Laguna group wants San Onofre nuclear fuel rods moved faster

A group of Laguna Beach residents wants the federal government to fast-track a plan to remove used fuel rods from the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

The current plan would clean up the last remaining fuel about 35 years from now. Residents say the federal timetable leaves Laguna at risk for decades.

Representatives from Let Laguna Vote asked the City Council on Dec. 2 to support its effort and circulated a letter they plan to send to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“I don’t think we in Laguna get the gravity of what is going on,” the group’s chairwoman, Rita Conn, told the council. “[Southern California] Edison is approaching the NRC for an exemption to tear everything else out and leave nuclear waste stored, which means it would be stored with just a chain link fence, let alone that it is built in earthquake zone.”

The letter suggests moving the spent fuel to a U.S. Navy weapons station, such as China Lake.

The group is concerned that Edison, which owns 80% of the plant, is spending money on site restoration instead of developing a plan to move the spent radioactive fuel.

Edison spokeswoman Maureen Brown said the utility is doing everything it can to ensure that fuel is safely stored both on the site and during future transport, but she argued that it is at the mercy of the federal government, which decides when and where to move the nuclear waste.

“We have no control of when the Department of Energy does its job,” she said. “They were supposed to remove the fuel in 1998.”

The DOE did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

The earliest the DOE would begin removing spent fuel is 2024, with targeted completion by 2049, according to Edison’s website.

Edison closed the facility last year after a degraded generator leaked radioactive coolant in January 2012 and another showed signs of serious wear.

The situation in San Onofre is not unique. The DOE has not identified a permanent site to store radioactive fuel from nuclear power plants following President Obama’s 2010 decision to scrap plans for a disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Edison sued the DOE for failure to provide a plan to transfer nuclear waste to a final resting location and received $112 million, the bulk of which has been refunded to customers, according to an Edison website dedicated to decommissioning.

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How nuclear fuel is stored

Ceramic pellets made of uranium oxide compose the nuclear fuel found at San Onofre, according to Edison. Pellets are placed in metal fuel rods, which are grouped in bundles called assemblies.

The assemblies are stored either in pools of water inside reinforced concrete several feet thick with steel liners or in sealed stainless steel canisters housed in about 15 tons of concrete known as dry casks, according to the NRC.

The groups of rods are typically stored in pools for five to seven years so they can cool before they are moved to dry casks.

Dry casks are designed to withstand immense pressure.

“If you flew an airplane into [a dry cask], think of it as a bowling ball knocking over pins,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. “If they fall over, you’re not going to get a large-scale release of radiation.”

The NRC licenses and regulates fuel stored in pools and casks.

As of October, one-third of San Onofre’s nuclear fuel — contained in 800 assemblies — was in dry casks. Edison plans to transfer all used nuclear fuel into dry casks by 2019.

Fuel can be stored safely in either pools or casks for at least 60 years after a reactor shuts down without significant environmental effects, the NRC website says.

Laguna resident Marni Magda said that’s too long.

Magda is concerned about the effects from an earthquake, tsunami or terrorist attack at San Onofre, which sits on the Pacific Ocean along the 5 Freeway about 20 miles south of Laguna.

She referenced the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that damaged the reactor cooling and back-up power systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan.

“We are in a ring of fire, an earthquake zone,” Magda told the council. “We don’t know what it could do. Everyone said Fukushima was safe, but look what happened. We can’t afford the risk of a wrong model.”

Edison complies with all regulations for storing used fuel and has adequate security measures in place, Brown said.

Let Laguna Vote, which was also active in the Village Entrance Project debate, started a petition drive on its website to collect signatures advocating for a secure interim location for the spent fuel.

“We may escape with our lives, but we will never be able to return to our property” if a disaster strikes, according to a Let Laguna Vote brochure.

The Laguna Beach City Council will discuss the matter at its meeting Dec. 18. .