The California State Lands Commission announced Tuesday that it would develop a draft environmental impact report for the decommissioning of the last two reactor units at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County. It is accepting public input on the scope of the project through Aug. 15, with two meetings scheduled for later this month.
Southern California Edison (SCE) in 2013 permanently shut down SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3 prematurely following troubles with newly purchased steam generators. Unit 1 was retired in 1992 and subsequently decommissioned.
Decommissioning is scheduled to begin next year and continue through 2051, covering four distinct phases, according to the state project description: decontamination and dismantlement, from 2017 to 2025; partial site restoration and offshore conduit disposition, from 2020 to 2035; operation and maintenance of the independent spent fuel storage installation, from 2035 to 2049; and ISFSI removal and final site restoration, from 2049 to 2051.
The schedule for the final two phases aligns with the Department of Energy’s timeline to by 2048 open one or more permanent storage facilities for tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel now held on-site at commercial nuclear power plants around the country. However, consolidated interim storage sites are also anticipated to open by 2025. In the interim, SCE is expanding its current ISFSI so that it can hold all of the plant’s spent fuel in dry-cask storage; the updated storage pad is due to be completed next year, with all fuel transferred from pool storage by 2019, the state said.
Southern California Edison, the plant’s majority owner, has said it expects to select a prime contractor for the decommissioning project this summer. The bidders for the estimated $4.4 billion project are Team Holtec, a team led by Bechtel, and an AECOM/EnergySolutions partnership.
Decommissioning, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, involves the removal of spent fuel that had been in the reactor vessel, disassembly of all systems or components that contained activation products, and remediation or disassembly of contaminated items from the location. The SONGS work will involve dozens of major components of the facility, both on and off shore, including the reactor units’ containment buildings and the contents of those structures, various other buildings, roadways and parking lots, transformers, and seawalls.
The environmental impact report is likely to address potential effects of decommissioning on environmental aesthetics, air quality and greenhouse gases, marine and land biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, and other areas, according to the state announcement.
Public input will help determine major environmental issues, mitigation measures, and the range of alternatives (for example, full or partial removal of some infrastructure, or retention of select structures) that the report should address, according to the state notice. The document itself would aid state agencies in considering permit requests for the decommissioning project.
Meetings on the scope of the EIR are scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 26, at the Oceanside City Hall, Civic Center Library, 300 North Coast Highway in Oceanside; and noon Wednesday, July 27, at the San Clemente High School theater, 700 Avenida Pico in San Clemente.
Written comments can also be submitted by Aug. 15 to State Lands Commission Senior Environmental Scientist Cynthia Herzog, by email at [email protected]; or by mail at 100 Howe Ave., Suite 100-South, Sacramento, VA 95825.
A public meeting on the draft report is scheduled for the first quarter of 2017, followed by decisions on certification of the EIR and project application in the third quarter of next year.
