By John Stang
Two California advocacy organizations pitched their cases this week to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission against on-site storage of all spent reactor fuel at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
This was essentially both groups — Public Watchdogs and Oceansiders Against San Onofre Corruption— trying to persuade the federal regulator to change its mind that no more environmental reviews are needed for the San Diego County plant, and also to reverse its decision not to suspend decommissioning operations in order to conduct such new studies.
Major decommissioning operations are scheduled to begin in earnest in February, SONGS majority owner and federal licensee Southern California Edison said this week.
Both advocacy groups have raised similar concerns about the ongoing program to transfer the remainder of the plant’s spent fuel into dry storage. They noted that SONGS sits next to the Pacific Ocean and only 18 feet above sea level, which the groups say makes the storage pad susceptible to rising water levels due to climate change. The organizations also don’t believe Southern California Edison is taking proper precautions against cracks in the dry fuel canisters leading to leaking radiation.
In December 2019, the NRC told both groups by email that previous environmental impact studies on SONGS’ decommissioning cover all the pertinent issues and that new studies would not cover any additional ground.
“NRC Staff remains confident that reasonable assurance of adequate protection of the public health and safety can be maintained for as long as fuel is stored in accordance with the requirements of the SONGS license,” Zahira Cruz, the NRC project manager for decommissioning at SONGS, wrote to several attorneys working with Public Watchdogs.
The email to Oceansiders was roughly the same.
However, the NRC regulatory process offers organizations an opportunity to plead their case to a petition review board following rejection by staff. Public Watchdogs had its chance during an hourlong meeting Tuesday, followed by Oceansiders on Wednesday.
Southern California Edison in 2013 retired SONGS’ final two operational reactors, Units 2 and 3, after faulty steam generators were installed in both. Unit 1 was shuttered in 1992. The utility in 2014 hired Holtec International to offload the two reactors’ used fuel assemblies from cooling pools to an expanded dry-storage pad, which already held the material from Unit 1.
Local groups had expressed concerns about the hazards of storing highly radioactive waste next to the Pacific Ocean in a densely populated, seismically active region. One, Citizens’ Oversight, went to court, eventually reaching a 2017 settlement with Southern California Edison that allowed on-site storage to proceed while the utility sought “commercially reasonable” avenues to relocate the spent fuel.
So far, 46 of 73 canisters of used fuel from the two reactors have been transferred to dry storage. When the offload from wet storage is complete, expected later this year, roughly 3.5 million pounds of fuel assemblies will be held underground on the storage pad. Southern California Edison says the material is safe within stainless steel canisters inside reinforced storage structures.
Still, mishaps during the fuel transfer have exacerbated watchdogs’ concerns – notably an August 2018 mishap in which one fuel canister was left at risk of an 18-foot drop into its storage slot. That incident led to an 11-month suspension of moving fuel while Holtec and Edison overhauled the operation’s training, procedures, and some equipment.
Oceansiders filed its petition with the NRC in August under the 2.206 process – a bureaucratic avenue for outside groups to request enforcement action by the federal agency.
The 76-page filing urges the NRC to revoke the California Coastal Commission’s October 2015 coastal development permit that enabled expansion of dry-cask storage to accommodate used fuel from reactor Units 2 and 3. Oceansiders argued that on-site storage of the radioactive material represents a significant safety threat and a violation of federal law. It called for a halt to the fuel offload and moving the spent fuel to a lower-population-density area.
Public Watchdogs submitted its petition in September. Highlighting tsunamis and other potential dangers to Edison’s storage approach, it said all decommissioning operations should be suspended until SONGS’ licensees deliver an updated cleanup plan “that properly accounts for the reality that the spent nuclear fuel being buried at SONGS will remain there indefinitely.”
Neither petition got far.
“It appears that all of the issues raised in your petition either have already been the subject of NRC staff review and do not raise concerns that the NRC staff has not considered and resolved or are not appropriately addressed in the 2.206 process,” Cruz told Public Watchdogs in December. “Accordingly, as discussed further below, our preliminary decision is not to accept the petition for review.”
On Tuesday, Public Watchdogs argued to the petition review board for approval of a 25-page petition. The meeting — along with Oceansiders’ similar session the next day— was not a hearing, but was designated solely for the petitioner to add to its argument for the NRC to reverse its decision not to suspend that work.
Public Watchdogs attorney Luke Wohlford argued that the federal government cannot rely on Edison’s plans to start moving spent fuel to a permanent repository — the indefinitely stalled Yucca Mountain project — in 2024 and finishing that work in 2049. Tuesday’s session did not address proposed consolidated interim storage sites for spent fuel that are supposed to become active in New Mexico and Texas later this decade.
A new environmental impact study would look at what would happen if the spent fuel remains at SONGS beyond 2049, Wohlford said.
On Wednesday, Oceansiders attorney William Waggle Jr. contended that an environmental impact study should take into account that SONGS and its dry storage site are located on a military site — Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. He said Camp Pendleton is a target for missiles if a war ever erupts, with those missiles likely to hit the dry storage site.
“A missile provides a lot of concussion and could easily rupture those canisters,” Waggle Jr. said.
His son and another Oceansiders attorney, William Waggle III, also argued that thick-shelled fuel canisters are needed for dry storage and that an environmental impact study should compare the safety of the current thin-shelled canisters in use at SONGS and of the Oceansiders’ sought-after thick-hulled canisters.
There was no public timeline for the petition review board to make its final decisions on the petitions.
The make-up of a public review board varies from case to case, with each board headed by the head of the NRC department involved in the specific matter. The board’s chairperson — the appropriate department director — makes the final decision on whether to reverse the earlier decision. That decision cannot be appealed, but the NRC commissioners can review that decision at their discretion.
Decommissioning of Units 2 and 3 is underway, a $4.4 billion job managed by a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions.
Disassembly and removal operations for buildings, reactor domes, and other structures is scheduled to begin in February, Edison said this week. Some offshore piping will also eventually be extracted, in a job expected to last eight years.
