Moving forward with Decommissioning San Onofre

“ROSEMEAD, Calif. June 7, 2013 Southern California Edison (SCE) has decided to permanently retire Units 2 and 3 of its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).”

 It was a great day for many individuals and groups who had come together to work for the greater good and safety of their communities.  From LA to SD and points in between, and in fact across the nation.  At times it was more than interesting to watch so many different individual opinions and ideas and methods coalesce to work together.  The Angeles chapter Sierra Club, Peace Resource Center of SD, San Onofre Safety, Decommission San Onofre, San Clemente Green and ROSE, these working groups & individuals became known as the “Coalition to Decommison San Onofre”.  It was like the universe itself had appointed this time and place for these people and groups to come together and develop a vortex of energy for the purpose of speaking truth to power about the extreme dangers sitting on the California coastline at San Onofre known as San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Please believe me when I say it was not any one individual or one single group that did this alone. It was in fact everyone who informed themselves on the issues, worked, organized, prayed, donated time and money and showed up to speak at meetings all around Southern California. I am sure these coalition members and individuals are committed to staying strong and working for the continued good of the community.   It seemed this time and place was appointed by something beyond ourselves.

While I was hoping to take some time off to see the grandkids, finish some art pieces, and maybe take care of my health, California Edison called saying we would like someone from the anti-nuclear perspective to sit on their new Community Engagement Panel (CEP) for the decommissioning of SONGS, and would I as founder of ROSE do it? I had hoped as we all did that others from our highly energized coalition would be represented on the new CEP.  At first I reluctantly said yes. But after thinking about it I can only hope that the universe has made a new appointment for us to help develop a new vortex of energy with the new CEP for the safe, sane and economical decommissioning of units 2 and 3 and the safest storage and removal in time of the extremely dangerous toxic nuclear waste sitting near our homes, and finally to restore the land to the pristine conditions for the future generations of Californians to come.

Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) Response and Pledge to SCE’s statement of core principles and values for the decommissioning of San Onofre.

ROSE is pleased to see the SCE “Statement of core principles and values for the decommissioning of San Onofre” and is happy to sit on the Community Engagement Panel (CEP) with other community members. ROSE pledges to Southern California residents & SCE to help Southern California Edison keep these principles and core values alive every step along the way during this process. ROSE pledges to help SCE become a model for the nuclear industry in safe and sane decommissioning of our nation’s dangerous and aging nuclear fleet. ROSE pledges to stand for cleaning the SONGS site of radiation to the best degree possible in the most economical way for the ratepayers. ROSE pledges to stand for worker safety in all areas of decommissioning of San Onofre. ROSE pledges to help SCE understand and use best practices in the process even if we have to rethink them. ROSE pledges to stand for the removal of all radioactive materials from the site as soon as it is possible and restore this site to its natural condition.

It is clear that DOE and NRC studies pertaining to the storage of San Onofre’s High Burnup fuel have not been completed at this point in time, and the best practice for dealing with this extremely high radioactive fuel and the timeframe for doing so is unclear and has no consensus in the community and scientists working on this problem.

I hope other members of the newly appointed CEP will join me in this Pledge to the future of all Californians and the many generations to come.

Important San Onofre Nuke Waste Information For 2012

“These reactors produce 50 years of electricity and half a million years of waste. It’s not a particularly good deal.” Danial Hirsch

On Oct. 11, 2011 a forum on the issue of San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) running past it's decommission date of 2013 was held here in San Clemente. Our town is closest to SONGS, which is operated by Southern California Edison. The final speaker was Danial Hirsch of CommitteeToBridgeTheGap.org, a professor at UCLA.

He makes it very clear that "What happend at Fukushima, can happen here in San Clemente." We were just lucky that it did not happen in 2011.

Here is to a lucky 2012

Lessons Learned Fukushima USA

Into Eternity

How NOT to Learn the Lessons From Fukushima.
As a San Clemente City Manager or Council Member:

1) Exclude the public from voicing their serious safety concerns about SONWGS despite the fact that it was the public that demanded this meeting in the first place.

