nuclear-news

San Onofre Nuclear Plant sits on earthquake area

How safe is San Onofre? Los Angeles Times,25 April 11, Edison and federal regulators must stop the continuing deterioration of the safety culture at the nuclear power plant.  By Najmedin Meshkati, April 26, 2011, The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station sits on a beach in a seismically active area of Southern California, just three miles south of San Clemente. These days many are rightly preoccupied with the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichinuclear power plant in Japan and its implications for San Onofre. But there are more immediate problems at the power plant that is owned and operated by Southern California Edison.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a public meeting Thursday in San Juan Capistrano to review the performance and safety culture of San Onofre. Coincidentally, this is also the week that the world commemorates the 25th anniversary of the disaster at theChernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union. According to many credible studies, that disaster is attributed primarily to the deficient safety culture — in design, operation and oversight — that existed throughout the Soviet nuclear power system at the time of the accident……

What exactly are the problems at San Onofre?

For many years the plant has been under Nuclear Regulatory Commission scrutiny for failure to address several longstanding issues related to its safety culture. A few noteworthy recent issues include:

Feb. 1-10, 2010: The NRC conducted focus group interviews with about 400 workers to probe the safety culture at the plant, and the results indicated “a continued degradation in the safety-conscious work environment.”

March 2, 2010: The NRC issued a “chilling effect letter,” finding that the “NRC has received a significant increase of allegations from onsite sources at San Onofre nearly 10 times the industry median in 2009.”…. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-meshkati-san-onofre-20110426,0,3467727.story?track=rss

April 26, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA