Southern California Edison is expected in November to apply for a California state coastal development permit necessary to begin major decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
The timeline for the California Coastal Commission’s review and decision on the application is unclear, dependent in part on a separate but related proceeding at the State Lands Commission.
Staff at the Lands Commission is finalizing a report on environmental impacts from decommissioning the final two reactors at the San Diego County nuclear power plant, which permanently closed in 2013. That body had been expected to vote on the report by the end of the year, but now anticipates a decision from late 2018 to early 2019, Lands Commission spokeswoman Sheri Pemberton said this week.
Staff at the Coastal Commission would afterward bring the development permit for a vote by the panel, according to spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz. “We will need to review it for completeness. It’s hard to predict a timeline.”
The contractor hired to manage the decommissioning project, SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, has said it hopes to secure all necessary state approvals by the end of the first quarter of 2019.
Southern California Edison, the plant’s majority owner, retired SONGS rather than try to fix or replace faulty steam generators installed in reactor Units 2 and 3. In December 2016, the utility selected the AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture as the general contractor for the $4.4 billion cleanup job, covering radiological decommissioning, spent fuel management, and site restoration. The central work, dismantlement and decontamination, is expected to last a decade.
