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 a 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 study on environmental impacts from decommissioning of the last two reactors at the San Diego County nuclear power plant, which permanently closed in 2013. That three-person body had been expected to vote on the report by the end of the year, but is now looking at a decision from late 2018 to early 2019, Lands Commission spokeswoman Sheri Pemberton said this week.
More than 5,000 comments were submitted on the draft version of the environmental impact report (EIR) issued in June, “so the EIR timeline was revised based on the staff time anticipated to be needed to prepare responses to these numerous comments and any revisions to the document,” she said by email Wednesday.
The issue is not on the Lands Commission agenda for its Oct. 18 meeting, and the agenda for the final session of the year on Dec. 3 has not been set, Pemberton said.
Once the Lands Commission finishes the EIR, staff at the Coastal Commission would bring the development permit for a vote by that 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. Reactor Unit 1 was retired in 1992 and has been largely decommissioned.
In December 2016, the utility selected the AECOM-EnergySolutions joint venture as the general contractor for the $4.4 billion cleanup job at SONGS, covering radiological decommissioning, spent fuel management, and site restoration. The central work, dismantlement and decontamination of the reactors, is expected to last a decade.
While the first phase of decommissioning – transfer of plant operational systems to SONGS Decommissioning Solutions – is essentially complete, major work cannot begin until the state issues the coastal development permit allowing ground-disturbing operations.
The Lands Commission accepted public input through Aug. 30 on the draft EIR. The long list of commenters included Southern California Edison; local, tribal, state, and federal government entities; local citizens; and nongovernmental advocacy groups.
In its submission, the utility rejected the tentative state regulatory finding that the upcoming decommissioning at SONGS will generate a “significant and unavoidable” potential for exposure to radiological material.
In the draft report, Lands Commission staff determined “there is an inherent risk of radiological exposure at any facility where hazardous radiological materials are present that can never be fully eliminated, [thus] impacts associated with potential radiological release are identified in this EIR as significant and unavoidable.”
“This conclusion inappropriately disregards the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s] extensive regulations pertaining to radiological safety and is contrary to the NRC’s findings in its own environmental review for decommissioning of nuclear power plants,” Robert Pontelle, senior attorney for the utility, wrote in a 13-page letter to State Lands Commission senior environmental scientist Cynthia Herzog.
In its generic environmental impact statement for decommissioning nuclear power plants, the NRC said radiation doses to cleanup workers and the public should fall below dose standards established in federal regulations, SCE said. The utility is in compliance with those regulations, as well as the requirements of its NRC license for SONGS, Pontelle stated. That being the case, the plant’s owners want the final environmental impact statement to declare that impacts related to decommissioning are “less than significant.”
Southern California Edison made a number of other requests in its letter, which came in at 130 pages in total, with attachments. These include: deleting references to “speculative potential impacts” from decommissioning-related activities anticipated around 2035, including transfer of the plant’s spent fuel and final site restoration for termination of the lease on the U.S. Navy-owned land; and emphasizing various benefits of decommissioning, topped by opening most of the property for unrestricted use.
Other groups urged the State Lands Commission to take steps to ensure protection of the environment and residents of the region.
In an Aug. 30 letter to Herzog, the Surfrider Foundation said the commission and Southern California Edison should look at keeping one spent fuel pool at the plant.
Contractor Holtec International has been transferring used fuel from Units 2 and 3 from wet to dry storage – a process suspended after a mishap in loading a canister on Aug. 3. An available spent fuel pool would serve as a backup storage space in the event that a fuel cask at SONGS is damaged, Surfrider said.
“The risk of damaged fuel or fuel casks is highly consequential with potential local, regional and global impacts, should radioactive or high level waste escape into the environment,” according to the letter from staff scientist Katie Day. “It would be incredibly irresponsible to proceed with the Proposed Project without a verifiable way to support repackaging of the spent fuel into new casks should SCE need to do so in the case of a damaged cask.”
The Capistrano Unified School District said the draft document failed to consider or address potential accidents involving transport of radioactive wastes by road or rail from SONGS near local schools. “Thus, the District requests that the Commission adopt a specific mitigation measure requiring SCE to develop a “School Emergency Plan,” defining the areas where a rail or truck accident could potentially expose a school’s occupants to radiological hazards from an accidental release,” district Trustee Patricia Holloway wrote.
Pemberton said Lands Commission staff is reviewing all comments submitted for the draft EIR, but it is too early to say how they might affect the final document.
“These responses and any changes to the Draft EIR will be included in the Final EIR,” she stated. “The Final EIR will be released publicly at least 15 days prior to a public meeting at which the State Lands Commissioners will consider the Final EIR and decide whether to certify it.”
New Head at SONGS Decommissioning Solutions
Meanwhile, AECOM and EnergySolutions said Wednesday they had selected a nuclear industry specialist to assume leadership of the decommissioning project.
Tom Dieter will succeed AECOM Senior Vice President Matt Marston as executive sponsor at SONGS Decommissioning Solutions.
Dieter’s over 32 years of work in management of commercial and federal nuclear projects covers decommissioning of government test reactors, three plutonium and uranium production plants, spent fuel pools, and a number of support sites, according to a press release. He has also worked at commercial atomic energy sites.
The companies did not provide additional information about the management change.
