Court Upholds NRC on Diablo Canyon Plant

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not have to hold a hearing on the danger from potential earthquakes before issuing a license to operate the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central California coast.

In a 5-4 opinion, the appeals court said the commission “has consistently and repeatedly interpreted its emergency planning regulation not to require consideration of the effects of earthquakes in emergency planning and this interpretation is neither plainly inconsistent with the regulatory language nor arbitrary and capricious.”

The majority said there is no merit to the claim by Mothers for Peace, a San Luis Obispo, Calif., group that has led a 10-year legal challenge to the plant, that the organization was illegally denied a hearing on the issue.

The $5.3-billion Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo lies less than three miles from an offshore fault.

The first of Diablo Canyon’s two reactors went into commercial operation last May 7.

Reaction to the ruling from Mothers for Peace was swift.

“Today the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington has ruled that earthquakes are not important to California,” spokeswoman Sandy Silver said in San Luis Obispo. “The commission doesn’t have to concern themselves with earthquakes. . . . But Diablo Canyon lies 2 1/2 miles from an active earthquake fault. People in this community are very concerned as to how they will get out” if there is an earthquake that affects the nuclear plant.

“The fact of the matter is we can’t escape,” she said.