30 Protesters Stage Rally Against Nuclear Power at San Onofre

“Two, four, six, eight, we don’t wanna radiate,” a small but enthusiastic group of demonstrators chanted Friday night during the first major protest at the San Onofre nuclear power plant since the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union last weekend.

There were more people huddled around campfires on San Onofre State Beach just north of the protest site than there were demonstrators, but organizer Marion Pack said she was pleased by the turnout of about 30 protesters.

“Considering this was organized in two days and we were not allowed by the main gate, this is great,” said Pack, director of the Orange County Alliance for Survival.

Earlier, she had estimated that more than 100 people would show up to protest nuclear power at the north San Diego County plant, near San Clemente, in the aftermath of the Soviet accident.

Demonstration Filmed

Demonstrators were peaceful, but San Diego County sheriff’s deputies, state beach security personnel and nuclear plant employees watched the group warily. Protesters continued their chants and held their signs high, undaunted by the hard-hatted plant employees who were filming the event from inside the reactor buildings.

At one point, the group released two large bags of helium-filled black balloons with messages reading: “If this balloon, released from San Onofre nuclear power plant, reached you, so will lethal radiation. Call now--Alliance for Survival.”

Demonstrators cheered as the balloons soared southward toward Camp Pendleton.

Former alliance co-director Tim Carpenter flew in from Utah, where he was working on the Great Peace March to Washington, to attend the demonstration.

“I was active since 1977 (the county alliance’s first year), when we held a rally for the first time in front of the San Onofre main gate,” he said.

‘Where Do You Move?’

“What do you do? Where do you move?” asked Maurine Lacher, a 25-year Dana Point resident who came out to protest with her husband Clyde.

Lacher said she would not feel any safer if she moved away from the plant, and fellow protester Rae Berger of Burbank agreed, saying, “Look at Poland--they’re 250 miles away (from Chernobyl), and they’re giving their kids iodine.”

Pack dismissed statements by U.S. scientists that an accident similar to the one at Chernobyl cannot happen in the United States. “That’s like saying the Titanic can’t possibly sink,” she said.

“Radiation knows no bounds,” Pack added. “It’s not going to be confined within these gates.”

San Onofre officials maintain that a similar disaster cannot happen, but they did say they hope the Chernobyl accident will raise public awareness of the California plant’s “excellent emergency plan” in the event of a mishap, according to Bud Jackley, manager of nuclear affairs and emergency planning.

“We’ve been providing information to cities and counties for four or five years, and very little attention was paid to it,” Jackley said. “Maybe now people will become more aware of it.”

Jackley said only one of San Onofre’s three reactors is producing power, with Unit 1 scheduled to resume operations in July and Unit 2 to go back on line in June.