Beyond Nuclear - Radioactive Waste What's New

PSR LA (Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles) has issued an excellent press release, blasting the settlement agreement reached between the NIMBY group Citizens' Oversight, and nuclear utility Southern California Edison (SCE). The settlement agreement seeks to export San Onofre's 1,800 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from the seaside nuclear power plant site, to either somewhere along the rail route to Yucca Mountain, Nevada; and/or to Waste Control Specialists in Texas; and/or to Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance in New Mexico; and/or to Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona (part-owned by SCE).

(See Citizens' Oversight's press release announcing its settlement agreement with SCE; see a summary of the settlement agreement.)

Re: that first idea, to move San Onofre's wastes to somewhere along the rail route to Yucca Mountain, a May 31, 2017 article by Chris Clarke, published by KCET and Link TV, exposed Citizens' Oversight's egregiously flawed 2015 proposal to ship San Onofre's wastes to Fishel, CA, in an article entitled "Environmental Activists Suggest Dumping Radioactive Waste in National Monument."

The actual environmental consensus nation-wide is Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS), as close to the point of generation as possible. In keeping with that, moving the wastes a few miles further inland, to higher ground, into HOSS, deeper into the heart of Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, is the least-worst option, as PSR points out in its press release. Not only would this get the wastes out of the tsunami zone, and further away from coastal earthquake fault lines, but it would have the added bonus of security provided by a very large number of U.S. Marines.

Update on August 31, 2017 by

admin

Here is some of the media coverage about the Citizens' Oversight/SCE settlement agreement (thanks to the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's News" website for the compilation):

Business Wire - Settlement Announced in Suit Challenging Nuclear Fuel Storage at San Onofre - Southern California Edison
Fox 5 San Diego - Agreement will move nuclear waste out of San Onofre - Abbey Gibb and City News Service
Orange County Register - New deal could push nuke fuel out of San Onofre - Teri Sforza
KCBX San Luis Obispo, CA - Carbajal hosts Diablo Canyon decommissioning town hall - Greta Mart
NBC Sandiego - San Onofre Nuclear Waste to Be Moved to an Off-Site Storage Facility
San Clemente Times - Breaking: Citizen's Oversight Projects, Coastal Commission Reach Settlement Agreement in SONGS Lawsuit - Eric Heinz
San Diego Reader - Agreement to move nuclear waste from San Onofre--But potential for "mobile Chernobyl" may forestall Edison from acting - Don Bauder
Arizona Republic - APS says it won't take California utility's nuclear waste - Ryan Randazzo

KUSI San Diego - Public Watchdogs call agreement reached for storage of nuclear waste a 'sham' - Steve Bosh
Los Angeles Times - Court settlement looks to move nuclear waste from San Onofre - Rob Nikolewski

As the KUSI San Diego article above reports, the group named Public Watchdogs in s. CA has pointed out that the settlement agreement nevertheless allows SCE to begin the storage of irradiated nuclear fuel in dry casks on the Pacific shore, as it planned to do in the first place. That storage could go on for decades. From the article, Public Watchdogs also seems to be taking the position, get it out of here, we don't care where it goes. Public Watchdogs' problem with the settlement agreement seems to be, it doesn't accomplish that quickly enough (as in, right away).