San Onofre Nuclear Plant Faces $25,000 Security Fine

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Wednesday that it intends to fine the Southern California Edison Co. $25,000 for an alleged security violation at the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

The NRC alleges that the company did not take the required safety steps when a San Onofre plant employee reported seeing an unauthorized person in a restricted area of the plant. The NRC requires that the plant put a site “safeguard contingency plan” into effect immediately after such a report.

“They had a report of an intruder in a vital area--the most secure area of the plant,” said NRC spokesman Greg Cook. “They should have implemented the safeguard plan first and asked questions later.”

But the company said it saw no safety threat at the time of the incident and didn’t put the plan into effect. Instead, it just investigated the report and found it was groundless, company spokesman David Barron said.

“The NRC concluded that we should have assumed that such a threat existed,” Barron said. “Our response is basically that a false report had been made. We believe there was no break of security or a hazard.”

Barron said the power company did not want to discuss the safeguard plan because it would mean divulging details about security.

NRC inspectors discovered the alleged violation during an audit in April, May and June, Cook said.

Although the penalty for the violation is normally $50,000, Cook said the fine was cut in half because of Edison’s good record in safeguard enforcement. Edison was fined for a violation of security requirements in 1982, said Cook, and the company eventually paid $60,000.

Earlier this year, the NRC blamed the company for inadequate maintenance that caused five valves to fail at Unit 1 of the nuclear power plant. The valves failed and, combined with a 4-minute power outage, led to a crack in a 10-inch pipe on Nov. 21, 1985, threatening the stability of the reactor’s safety-related water coolant system.

There were no injuries during the incident, but a report released in January by the NRC said the company’s procedure to test the valves “was not rigorous.” It also concluded that some Edison managers investigating the November incident “lacked a sufficiently inquiring attitude.”

Edison has a month to protest the violation or pay the fine announced by the NRC on Wednesday. If the company decides to protest, it could request a public hearing on the matter.

The plant opened in 1968, and is owned by Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and the cities of Anaheim and Riverside.