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Public Safety

Nuclear Safety Groups Petition NRC

By Alison St John / Reporter
Published January 17, 2013 at 2:48 AM PST
This story was published more than 11 years ago.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station at San Onofre State Beach on March 15, 2012 south of San Clemente, California.
David McNew
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station at San Onofre State Beach on March 15, 2012 south of San Clemente, California.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in Maryland heard testimony on a petition alleging the power company skirted regulations when it replaced San Onofre’s steam generators in 2010. The new steam generator tubes in one reactor unit leaked small amounts of radiation last January, resulting in the plant being shut down. It has not reopened.

Nuclear Safety Groups Petition NRC
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a petition from groups who say Southern California Edison failed to get proper approval before replacing San Onofre’s steam generators. The faulty generators led to the shut down of the nuclear plant a year ago.

The petitioner, Friends of the Earth, presented a 39-page power point. Arnie Gundersen said the incident last January was “a near miss.” He said there is evidence the plant operator, Southern California Edison, decided even before it gave the contract for the new steam generators to Mitsubishi, that it did not want to trigger a license amendment.

He argued that Edison should have known before it installed the new equipment that the design was significantly different from the old design, not a “like for like” design, and the company should have notified the NRC of the differences.

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FOE’s attorney, Richard Ayers, said NRC should take appropriate enforcement action to deter others in the industry from making similar mistakes in the future.

The plant’s operator, Southern California Edison, offered no testimony other than to ask if Friends of the Earth has any more evidence since it filed the petition last year. Ayers said evidence is being withheld by the company.

In a question and answer session at the end of the hearing, Daniel Hirsch of the nuclear safety group, Committee to Bridge the Gap, told the NRC the hearings are Kafkaesque, because Edison won’t release some very pertinent documents.

“You are placing the burden on Friends of the Earth to tell you what’s wrong with a document you will not permit them so see,” he said. “So I’m asking you for the rationale behind a public agency keeping those documents secret from the public, and then demanding that the public critique something they do not have access to.”

Doug Broaddus of the NRC said it has no authority to make the documents relating to the development of the new steam generators public.

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“It’s something that the licensee has control over,” Broaddus said. “It’s not something that is submitted to us, so it’s not something that we could make available. “

The NRC review board will consider the petition within a few weeks.

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Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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