By John Stang
A federal judge has denied a watchdog organization’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt the transfer of used reactor fuel into dry storage at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California.
U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino on Monday also gave the defendants until Sept. 20 to file motions against the broader lawsuit from San Diego-based Public Watchdogs.
The Aug. 29 lawsuit in District Court for Southern California seeks to nullify SONGS’ current decommissioning plan; to have the site’s decommissioning trust fund analyzed to ensure it has a sufficient balance; to have the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission review the efficacy of the canisters that hold the plant’s spent fuel in dry storage; and to appoint an unidentified independent monitor for the site’s decommissioning efforts.
The defendants are the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Southern California Edison, SONGS’ majority owner and federal licensee; and plant co-owner San Diego Gas & Electric and its parent company, Sempra Energy.
Public Watchdogs contended the NRC has not aggressively kept SONGS in line with federal regulations, that not enough money has been earmarked for decommissioning, that the spent fuel canisters are not as safe as they should be, and that storing fuel in pools has a safety track record than dry storage.
Southern California Edison shut down SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3 in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in both systems. Unit one was retired in 1992 and subsequently decommissioned.
The utility hired an AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture to manage decommissioning of the remaining two reactors. Upon state authorization, possibly next month, SONGS Decommissioning Solutions plans to begin primary decommissioning this year and finish in 2028.
New Jersey-based energy technology firm Holtec International is the contractor for the transfer of used fuel from the two reactors out of wet storage and onto a dry-storage pad near the Pacific Ocean. The project stopped for nearly a year after an August 2018 mishap in which one canister was at risk of an 18-foot drop into its storage slot.
An NRC investigation determined that SCE failed to maintain redundant protection to keep the 50-ton canister from dropping by letting its loading straps go slack; took three days to report the incident to the agency instead of the required one day; lacked procedures to deal with the incident; inadequately trained the workers conducting the fuel transfer; and failed to take proper, timely action immediately after the mishap occurred. It fined the utility $116,000.
Since last August, SCE and Holtec took a series of steps to address their failures, including increasing the size of the on-the-spot crew inserting the canisters into the storage pad from two to 10 and adding monitors to ensure tensions on both landing straps.
The spent fuel offload resumed in July and is expected to be complete by next spring. At that point, the storage pad would hold 3.5 million pounds of fuel assemblies from SONGS’ three reactors.
Separately, the California Coastal Commission this week postponed its anticipated decision Thursday on whether to issue a coastal development permit that is necessary for major decommissioning to begin on the two retired reactors at SONGS.
An appropriate NRC official could not be present for the commission meeting, according to spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz. That matter is now scheduled to be taken up at the commission’s Oct. 7-9 meeting.
