Environmental Group Assails N-Plant Report

An environmentalist group that 15 years ago called for an intensive study of the San Onofre nuclear power plant’s effects on the ocean now says it is unhappy with the results of that study, which were released last week.

Don May, spokesman for the Los Angeles-based group Earth Island, called the report “too conservative.” May said the ecological disaster predicted by environmentalists in 1974 has in fact occurred, contrary to the study’s conclusions.

May also said Earth Island may seek a court order to force the power plant to add cooling towers, which would eliminate the use of seawater to cool the nuclear reactors.

Cost of Cooling Towers

The report does not recommend the use of cooling towers, primarily because it would cost $3 billion to build them. The report instead recommends construction of an artificial reef, restoration of wetlands and other measures to mitigate the damage by the nuclear plant to kelp beds and the fish population.

The study was conducted by three biologists who represented environmentalists, the California Coastal Commission and Southern California Edison, which owns the power plant. The review committee was established by the Coastal Commission following a series of contentious hearings during which a number of environmental groups opposed allowing Southern California Edison to add four new reactors alongside the existing one.

A construction permit was granted for two reactors in 1974, on the condition that an independent review panel study the plant’s effect on the marine environment and that the utility agree to mitigate any negative impacts that were discovered.

Need for Towers Stressed

“The permit said they have to prevent all the adverse impacts,” May said in an interview Thursday. “Our lawyers have said the only legal way to continue the operation of the plant is to go to cooling towers.”

Rimmon C. Fay, who was appointed to the review committee to represent the environmentalists, has claimed that 90% of the environmental damage could be prevented by putting in cooling towers. The other two scientists on the panel, however, disagreed and overruled Fay’s opinion in the final report.

The Coastal Commission will meet Tuesday to discuss the report and set public hearings on which mitigation measures will be enacted, if any. The hearings are tentatively scheduled to take place Nov. 14-17 in Marina del Rey. The Coastal Commission is expected to make a final decision on mitigation in December or January.

“The commission will certainly hear Mr. May’s comments,” said Susan Hansch, manager of the energy and ocean resources unit of the Coastal Commission. “If the commission believes he’s correct, they could order the cooling towers put in . . . but it would have to be based on the evidence.”

Hansch said she was not surprised to learn of May’s comments, because he and his group, which was originally called Friends of the Earth, had opposed the nuclear power plant from the start. “Certainly it’s their right to sue,” Hansch said, “but we get potential lawsuits on every single case we look at, so for us it’s nothing unusual.”

“Our job here is to do the best we can to resolve the issues, short of going to court.”

David Barron, spokesman for Southern California Edison, declined comment on May’s threat of a lawsuit, saying it was “a bit premature to discuss.”

‘We’re Going to Court’

May said the group was raising money for a legal challenge long before the report was released. “One way or another, we’re going to court,” he said.

“We think the study is way too conservative,” May said. “Every one of our predictions has turned out to be worse than we expected.” May said that a virtual ocean-floor desert has been created by the plant, and he said 99% of the plankton offshore is being killed--a contention that was supported by Fay but disputed by the other two scientists.

Byron J. Mechalas, Southern California Edison’s scientist on the review panel, noted that Fay had disagreed with many of his fellow biologists’ conclusions. The differing opinions, he added, “have very little to do with science, I’m afraid.”

The third panelist, William W. Murdoch, a UC Santa Barbara professor of biological sciences, was out of the country and unavailable for comment.

Fay was the committee’s lone proponent of adding massive, cement cooling towers, similar to the ones at the Rancho Seco and Three Mile Island nuclear power plants. Since the majority of negative impacts were caused by the plant sucking in seawater to cool the reactors, then discharging that water back into the ocean, Fay reasoned that reducing the amount of water needed would virtually eliminate the problems.

New Set of Problems?

But, according to the final report, cooling towers would create a whole new set of technical and environmental problems. One design that might be suited to the San Onofre plant has never been attempted at a plant of that size, according to the report. Furthermore, dry cooling towers would decrease the plant’s energy output by about 20%.

“Any decrease in efficiency would likely increase emissions in the Los Angeles Basin because fossil fuel power plants in the basin would need to operate more to make up the lost power,” the report states.

“You’re talking about making more pollution in the basin,” said Mechalas. “So you would be trading kelp for human health, and we didn’t think that’s a reasonable solution.”

Another alternative, wet cooling towers, would still require seawater for cooling. Though a smaller volume of water would be used, the water discharged back into the ocean would have higher concentrations of toxic chemicals, according to the report.

The matter of who would pay for the $3-billion addition would probably end up being debated before the state Public Utilities Commission, Mechalas noted. “If they feel it’s integral to the operation of the plant, then the ratepayers would pay,” he said.