County joins coalition to move nuclear waste from San Onofre

Group will lobby federal government to find a site and get canisters out.

BY ROB NIKOLEWSKI AUG. 19, 2021 San Diego Union Tribune

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has joined a coalition headed by Southern California Edison, the operator of the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, to lobby for federal government action to find an avenue to remove 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste from the plant.

The board Tuesday voted 5-0 to allocate as much as $100,000 to participate in Action For Spent Fuel Solutions Now, an initiative that calls for moving the waste — also known as spent fuel — to a federally licensed facility as quickly as possible.

The resolution, sponsored by county supervisors Jim Desmond and Terra Lawson-Remer, sees San Diego County join Orange County, Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, the Capistrano School District and the city of San Clemente in the coalition.

Edison’s parent company owns 75.74 percent of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations, known as SONGS for short. SDG&E owns 20 percent of the plant, which is in the second year of a projected eight-year dismantlement plan. Orange County’s board of supervisors joined the coalition in May.

“It’s critical to our community, our state and our county to find a solution,” said Desmond, who also sits on the SONGS Community Engagement Panel, a group organized by Edison that gives the public quarterly updates on decommissioning work and other activities at the plant.

“The waste at San Onofre is a threat to our community and as we work to remove it, our priority is to guarantee the integrity of onsite storage and the safety of our residents as we work night and day to get it off our beaches,” said Lawson-Remer. “So I think this is a great opportunity to join hands with others across our region who face a similar set of challenges.”

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