What’s up with the #SCECEP

In my opinion, I’m very concerned about the way the SCE/CEP was set up and the direction the leadership of SCE/CEP is now taking us. Instead of taking the neutral position and uncovering and observing the evidence as presented they consistently and obviously put a positive spin on it. Everything is fine and SCE is doing the best job possible.

1. We must ask ourselves does this repeated positive spin serve the public interest? In my opinion No.
2. Is this Community Engagement Panel doing the best job possible to protect the safety of our communities and California? In my opinion we are not.
3. Can or will the SCE/CEP make the changes necessary in its charter to become an effective and strong safety advocate for the decommissioning and safe storage of nuclear waste at San Onofre that the people of California deserve until such time as the DOE takes possession of this long-term problem? In my opinion that is still up in the air.

To this point SCE’s attempt to be inclusive and transparent clearly has it’s limits. While asking me and others to bring up the safety concerns of the local citizens, SCE and the SCE/CEP leadership has then glossed over them, seeing these concerns only to be checked off their list one by one. Example; Tim Brown told the CA Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee on Aug 12, 2014 that local concerns have be heard and addressed. Implying some sort of conclusion or satisfaction by all with SCE’s predestined decommissioning plan. Link for Senate hearing http://youtu.be/_q6YulhHpcU?t=1h2m9s starting time for Tim Brown 1:02:10 to 1:17:45. Nothing of course could be further from the truth for many in our local communities. SCE, Inclusiveness is not just a tool to be used on the “Yellow Brick Road to decommissioning”, we are not in the Land of Oz after all. We are however in the backyards of over 8.4 million Californians.   SCE and its CEP leadership now have a consistent record of spinning information to fit the SCE agenda. For example, regarding “defense in depth”, the chairman, after being concerned at first at the lack of defense in depth for dry cask long-term storage, concluded after his ‘”careful research”, that citizen activists had not asked about ” defense in depth” for waste storage before and that the nuclear industry and the NRC has done a poor job in defining  and getting the word out about “defense in depth” for nuclear waste and dry cask storage. Citing “defense in depth” as cladding on fuel rods, ceramics on the fuel pellets , even the 5/8″ thickness of the canister itself and concrete overpack of the casks as if these were “defense in depth” that were unspoken of in the past. And he was right they were not spoken of in the past as “defense in depth” because they were not considered nor should we consider them today as “defense in depth”. While these have some small measure of defense, they are not in anyway sufficient or adequate for long-term storage of nuclear waste within a heavily populated area like Southern California, and everyone in this nuclear industry knows the calculated risk they are betting on with California’s future.

David Victor’s report Safety of Long-term storage in casks: Issues For San Onofre Dec 9, 2014 does have some items we do agree on:  “It  is  likely  that  spent  fuel  will  be  stored  in  dry  casks  at  the  San  Onofre  nuclear   site  for  very  long  periods  of  time—most  likely  well  beyond  the  20-­‐year  period  for   initial  licensing  of  the  casks.” page 2 of report. “Some  elements  of  what  will  be  needed  for  “defense  in  depth”  are  not  yet  fully   in  existence—for  example,  actual  equipment  that  would  allow  removal  of  fuel  from   a  cask  without  an  onsite  pool  has  been  designed  and  a  prototype  was  demonstrated   in  the  1990s,  but  no  such  full  scale  commercial  system  currently  exists.  Similarly,   full-­‐blown  procedures  for  repairing  all  forms  of  cask  cracking  are  not  yet  fully   certified” page 4 of report. Other than these items there is not much here other than “pro nuclear industry spin.” Read full report at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/13DurWxC8l3l_VCNEGXz5bg0V4FJteepR7LVuUjPz4Xk/edit?usp=sharing

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