By John Stang
A California Superior Court judge ruled last week against a request by a local watchdog organization to suspend the transfer of used reactor fuel into dry storage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
In a motion filed with the court in October, El Cajon-based Citizens’ Oversight sought the temporary halt and authorization for discovery to determine whether SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) is conducting a “commercially reasonable” attempt to move the radioactive waste to another location.
Southern California Edison committed to such an effort under a 2017 settlement to a lawsuit filed by Citizens’ Oversight against the utility and the California Coastal Commission challenging the expansion of the San Diego County plant’s oceanside storage pad to hold additional spent fuel.
“Petitioners have failed to carry their burden to establish a breach of the 2017 settlement agreement as it was written (as opposed to how petitioners perhaps now wish it had been written),” Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor wrote in his Oct. 31 ruling. “It seems unreasonable to this court to wheel up the mechanisms of discovery in a dismissed, settled case based on these several layers of speculation. The request for an injunction, discovery, and a future evidentiary hearing seems to the court to be an attempt to gain leverage via delay so that the 2017 agreement can be renegotiated.”
Ray Lutz, executive director of Citizens’ Oversight, said he has not yet consulted with the organization’s attorney, and that no decision had been made regarding a potential appeal of the ruling. He added that Citizens’ Oversight still expects the court to keep a close eye on whether SCE is making commercially reasonable attempts to move the radioactive fuel to another location.
The 2017 settlement enabled SCE to move forward with transferring used fuel from SONGS Reactor Units 2 and 3, which permanently closed in 2013, from cooling pools to dry storage. The fuel offload continues, after being suspended for nearly a year following an August 2018 incident that left a filled canister at risk of an 18-foot drop into its storage slot.
As of this week, 38 of 73 canisters of used fuel from the two reactors had been placed into dry storage. The project is expected to be completed by next spring.
Spent fuel from Unit 1, which was retired in 1992 and subsequently decommissioned, is already on the storage pad. When the transfer is completed, roughly 3.5 million pounds of fuel assemblies from SONGS’ three reactors will be stored on-site for an indeterminate amount of time.
Meanwhile, major decommissioning operations for Units 2 and 3 are scheduled to begin in early 2020 under management by an AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture. That $4.4 billion project is due to be completed by 2028.
In a statement, SCE said it is working to meet the terms of the settlement.
The utility in June awarded a contract to infrastructure and environmental services specialist North Wind Inc. to begin work on a strategic plan to move the fuel off-site That plan is expected to be completed near the end of 2020.
“We have formed an advisory team made up of some of the leading experts in spent fuel facility siting, licensing, and transportation, and retained a consultant to assist in the development of a strategic plan to remove spent nuclear fuel from San Onofre,” said Doug Bauder, SCE vice president for decommissioning, in the statement.
One potential option is a temporary storage facility for used nuclear power plant fuel being planned in southeastern New Mexico by Holtec International, the fuel offload contractor for SONGS. The New Jersey energy technology company is seeking a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for the facility, with operations starting in the early 2020s.
In its statement, SCE said halting the transfer of fuel from wet to dry storage on SONGS could backfire on the plaintiffs: ”Enjoining downloading may very well have the opposite result from the one petitioners seek. It will also impose costs on Edison, and potentially on ratepayers. Getting SONGS spent nuclear fuel off site is a top priority for SCE, as is safely managing the fuel while it is on site. The dry spent fuel storage systems in use at SONGS continue to meet all regulatory and safety requirements.”
The 2015 lawsuit alleged the dry storage facility, close to the Pacific Ocean and barely above sea level in a seismically active region, faces danger from rising seas flooding the dry storage site and earthquakes cracking the storage site’s concrete to create potential radioactive leaks.
Southern California Edison has countered that the dry storage site has been engineered — with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s stamp of approval — to withstand earthquakes.
The Citizens’ Oversight case is one of several actions aimed at the SONGS used-fuel operation in recent months, leading from the August 2018 mishap and other issues and concerns with the fuel offload.
Another advocacy group, San Diego-based Public Watchdogs, in August filed a federal lawsuit against Southern California Edison and the site’s other owners, along with Holtec and the NRC, demanding a halt to decommissioning and spent fuel transfers. The organization followed that with an October petition to a separate federal appeals court for a writ of mandamus requiring the NRC to order suspension of those operations; if approved, that writ would remain in place until the agency rules on a September petition from Public Watchdogs that seeks the same end.
A third organization, Oceansiders Against San Onofre Corruption, in August petitioned the NRC to revoke the 2015 state permit that allowed for expansion of SONGS’ storage pad. “The petitioner also insisted that safer radioactive storage containers be required and that all stored materials be relocated away from densely populated areas,” according to an update from the NRC.
The NRC’s NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards is reviewing both petitions to the agency.
