U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) continues to press the Department of Energy to find a new home for about 1,800 tons of high-level nuclear waste that has accumulated in his district at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
Issa submitted a letter to DOE on Friday, ahead of the department’s Sunday deadline for accepting public comments on its consent-based siting initiative for nuclear waste storage, which is the Obama administration’s alternative to the canceled project for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. A major component to the plan is development of consolidated interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel; two sites, in West Texas and New Mexico, are in the works.
“Judicious examination of where to construct an interim nuclear waste repository site and of proposals on how to collect, transport, and securely store the radioactive waste is necessary and needed now,” Issa wrote. “The country has been waiting nearly three decades since Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was designated as the sole location for permanent repository.”
About 74,000 metric tons of spent fuel has accumulated at roughly 100 American nuclear sites as a result of DOE’s failure to take title to the waste, as laid out in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The congressman called on DOE in April to address nuclear waste at SONGS, which is located in San Diego County and is surrounded by a region with more 8 million people. Issa has also cited the plant’s proximity to an active fault line and the Pacific Ocean in pressing for the waste to be relocated. SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison plans to move the remainder of its spent reactor fuel from two cooling ponds into an expanded independent spent fuel storage installation. The site contains about 50 canisters that are already in place, but nearing capacity.
“Unfortunate incidents, such as in 2011 at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, when radioactive waste spilled into the Pacific Ocean, serve as reminders of potential destruction if the department does not act,” Issa wrote.
