SONGS CEP Chair Champions Local Influence in Decommissioning

The San Onofre Generating Station’s decommissioning Community Engagement Panel Chairman David Victor warned against federal regulations encroaching on community concerns in the decommissioning process during the RadWaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev., yesterday. Victor recommended that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission not require a Community Engagement Panel like the one Southern California Edison established for the SONGS decommissioning because it would be difficult to write the regulation in a way that could capture the difference in local communities’ perspectives on the process. He described a required community panel as restricting to the differing communities’ wants and needs in the process.

 

Victor also cautioned against growing federal influence into other issues in the decommissioning process that should be local decisions, such as the exemption process, as evident by Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer’s attempts to stop security exemptions at SONGS. “I am a little worried about Washington solutions to what are fundamentally local problems,” Victor said. “I would hope as Sen. Boxer’s organization pays attention to this that they also respect that there is already underway a substantial, well-organized effort to try and figure out what makes sense. We should be able to work in tandem—that’s not rocket scientist—but we definitely should be able to work hand-in-hand about it.”