Annual High Tide Spurs Concerns About Future Safety of San Onofre Nuclear Waste Stock
By BRANDON PHO November 23, 2020 — Voice of Orange County
San Onofre seawall is vulnerable to “king tides.”
They’re called king tides:
Ocean waves that grow especially tall a few times during the year, rumbling against the California coast and offering a glimpse into future sea level rise and a reshaping shoreline, according to state coastal regulators.
Those tides rolled up to San Onofre last weekend, where a sea wall stands to protect what nearby communities fear is a man-made disaster in waiting: the decommissioned but still radioactive San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
The following week, local officials and activists convened a set of dueling community forums that well capture the ongoing dispute over what exact risk the nuclear waste sitting at SONGS poses to all life within the area joining Orange and San Diego counties.
The debate centers on the integrity of SONGS’ nuclear waste storage system, which has been criticized as prone to failure and an ecological and human health hazard.
Meanwhile SONGS’ operator company, Southern California Edison, says the risk of radiation poisoning is low for surrounding communities and the storage system’s integrity is backed by science.
One Nov. 19 forum hosted by nuclear watchdogs saw some of their fears echoed back to them by Dr. Ian Fairlie, a radiation biologist in London who once headed the Secretariat of the UK Government’s CERRIE committee on internal radiation risks.
Later that same day, Edison’s own, regularly-held Community Engagement Panel meeting sought to again dispel public qualms about the nuclear waste.
Specifically, it dismissed fears that sea level rise could swamp the facility, which sits right on the coastline. Members of the public laid out those concerns at an Aug. 20 panel meeting, and the comments can be read here.
There are a few things keeping the ocean from the site’s nuclear storage, for now. A seawall stands in front of SONGS and a pad of cement shields the nuclear storage from a table of groundwater below. The table is anticipated to rise as sea levels do.
Ron Pontes, an Edison’s manager of environmental strategy, said during the meeting the sea wall is in good condition and the cement below the nuclear storage canisters is 3 feet thick.
“There’s a lot of concern that eventually, water level does get close to the bottom of the pad, but even if the bottom was submerged in groundwater, we don’t see that as a concern because the fuel canisters are located on top of the 3-foot pad … the concrete is sufficiently thick,” he said.