safe to store radioactive waste next to the ocean in densely populated, seismically active Southern California. The petition with the appeals court disputes the timeline laid out in SCE documents that the material would be removed from the site by 2049. The U.S. Department of Energy is legally responsible for disposal of all spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants, but does not yet have an NRC license to build and operate its planned repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
“Regardless of how many decades nuclear waste is interred in the beach at San Onofre, there is substantial evidence demonstrating that the actual canisters used to store this radioactive fuel—canisters also designed and manufactured by Holtec—were defectively manufactured and designed,” attorneys for Public Watchdogs wrote in their petition to the court. “The fitness of these defective canisters has been further compromised by their negligent handling, transportation, and burial, resulting in contact deformities and broken parts in many (if not all) of the canisters already buried in the ISFSI.”
The fuel offload process has been beset by troubles, according to Public Watchdogs. As other watchdog groups have, it noted Holtec’s used of thin-walled storage canisters, some of which have been scratched while being placed in their underground slots in the ISFSI. That damage could eventually undermine the integrity of the vessels, according to Public Watchdogs – a statement disputed by Holtec, Southern California Edison, and the NRC.
The petition also cites two incidents, in July and August 2018, in which the 50-ton canisters were left at risk of dropping nearly 20 feet into their storage slots. The second incident led to a nearly year-long pause in the fuel offload and a $116,000 NRC fine against Southern California Edison for breach of federal nuclear safety regulations.
Southern California Edison and Holtec say they made a number of improvements to the operation during the work stoppage, including additional training and increased oversight. The fuel offload resumed in July and is scheduled to wrap up next spring.
Major decommissioning operations are also set to begin after the California Coastal Commission last week approved a permit for ground-disturbing, onshore operations at SONGS. The $4.4 billion decommissioning, managed by an AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture, is scheduled to be completed in 2028. At that point only the ISFSI would remain.
To settle a separate lawsuit on used-fuel storage, SCE agreed in 2017 to take “commercially reasonable” steps to find an off-site location for the waste. That process continues – SCE in June hired North Wind Inc. to prepare a strategic plan evaluating the feasibility of shipping the spent fuel elsewhere.
