Editor,
Southern California Edison negotiations will be going on for the next three months or so. During that time, the watchdog group San Clemente Green will be seeking advice from independent nuclear experts for alternative locations and holding more meetings to raise awareness and get public input.
As things stand now, deadly nuclear waste could be moved from cooling pools into dry casks buried in silos that are practically on the beach starting January 2018 and stay for 60 years! There are issues about moving nuclear waste to another “safe” location; the infrastructure and its costs, responsibility for these decisions, and the decision to store spent fuel rods in 5/8″ metal casks, far less than those that withstood Fukushima’s tsunami. Those were more than 12″ thick.
Our unpleasant but necessary job: speak up during City Council’s public comment period and ask Council for regular updates on their action and participation.
There is a very serious problem going on at “San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station,” but all we hear from SCE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the same old story. They always say “everything is safe, very little if any radioactivity was released.”
This is the most serious and threatening issue of our time. Most don’t even know about it or are think somehow it will go away. It won’t. One accident as a result of an attack, natural disaster or from leakage in below grade, unmonitored storage casks and the slow malevolent seepage into sand, air and sea can destroy all we know and the future heirs of this planet.
Right now we should imagine signs along San Onofre beaches such as Trestles warning surfers, families, swimmers to stay away. Then think of your life, property and “escape routes? Also ask about emergency management plans and how would we fare under such unforeseen events. Not likely we could find refuge more than those thyroid pills dispensed to San Clemente’s residents some years back.
Perhaps that will stick in minds who think this is just a simple fix. We are speaking of thousands of years and way beyond SCE’s five-mile radius affected by contamination. It’s more like hundreds of miles with wind drift and tides and millions of lives at risk.
We can do something: get educated, speak out, become active, write and join organizations and action groups and work for your protection.
Leah Vasquez, Laguna Beach
Leah,
I think your fears are over stated. If San Onofre was on line and had a terrible accident there could be a radioactive release beyond the site boundary. The fuel has been dormant for over five years. It does not have the activity it had when it was recently used. The canisters are 5/8″ thick and encased in 12″ thick concrete and rebar containers. The dry cask at Fukushima were not affected by the 45′ tsunami they had. The tsunamis projected in southern California are generated by slip fault earth movement and have less wave generation predicted. The Holtec dry cask design is encased in tons of concrete and rebar. The NRC has stated the canisters will be safe for 60 years and longer. Yes we do need a permanent storage site. Until that site is available, the spent fuel does not pose a risk to the public in the dry cask storage planned for San Onofre.
aloha george …
mahalo for offering your insight but to say that our fears are overstated makes me believe that you are either working for SCE and/or related organizations or that you are unaware of the reality the west coast of california and all global reaching effects a disaster like this can have due to our negligence if WE THE PEOPLE allow SONGS to temporarily or otherwise bury the radioactive waste onsite …
as stated in CITIZENS OVERSIGHT: http://docketpublic.energy.ca.gov/PublicDocuments/15-IEPR-12/TN204384_20150427T080521_Citizens%27_Oversight_Comment_to_April_272015_IEPR_Lead_Commissio.pdf
16. Thicker canisters are better. The 5/8” wall canisters used in the Areva NUHOMS and Holtec HI-STORM UMAX systems were originally designed for storage at operating plants with the expectation that the fuel stored in them would be taken by the DOE to a permanent repository within a few decades. Compare this with the CASTOR design21 by the German company GNS22 which uses ductile cast-iron material with walls almost 20” thick, nearly 32 times thicker than the thin canister designs by Areva and Holtec. This essentially eliminates any chance that a through-wall crack will develop due to corrosion and can provide a much more robust defense against many risk factors during transportation and handling. They include a removable dual lid system with integrated pressure sensor to detect any leaks around the seals used in the bolted lids. These canisters absorb neutron radiation with polyester inserts in the walls and do not need a concrete structure around them. In Germany, they typically house these in a hardened building. These thicker canisters are not licensed for use in the U.S. at this time.
17.Dual-Purpose Canisters. Spent Fuel Canisters today must be “dual-purpose,” which can allow both storage and transportation without removing the fuel assemblies from those canisters. Thin-walled canisters such as the Areva or Holtec systems use a transportation overpack23 which the manufacturers claim is designed to endure design-basis accidents without radioactivity releases24. (Not all canisters are dual purpose. The canisters and underground Holtec system used at the Humbolt Bay Power Plant may be too large to transport, although some references state the opposite.25) The thick-walled CASTOR design does not use an overpack per-se, but crushable ends are added for transportation, and are themselves transportable.
europe has a higher standard of dealing with nuclear waste and the US is slow to catch up in terms of storage and transportion (partly due to their scientific thinking, partly due to their socialized medicine (so a cancer sick society becomes costly) and partly due to the nature of the size of their nations (hardly the same same as the US).
what is already happening here in ORANGE COUNTY is an increase in cancer, leukemia, childhood deaths and thyroid imbalances in both men and women … oncologists are aware of these issues. as US corporations and the agencies supporting their self regulatory systems are failing the people in our country, it is imperative to research these issues carefully before telling others what to think/feel and IAM deeply worried about the health of our people, US MILITARY, who some 70,000 are already exposed and facing health challenges due to serving at the time when they were called to help FUKISHIMA, as IAM expecting that not if but WHEN a disaster happens at SANO due to governmental / corporate negligence, i do not think that you will be called into action for clean up. our US MILITARY, firemen and other experts will be risking their lives and the contamination of our coastline will make our lovely laguna beach living a total nightmare (forget about our health, property values and businesses).
the seismic activity shown us last year in the NEW ZEALAND earthquakes showed seismologists that they really knew very little about their discipline. with continued earth changes ahead as part of our natural polar shift and with continual bombardment of SOLAR FLARES which interacts with our gasses below our tectonic plates AS WELL AS fracking in this country to include BALWIN HILLS CA (LOS ANGELES) … our seismic activity is more vulnerable than we ever could have imagined previously not including the already danger of seismic activity onset due to the active bombing at camp pendleton which is just feet from SONGS.
blessings in LIGHT.
#noNUKESatSANO
http://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/250405/the-san-onofre-nuclear-waste-threat-explained