Nuclear plant renewal process under revision
Thursday, October 22, 2009
By BRITTANY LEVINE
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
When federal agents review environmental issues involved in the license renewal of nuclear plants, the guidelines they currently use are unorganized, confusing and missing some ecological concerns, so the government has drafted new ones, nuclear regulatory officials said at a public meeting Thursday night.
The meeting, held in Dana Point, was one of about a half-dozen the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has held across the country to hear what people have to say before any changes are set in stone.
“Our goal is to make the process better and more understandable,” said Jeffrey Rikhoff, manager of the commission’s changes.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear power plant south of San Clemente, will be affected by the changed document, officially known as the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, the next time it applies for a license renewal. Plants can operate for 40 years before they must apply for a license renewal. The renewal allows the plant’s operations to continue for 20 more years. San Onofre, which is operated by Southern California Edison, is scheduled to apply for renewal in 2022.
But Gil Alexander, an Edison spokesman, said San Onofre has already started looking into environmental issues and other plant operations in order to decide whether it is feasible to apply for a license renewal. When plant officials look into these issues, they would have to consider changes made to the commission’s guidelines.
“We can’t wait until 2022. We have to look at it now. It produces enough power that would take 10 years to replace it,” Alexander said.
Some issues specifically addressed in the proposed guidelines:
• Effects of dredging on water quality
• Exposure of terrestrial organisms to contaminants called radionuclides
• Radionuclides released to groundwater
• Effects of chemicals on human health
The guidelines are separated into two categories. One group concerns site-specific environmental issues and another includes effects considered common to all plants.
The proposed guidelines are also organized more clearly, Rikhoff said. The original document, written in 1996, didn’t organize each chapter by issue. For example, the revised document puts all the environmental issues related to aesthetics in one section and water in another. That way, people can thumb through it and find the issue they are most concerned about without having to go on a treasure hunt, Rikhoff said.
The changes, which would make up the basis for plant regulation, label 78 environmental issues. The original has 92. But Rikhoff said the drop-off is not because any environmental issues have been erased but because they have been consolidated into broader categories.
About 40 people attended the meeting. Most concerns did not center on the proposed changes but rather on the effects of nuclear power plants.
Some opponents of the revised changes said they do not do enough to specify seismic regulations. Geology and soil is a category under environmental issues, but seismic has not been identified as a specific issue, said Rikhoff, noting the commission is looking into specifying that concern.
David Weisman, outreach coordinator of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, an advocacy group, said his group wants to see seismic regulations looked at more closely.
“Seismic issues are not a generic issue. (They) are not the same in California as in other states,” he said.
The commission would deny license renewal if it thought a plant was not being managed correctly or if it proposed modifications but plant officials did not carry them out. The commission doesn’t give the final stamp of approval to plants. Even if the commission renews a license, the state makes the final decision on whether to allow a plant to continue to operate.
The commission plans to have the new environmental-impact statement drafted by 2011.
Contact the writer: blevine@ocregister.com or 949-429-5483
