Disputed Nuclear Unit Gets Tentative License

A controversial Westinghouse Electric Corp. facility in Beaumont designed to service such nuclear power facilities as the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon complexes was tentatively granted a state license to operate on Thursday.

A final license for the plant, located about 75 miles east of Los Angeles in the San Gorgonio Pass, is expected to be issued in 15 days, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services’ radiological health branch, the licensing unit.

The license, which had been held up for months by anti-nuclear activists, was required because the Beaumont plant will be repairing, refueling and modifying nuclear power plants. Some nuclear waste cleaned from service tools will be stored at the plant until it can be shipped to approved disposal sites.

Anti-nuclear activists, calling themselves the Desert Pass Action Group, had argued that Westinghouse was not candid in describing the toxicity of materials it would be handling in the plant when it applied for the site last year with the City of Beaumont.

The controversy also caught the attention of some lawmakers, including Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-Riverside) and Riverside County Supervisor Kay S. Ceniceros, both of whom represent the Beaumont area. They said the project should have been subjected to an environmental impact report. The Beaumont City Council voted against a report.

At a state license hearing last month in Beaumont, Sheldon C. Plotkin, a Los Angeles systems engineering consultant, complained that the Westinghouse complex was too close to the communities of Beaumont and Banning with a surrounding population of around 50,000.

Jack J. Bastin, the Westinghouse plant manager, and other company officials argued that the level of radioactive material at the 50,000-square-foot service center would pose no danger to the community.