nuclear-news

Community speak ups forcibly to Panel on decommissioning of San Onofre nuclear plant

San Onofre panel hears from community Orange County Register 25 Mar 14,A Community Engagement Panel tasked with helping guide Southern California Edison’s dismantling of the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station got an earful from the public Tuesday night and raised questions of its own.

Most of the two dozen speakers who addressed the panel during a three-hour meeting at the San Clemente Community Center were activists urging the members to stress safety over efforts to save money……..

Edison appointed the panel to provide a public sounding board during what could be a 20-year decommissioning. Everyone agreed that safe storage of nuclear waste is the challenge, as the federal government hasn’t fulfilled a decades-old promise to provide permanent storage in a remote location.

“I’m concerned it will never be moved,” said San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn, a panel member questioning how safe long-term on-site storage would be, particularly with I-5 and Southern California’s rail line close by.

“You, in my minds, are the guardians of the future of Southern California,” activist Marni Magda from Laguna Beach told the panel. Jenifer Massey of San Clemente and others suggested not waiting for the federal government and appealing instead to California to solve its own dilemma by establishing a remote site within the state……..

Palmisano described a process for decommissioning to nearly 200 people gathered at the Community Center.

“This is a huge engineering project,” said David Victor, chairman of the panel. “It seems to be as difficult to dismantle a plant as it is to build one in the first place.”

Victor said there will be some aspects where the panel can provide valuable input while other aspects will be constrained by the regulatory process – the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and California Public Utilities Commission.

Victor said the next meeting will be sometime in May at a site to be announced.http://www.ocregister.com/articles/panel-606987-san-community.html

March 26, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized