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Nuclear dream turning sour in San Clemente, USA

“It’s easy to get distracted by the beauty here and not think about a nuclear meltdown,” he said. But he added he thinks about that more often. “It would be great to just shut it down.”

Residents Rethink a Nuclear Neighbor, Deteriorating Pipes, Japan Disaster Spark Calls to Close California Plant, but Shortages Are Feared WSJ, By TAMARA AUDI, 6 April 12 SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—For three decades, the reactor domes of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station have been fixtures on the coastline here less than five miles south of this surfer’s paradise.

“You see it, you just don’t think about it,” said Dan Kenton, a 49-year-old San Clemente resident.

That appears to be changing. Concern over the plant’s safety is growing in communities around San Onofre—about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego—after officials found deteriorating steam pipes in both reactors earlier this year. Both are now shut….. “There is
clearly a heightened awareness and concern given what happened in
Japan. And what’s happened at San Onofre over the last couple of
months doesn’t exactly give us confidence,” said Verna Rollinger, the
mayor pro tem of nearby Laguna Beach, who would like to see the plant
closed.

Local government leaders have no control over the plant. But a series
of recent protests against the reactors represents a shift in a
largely conservative region that has been supportive of nuclear energy
and values the plant’s tax payments and employment.

Federal and plant officials have taken notice of the growing unrest,
sending emissaries to speak at community meetings and city council
sessions…..
In Irvine, a city of 220,000 people 22 miles north of the plant, City
Council member Larry Agran was met with applause last week when he
issued a call to decommission San Onofre at a packed City Council
meeting. He said he plans to ask the council to vote on a resolution
to close it and that he wants the region to look to alternate sources
of energy, like solar power.

“Like Fukushima Daiichi, San Onofre is an aging nuclear power plant
with a troubled history located in a geologically uncertain and
unstable place,” Mr. Agran said at the meeting.

In a letter to Sen. Feinstein late last year, San Clemente’s
then-mayor demanded off-site storage for spent fuel before the plant
is relicensed, and questioned the safety of the methods used to store
fuel there. The city also is pressing for an additional
disaster-evacuation route.

Laguna Beach, a beach town north of the plant, recently passed a
resolution supporting the fuel and evacuation concerns raised by San
Clemente officials. Other communities are inviting activists to
speak….

On a recent evening Mr. Kenton, the San Clemente resident, watched
surfers ride the swells.

“It’s easy to get distracted by the beauty here and not think about a
nuclear meltdown,” he said. But he added he thinks about that more
often. “It would be great to just shut it down.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577323712653923638.html

April 6, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, USA