Director’s statement

After the triple meltdown at Fukushima, James and Mary Beth, having worked on nuclear issues for decades, both as activists and filmmakers, realized we needed to do whatever we could to prevent the same catastrophe from happening on the West Coast. Here in California, we had two nuclear power plants with four reactors perched on the edge of the Pacific, surrounded by earthquake faults and tsunami zones, just like in Fukushima. 

That began a ten-year trek up and down the coast from the San Francisco Bay area to southern California, documenting with our cameras the dramatic revelations, industry maneuvers, and brave community actions attempting to deal with the horrific legacy of producing electricity from splitting uranium atoms. 

We teamed up with filmmaker Morgan Peterson and began the work of whittling down our hundreds of hours of footage into a compelling narrative. We believe that film is one of the most powerful tools in reaching citizens who are unaware of the dangerous decisions being made that leave our communities vulnerable to a nuclear disaster. In telling the story of San Onofre, we hope our documentary SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy helps rally folks here in California and across the U.S. to get informed and organize to mitigate the enormous threat posed by this deadly waste-lasting millions of years to both local public safety and to national security.