By John Stang
Residents near the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California made clear last week they want to keep the property largely undeveloped, with a sprinkling of trails, after the property is cleaned up.
The Diablo Canyon Community Engagement Panel listened on Aug. 29 in San Luis Obispo to 26 members of the public discuss their hopes for the 18.75-square-mile site after utility Pacific Gas & Electricity closes its two reactors on the coastline in 2024 and 2025. Overall, Diablo Canyon has 14 miles of coastline in San Luis Obispo County that includes two coastal trails. None of the land is contaminated beyond the actual reactor footprints.
Twenty-five people at the meeting said they wanted no major development beyond horse, bike, and hiking trails on the land whenever PG&E relinquishes control of the property — either gradually or in major chunks. The utility has not yet settled on a plan to relinquish control of the land. The engagement panel’s input will be considered in PG&E’s consideration of the issue.
“Few areas on the coast have the degree of wilderness that this area has,” Nick Franco, parks director for San Luis Obispo County, told the panel.
“PG&E finds itself the owner of some of the most wonderful and intact habitat in California,” added Randy Knight, a retired California Polytechnic Institute physics professor.
PG&E wants to be responsive to the needs of the community, said Jon Franke, the company’s vice president for safety and health: “Nothing we’ve heard tonight is contrary to the wishes of the company.”
The company wants decommissioning to start immediately when the reactors shut down, and to avoid the SAFSTOR route under which final remediation can be delayed for up to 60 years.
“The Diablo Canyon decommissioning team is creating a site-specific plan for decommissioning, a detailed cost estimate, and a schedule in preparation for the next Nuclear Decommissioning Cost Triennial Proceeding (NDCTP), which will be filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in December 2018. The resulting plan will include the cost estimate for demolishing everything on site down to 3 feet below grade and long term spent fuel management, security and final site remediation,” PG&E spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn said by email.
PG&E plans to hold off on any action on the Diablo Canyon land before completing still-to-be scheduled future public stakeholder meetings, and a review by the California Coastal Commission. The community panel is meeting monthly to provide local input on the decommissioning plan.
Used fuel at Diablo Canyon is presently split between wet and dry storage. PG&E expects to eventually store 4,382 nuclear fuel assemblies in 138 casks on an almost 5-acre dry storage site, Hosn said. The material would likely remain there at least until there is some form of centralized interim storage or permanent disposal for U.S. spent nuclear reactor fuel, which could be years if not decades away.
San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill called for a speedy start to preserve the Diablo Canyon site for conservation purposes with trails. Specific conservation goals and plans have not been tackled yet.
At least a dozen people wanted top priority given to preserving the Wild Cherry Canyon portion of the site — a pristine hilly area in the inland portion of the Diablo Canyon land. Developers twice have unsuccessfully proposed huge housing projects for Wild Cherry Canyon.
The sole person who during the hearing said she wanted significant development — a woman whose name was indecipherable in the webcast — wanted the site to hold 250 to 500 tiny houses for veterans, along with three mental health centers for teens.
Community Engagement Panel members Alex Karlin and Scott Lathrop said the public must be aware that any organizations or agencies that want to buy a significant portion of the land will likely have to pay PG&E millions of dollars. Karlin said: “We all need to think about how this is financed, and who will pay for that. … This is worth tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars.”