2) Discourage informed two-sided discussion at all cost.

3) Establish early on that the priority of the pubic meeting is the duration of the meeting and that exposing the gaping holes in our public safety is secondary.

4) Talk down to the public with the authority vesting in you by the very public that is now asking for your help.

5) Assume that the public, fearing for their safety, are alarmist, and that the experts have all the answers.

6) Repeat the exact mistakes made by public officials in Japan and align yourself with the interests of nuclear industry to the detriment of the public safety that you are mandated to protect.

7) Tell the PUBLIC that allowing them to voice their safety concerns at a PUBLIC meeting, that the PUBLIC has requested for 2 years, is not only impossible due to the City Council’s PUBLIC meeting protocols but also because it would simply take too much time.

Lessons Learned From Fukushima by the NRC and Power Plant Owners:

1) Suppress the HORRIFIC facts and do it with a sense of unassailable authority. It calms the pubic really well.

2) Offer the public TECHNICAL answers to MORAL questions regarding the immense public safety risks of nuclear power.  It confuses the public really well.

3) Lie to the public and if they don’t buy it, lie again and again until it becomes your truth.  It feels really good.

4) When you don’t have the answers to the public's serious safety questions, pretend that you do by baffling the pubic with your technical B.S.  It will make you feel really powerful.

5) Tell the public, when your nuclear reactor cores are in full meltdown, that “We have the situation under control”  Misinformation is your best friend.

6) As catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout peg the dial on your radiation detectors, simply shift the decimal point over several spaces on the detectors and again reassure the pubic that you "have everything under control."  This lesson worked really well inJapan to calm the public and prevent panic.

7) Intimidate the hell out of your employees so that they fear telling the truth about safety issue found at the plant.  It helps set up the pre-conditions for #8 below.

8) Frame all discussion about nuclear plant safety in such a way that all public meetings have a Hollywood style "happy ending".  America loves good fiction with a happy ending.

9) Focus on minutiae like “We practiced how to turn the valves properly” and downplay the REAL ISSUES like, “There is nothing we can do to protect you and your family if this thing blows and you will need to figure out how to protect yourselves from the onslaught of deadly radiation.”  It reinforces #1 above really well.

10) Don’t tell the public that a single nuclear accident doesn’t stop killing for hundreds of generations, or that a single fuel flea smaller than the size of the period at the end of this sentence is a death sentence to you or your children if you accidentally inhale it.  Opps, does this apply to everyone?

11) And definitely do not tell the U.S. public that they have been swimming in, and inhaling, Fukushima fuel fleas since April 2011.  That would be contradictory to item #1 above and does not lead to the happy ending in #8 above.


Into Eternity

Torgen Johnson
www.sanonofre.com

Nuclear Waste is Forever

Spent fuel rods. Sounds pretty harmless. Sounds spent, as in used up, depleted, empty. But what I learned at the SONGS Open House on Tuesday August 15 at the San Clemente Community Center was that "spent" fuel rods are anything but harmless.

Fuel rods prior to the nuclear fission process are filled with uranium pellets. These rods are mildly radioactive and holding a rod for a short period of time will only result in a very low exposure. After the rods have been "spent" they become highly toxic and highly radioactive upon their removal from the reactor.

Let's illustrate how toxic. According to David Brower if you were to ride a motorcycle by a "spent" fuel rod at 90 miles per hour you would receive a lethal dose of radiation and be dead within three days.

And we have lots of spent fuel.

• San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station accumulates this waste at the rate of 500 pounds per day. 
• The waste has never been removed from the site and there are no plans to do so. 
• This waste will be toxic to human beings and all organic life forms for approximately 300,000 years give or take a 1,000 years.

Is that clean?

Is that safe?

Because that means this waste also has to be kept safe for 300,000.

Safe from contaminating the environment.

Safe from human error.

Safe from terrorists.

Safe from natural disasters.

Safe from aging facilities.

Safe through changes in government.

What is the true cost in carbon and cash for keeping this spent fuel safe?