Editor,
Last October in a letter to the Indy, “Without Oversight for Spent Fuel,” I explained the just revealed SCE plans to leave 1,632 tons of deadly spent fuel at San Onofre until the federal government came to take it away. In that year of meetings, policies have not improved; they have gotten worse. This Aug. 26, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) passed its government policy agreeing with SCE there is no problem with leaving the deadly fuel in canisters certified for 20 years on the bluff at San Onofre for the next 60 to 100 years even though their own studies suggest the canisters may have dangerous saltwater corrosion cracks within 30 years and there is currently no technology to transfer the spent fuel from a damaged cask.
The citizens of California at no time agreed to have a nuclear waste dump on the ocean at San Onofre. The state of California has never licensed the San Onofre site as a nuclear waste dump. The federal government must be made to keep its promise to the people of California that was made when the reactors were created to take the deadly fuel away. Our city, our state and our federal representatives in California must seek legislation to force the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to work together to create a secure location for San Onofre’s spent nuclear fuel away from environmental hazards and secure against terrorists.
2019 is the SCE proposed date to have the spent fuel in transportable storage casks. It is too dangerous to leave here. It must be moved to a military base as interim storage until a final deposit site is ready for it.
The next Community Engagement Panel (CEP) meeting held by SCE will be Thursday, Oct. 9, from 6-9 p.m. at San Juan Capistrano Community Center at 25925 Camino del Avion.
Only public outcry will change SCE’s 20-year “cut and run” decommissioning plan that will spend the ratepayers $4 billion decommissioning trust fund restoring a pristine site while leaving the dangerous fuel on a cement slab abandoned on the bluff for the elements or terrorists to destroy from Carlsbad to Laguna Beach for the next 10,000 years or more.
Marni Magda, Laguna Beach
This little article is a poor attempt at fear-mongering. First off, this is not a dump site, this is a fuel storage site. And why do you think it cannot be made safe?
To call used nuclear fuel “deadly” is silly. Of course, it is deadly if you went and dumped it on the beach, or fed it to people. So is gasoline, and you don’t see people up in arms about gasoline fuel tanks all over the place under gas stations. Even the leaky ones tend not to raise the public ire.
I encourage you to think about this rationally. Don’t freak out, everyone!