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.

Once at the basin, the reactor will be driven onto an oceangoing barge for the voyage down the coast of South America, where it will round Cape Horn and proceed to an undisclosed marine terminal in Charleston, S.C. From there, the load will go by rail and multi-wheeled transporter to Barnwell.

The utility has agreed to move the reactor down the Southern California coastline before the breeding seasons of the least tern and Western snowy plover in the spring. A state biologist will supervise to ensure environmental regulations are followed.

Edison officials had hoped to ship the reactor to Barnwell last spring, but problems developed for each stage of the proposed journey.

The Panama Canal Authority denied the utility permission to go through the canal due to the weight of the shipment. In February, the Port of Charleston denied entry because of terrorism concerns and because the receiving terminal wasn’t licensed to accept hazardous materials.

Other obstacles arose as well, including disputes with the California Department of Transportation and railroad officials and opposition from environmentalists.

“When we started on the project in June 1999,” Golden said, “we knew it would be challenging to remove the large components.

“But we put them in, and we have the expertise to take them out.”

Though the Panama Canal continued to raise objections, Golden said the security concerns in Charleston have been resolved. And negotiations have largely been successful with federal and state agencies, including the California Coastal Commission, Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol, state Department of Fish and Game, state Department of Parks and Recreation, the Marine Corps and the NRC.

In addition, Edison, with the cooperation of the U.S. Department of State, has notified countries along the route that the shipment would be going through international waters off their shores.

The vessel has been sealed and grouted in place inside a steel canister with plates that are 2 to 5 inches thick. Voids between the canister and reactor core have been filled with concrete. The entire unit has been welded to a steel cradle for transport.

The combined weight of the reactor vessel, canister, cradle and transporter is 950 tons. The reactor and its enclosure weigh 668 tons.