Tell agencies to keep San Onofre shut down

When you hear the words “San Onofre” what is your first thought? You could start with simple facts: The first unit of this nuclear power plant north of San Diego began operation 45 years ago, and two more units were added 30 years ago. At full capacity it provided electricity for 1.4 million households.

Unit 1 was closed permanently in 1992. Unit 2 shut down in early January 2012 for repair and refueling. Unit 3 shut down at the end of the same month when pipes in its steam generator were found to be leaking small amounts of radioactive water and an investigation revealed widespread premature and unexpected wear throughout the piping system.

A month ago, Southern California Edison applied for fast-track approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a restart at 70% power. Two weeks ago, Commission staff issued a preliminary finding that restart could be done with minimal hazard or risk. The public has until May 16 to contact commissioners and share their views on restart.

What's happening now at San Onofre

San Onofre has received a subsidy of about $55 million a month, paid to Edison since February 2012 to keep the plant in a holding pattern. This subsidy shifts the cost burden of design failures from the utility and its shareholders to regional ratepayers and has continued for 15 months, yet the Commission’s own rules limit payments for a non-operating plant to 9 months.

Together with other civic and environmental groups, the Sierra Club has testified at hearings held by both Commissions. Activists have called for an end to the subsidy and have urged against fast-track approval of a restart at this plant with its troubled history of ongoing technology and operational failures.

The Club also has posted letters on its website to both Commissions, co-signed by me as Sierra Club chair on San Onofre and by George Watland as conservation coordinator of the Angeles Chapter.

Who cares? You do. On a single day in April, some 2,000 concerned citizens joined George and me in forwarding our message in their own words to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For the Angeles Chapter, this was a record response.

And if you need more reasons why San Onofre should remain closed, here are a dozen. Share them with your neighbors and friends.  

To return to the first question, when I hear the words “San Onofre” one of my first thoughts is of the people who have filled hearing rooms to testify before regulators on the future of the plant. I think of hundreds of members of the Atomic Workers Union, all wearing identical orange jerseys, who pack the hearings for fear of losing their jobs.

I think of the hundreds of local citizens who pack the hearings for fear of facing an environmental calamity. I think of dozens of small businesspeople who attend because they depend on reliable and affordable electric power and aren’t sure where it will come from.

I think of a handful of staff engineers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who attend to report on their latest assessment of San Onofre because that’s their professional duty. I think of a handful of utility company managers who attend because they fear massive public resistance to restart means the huge sunk cost of the plant might never be recovered.

A strategy of respect and perseverance

When my turn comes to testify, usually toward the end of a three-hour hearing, what should I say? Should I give some weight to each constituency in the room, or speak only for the interests I am authorized to represent? The Sierra Club is seen as an effective voice on this issue yet we have sought to speak in the spirit of these great and famous words from Hillel:

If I do not speak for myself, who will?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?

In that spirit, we have done a few things differently from the norm.

Perhaps most notably, Sierra Club has taken careful notes at each hearing and posted verbatim quotes from people on the other side of the issue. In testifying, we often have begun by acknowledging the presence of other groups and points of view. In website postings, the Club has consistently avoided demonizing our opponents or engaging in apocalyptic speculations about unknowable worst-case outcomes of nuclear power plant operations.

Most crucial from a practical standpoint, the two regulatory commissions have been treated with respect. After all, they have the power and authority to which all parties must make their appeal. Nothing is more foolish than to condemn a government authority and then plead with it for a favorable decision. Yet, advocacy groups do this very thing all the time.

San Onofre is an aging and troubled plant and there are host of economic, technical and environmental reasons why shutting it down seems to us the wisest course. Certainly, a restart demands nothing less than full public hearings with sworn testimony and independent expert witnesses.

Yet the Club acknowledges the complexity of the larger energy equation. Nuclear power worldwide seems to slowly be on its way out and we should bid it farewell more in sorrow than in anger because this form of energy generates no greenhouse gases.

There are also some startling statistics. When Three Mile Island went down it was front-page news for days. Finally, workers got inside to measure radioactivity in the reactor core. It was 1% of what they expected, which appeared in a story was on page 18 of the paper. Here’s another startling statistic: Almost 70 years after a nuclear attack, the Japan national health agency recently reported that cancer rates in Hiroshima are 1% higher than the national average.

Does this mean it’s OK to be nuked? Of course not; 100,000 people died instantly in that horrific flash. But the Japan health agency is probably correct in reporting recently that there is little heightened cancer risk for people living near the Fukashima disaster.

On the other side of the equation, the nuclear waste storage challenge has never been met. Even the best sites would have to be safe for thousands of years – something no one can answer for. And it is unsettling that after six decades of experience, there is still no standard nuclear power technology that is widely accepted as reliable to the point of being failure-safe. Further, these plants have proven so hugely costly that conservative publications like Forbes Magazine and The Economist of London see the age of nuclear power drawing to a close for financial reasons.

What it means to be effective stewards

At the end of the day, what have I learned from San Onofre as an experience in spiritual citizenship? First, active witness. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “Each of us must be a participant in the great matters of our time, at the peril of being judged not to have lived.”

Next, empathy, the willingness to understand views passionately expressed by others whose interests differ from ours. It has been said that where you stand depends on where you sit – in a union hall, in a power plant operating room, or at a conference table of nuclear engineers.

Finally, patience is needed to master crucial facts that bring us as close as possible to the truth. The devil is in the details – especially at a time when technology is central to the most complex issues.

Activisits must not abandon the arena of debate to the experts yet they must work to gain a grasp of essential facts. Too they must also develop a sense of what is unknowable so they can stand their ground when claims are made. This will allow the Club to sound the alarm when persons of presumed expertise are seeking to advance their cause by unsupportable assertions or use of obscure terminology to divert attention from core issues.

Even as their arguments are dismissed, let us affirm the humanity of voices that range from decent professionals to quirky apologists. We might have worn their shoes, we might have walked their path – yet we are grateful we did not, for this would have imposed limitations on our ability to speak in a most crucial capacity – as stewards of Earth.

Glenn Pascall is chair of the Sierra Club's San Onofre Task Force. Photo: An aerial view of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Credit: Jelson25 / Wikipedia Commons