Radiation monitors for the public went online Tuesday at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), majority owner Southern California Edison announced Tuesday.
Three gamma radiation monitors were installed on the San Diego County property in response to long-running public calls for ways to check for potential radiation leaks from spent fuel in dry-cask storage. A fourth monitor was installed off-site provide base data on normal background radiation.
Data from the $300,000 monitoring project is being fed to three off-site agencies: the California Department of Public Health’s Radiologic Health Branch, California State Parks, and the city of San Juan Capistrano. The health department will post a monthly report on the monitor readings to its website for the public to read, SCE said.
“We’re committed to sharing information during decommissioning. That’s why we’ve worked with our community and agency partners to install this system to enable public agencies to monitor radiation dose readings. Going above and beyond Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements to share this data with local agencies is consistent with our goals of keeping the public informed,” said Ron Pontes, SCE manager of environmental decommissioning strategy, said Edison in a press release.
The only other U.S. nuclear plant with such a system is Prairie Island in Minnesota.
Southern California Edison closed SONGS in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in its last two operational reactors. Major decommissioning operations began at the end of February, under contractor SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, and are scheduled to be complete in 2028.
Transfer of the two reactors’ used fuel into dry storage is expected to wrap up this summer, after being suspended for nearly a year following an August 2018 mishap in which one canister was left at risk of an 18-foot drop into its storage slot. To date, 53 of 73 canisters have been moved to the storage pad, with the 54th scheduled to be moved today.
