Local Officials to Gather for Screening of Award-Winning Documentary on SONGS
By C. JAYDEN SMITH, San Clemente Times
Published Oct 12, 2023 | 1:00 pm
Congressman Mike Levin and San Clemente Mayor Chris Duncan will be in attendance at the San Clemente Community Center on Saturday, Oct. 14, for the screening of a documentary that highlights local concerns about the decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Organized by San Clemente Green, event attendees will be able to watch SOS–The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, which documents the work of Southern California activists in shutting down SONGS over a 12-year period. It also aims to show how the station’s surrounding San Clemente community is similar to those near the other 54 nuclear reactor sites across the United States, which fear how the remaining spent nuclear fuel–if left where it is now–could seriously threaten their futures.
At the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, which occurred from Oct. 3- 9, SOS won the Grand Jury Award for documentary feature films, the highest award a documentary can achieve. James Heddle, one of the film’s directors, told San Clemente Times that winning the award could help spread the word about SOS around the country and galvanize “informed public activity” in the 54 other affected communities and beyond.
“The grand jury consisted of film industry people, and it is in Hollywood, the center of consciousness,” Heddle said. “It’s not just winning a prize in Podunk. It’s intelligent, professional people that have looked at it and decided that it’s worth public attention.” Levin will participate in a press conference that precedes the film’s showing, and Duncan will provide the welcoming address.
Along with Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan, who also served as producer, and Morgan Peterson co-directed the film, adding to a long list of educational films involving Brangan and Heddle’s Ecological Options Network. Brangan and Heddle spoke with SC Times in advance of the event on Saturday, with Brangan saying she wanted to ensure people near SONGS were aware of the reality of the situation regarding removing SONGS’ spent fuel and transporting it to a new Saturday’s showing of SOS–The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy documents concerns over water seeping into the SONGS facility. “We’re not going to get the true story from the utility or from the government,” she said. “You’ve got to be really willing to look deeper into what’s really what. (We wanted to provide) information for an informed discussion, and an informed discussion from a moral and ethical point of view.”
The co-directors explained the issues with how SONGS was originally constructed and utilized, the current tenuous position of the facility, and the potential dangers of trying to move spent fuel elsewhere, which the team learned about through extensive research. Chiefly, Brangan and Heddle are concerned about the canisters holding the spent fuel and the fuel rods inside those canisters. Brangan explained that the canisters are five-eighths of an inch thick, drastically thinner than the thick metal casts used in other countries and that all of the partially below-ground containers were easily gouged when they were first lowered into the nuclear silos because of the thinness. With how fast materials can rust in close proximity to the ocean, they fear that oxygen could eventually get into the corroded canisters and cause spontaneous combustion.
Disasters could occur through other means, as well. The 15-foot fuel rods, or fuel pellets wrapped in zirconium, could eventually break and send the pellets to the bottom of the container, causing a “meltdown” if they touch. Heddle contended that the zirconium, which becomes brittle even if marginally impure, could be in worse condition after years of exposure to radiation to the pellets. “The older the rods are, the more likely they are to be fragile,” he said, then speaking to what could happen during transport. “(When) moving them, they might shatter just like crystals or glass.”
With the facility so close to an ocean that has a significantly increased size of waves that pose a large threat of sending water into the containers, Brangan said there’s a lot to worry about. “You’ve got all that going on, and it’s so close, and the bluffs are collapsing south of it and north of it …” she said. “We’re afraid that with a big storm here, you have storm surge combined with the King Tides, or an earthquake, (dangerous things could happen).” They also voiced concerns over a consolidated interim storage facility being placed somewhere where the voice of the local population–whether it be Hispanic Americans or Native Americans–isn’t heard, despite the ongoing consent-based siting process.
“It’s basically taking the waste over rickety transportation systems and dumping it on defenseless people who don’t have the political strength or the economic (resources) to be able to fight it,” said Heddle. The team’s desired solution for SONGS would involve moving the fuel to higher ground away from the ocean, as long as proper containment measures are in place. Saturday’s screening will be preceded by the press conference at 2:30 p.m., with the showing from 3:30-5 p.m. and a Q&A session afterward. The event is free to attend, although guests can provide donations in return for popcorn and drinks.
The San Clemente Community Center is located at 100 N. Calle Seville