By John Stang
The decommissioning of the two remaining reactors at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California has the potential to uncover a previously unidentified radioactive groundwater plume, send excessive fumes of hazardous nitric oxides into the air, and damage marine life and habitat, according to a state environmental assessment.
These are among the “significant and unavoidable” impacts listed in draft environmental impact report issued Wednesday by the California State Lands Commission on decommissioning reactor Units 2 and 3 of the San Diego County plant.
“The proposed project would generate significant environmental impacts associated with hazardous and radiological materials, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, tribal cultural resources, hydrology and water quality, recreation and public access, and transportation and traffic,” according to the state agency. “(With mitigation measures), most impacts would be reduced to less than significant. However, several impacts related to air quality and radiological materials would remain significant and unavoidable, even after the application of feasible (mitigation measures).”
The report cites radioactive materials in the soil and groundwater, disturbances in the ocean bed that could affect marine life, contaminated dust flying into the air as hazards that are major and unavoidable even with mitigation measures.
The commission will receive public comments on the report through Aug. 28, with public hearings scheduled for Aug. 7 in Oceanside and Aug. 8 in San Clemente. The Lands Commission is expected to vote on the final document by the end of the year, setting the stage for the California Coastal Commission to consider issuing a coastal development permit in the first quarter of 2019 authorizing major decommissioning to begin.
Plant majority owner Southern California Edison in December 2016 selected SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, a partnership of AECOM and EnergySolutions, as general contractor for the project. Its contract is worth $1 billion, with decommissioning overall forecast to cost $4.4 billion.
The San Onofre nuclear plant began operations in 1968. Reactor Unit 1 shut down in 1992 and has already been decommissioned. The plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation now stands in its place. Units 2 and 3 were permanently taken offline in 2013 due to faulty steam generators.
The SONGs property covers 99 acres along the Pacific Ocean leased from the U.S. Navy at the U.S. Marines’ Camp Pendleton and 21 acres of offshore sea bottom overseen by the California State Lands Commission.
The draft report covers three stages of decommissioning. The first began in 2015 and covers expansion, operation, and maintenance of the spent fuel storage pad through 2035. Contractor Holtec International expanded the existing ISFSI to accommodate spent fuel from Units 2 and 3 and is now transferring the fuel assemblies from wet to dry storage. The end date is dependent upon availability of off-site disposal. There is yet no temporary or permanent location for the Department of Energy to put the nation’s spent nuclear fuel, as demanded by Congress. To settle a lawsuit, Southern California Edison has agreed to pursue “commercially reasonable” off-site storage for SONGS’ spent fuel, but there are no takers yet.
“The lack of an off-site repository for long-term storage of (spent nuclear fuel) remains an unresolved issue that continues to generate a substantial amount of public interest, not only for SONGS but for nuclear power facilities across the nation, whether decommissioned or not,” the draft environmental impact report notes.
The second stage involves actually tearing down and decontaminating the site from 2019 through 2028. A major decision for this stage is whether the intake and discharge pipes that lead into the Pacific Ocean should be partially or completely removed. Other issues to be addressed, according to the report, include how deep into the ground the decontamination and whether the radioactive surfaces of the concrete will be shaved, ground down, sandblasted, or otherwise removed.
The third stage — scheduled to occur around 2035 — is to deal with infrastructures such as the interim storage site and railways after the spent fuel is all removed.
