Edison Closer to Disposal of San Onofre Nuclear Reactor
Southern California Edison has resolved nearly all of the obstacles to ship a decommissioned nuclear reactor to South Carolina and hopes to begin the move in a matter of weeks.
If successful, the move would end more than a year of debate over how to dispose of the 668-ton piece of radioactive waste.
Until now, transporting Unit 1 from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in northern San Diego County has been problematic. The reactor is too heavy to move through the Panama Canal, too big to ship very far by rail, and until recently had been too much of a security risk to enter the Port of Charleston, a necessary step to reach its final resting place in South Carolina.
But under a revised itinerary worked out since February, Edison will no longer have to rely on the Panama Canal or heavily on railroads to reach the Barnwell Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility, one of only two sites of its kind in the country.
"We have been working with a significant number of agencies, and we are just about there," said Ray Golden, an Edison spokesman.
"There may be one more government agency that we are waiting on right now."
High-level nuclear waste has been removed from the reactor vessel, which was decommissioned in 1992 after 25 years of operation. Encased in a coffin of steel filled with concrete, it emits virtually no detectable radiation and poses no health threat, say Edison and federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials.
"The licensee is going to great lengths to ensure that public health and safety will be safeguarded during the journey," said Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman.
Concerned about anti-nuclear protests, Edison has made no public announcement about the plan and confirmed it only after approached by The Times. Golden declined to discuss a departure date but said the shipment probably would take place within weeks.
Because of environmental concerns and the hurricane season, he said, the 90-day voyage must be finished by March.
The spent reactor will be moved on a 192-wheel transporter at low speed from San Onofre to a boat basin on the south side of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. The 17-mile trip will take three to five days on a route that will include a portion of Old Highway 101, a quarter mile of Interstate 5, and eight miles of beach where tough plastic mats will be used to create a temporary road.
